Selling Green Lumber

[dirk martin]

My brotherinlaw is going to be getting a Woodmizer LT30, and taking about 70 mature red and white oak out of his woods.
He'd like to sell the green lumber.

Anyone now if there's a market for green lumber, and if so, where I can find the typical prices being paid?
Location is north-central WI

[Mark Bolton]

Around here green oak is about 450/MBF. White oak tends to be bushy. Figuring 240BF per tree average.. 70 trees $7500 rough guess. Your area may vary wildly on price.

[Danny Hamsley]

There is a wholesale market for green hardwood lumber, but a guy with a Woodmizer LT30 cutting a one-time limited supply of lumber will not be able to break into that market and attract any buyers. You could sell it green to local woodworkers, but it would have to be cheap as most woodworkers do not have the means to take green oak lumber and dry it in a quality way successfully. Green oak lumber is just not worth very much. Especially the lower grades.

[eugene thomas]

It's not to hard to find kilns that dry wood in northern wi. But ya would have to sell cheap to make worth buyers time.

[John K Jordan]

My brotherinlaw is going to be getting a Woodmizer LT30, and taking about 70 mature red and white oak out of his woods.
He'd like to sell the green lumber. Anyone now if there's a market for green lumber, and if so, where I can find the typical prices being paid?
Location is north-central WI

I have a Woodmizer behind my barn. It's great for personal use but I would hate to have to try to make money from it. For me it's better to think of it as a hobby.

If you need lumber yourself you can sometimes cut trees for others on "shares" - that can get you boards of species you do not have access to. One typical deal is "you haul the logs, you help saw, we split the wood."

BTW, a few years ago I bought random width green red oak here in TN at 30 cents a board foot and used it for siding on farm buildings. I don't know what it's going for now.

One relative here looked at some of our mature trees and suggested selling them for veneer could be profitable. I never checked into it since I'd rather have the trees. Your brother-in-law might inquire about that if he has large, very high quality trees.

JKJ

[Dave Lehnert]

There is a forum here on SMC for Sawmills.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/forumdis...nd-Kiln-Drying

[dirk martin]

Where's the best place to find buyers for large amounts of green lumber?
I spoke with a Woodmizer salesman at a local show, and he said my local woodmizer dealer could give me a mile long list of green lumber buyers.
Think he was telling the truth?

[John K Jordan]

Where's the best place to find buyers for large amounts of green lumber?
I spoke with a Woodmizer salesman at a local show, and he said my local woodmizer dealer could give me a mile long list of green lumber buyers.
Think he was telling the truth?

You can advertise on Woodfinder.

I have no doubt you can sell green lumber. The question I have is will it be worth the effort? Sawing is great fun but the whole process is a huge amount of work: felling trees, skidding, loading, hauling, unloading, mounting, and sawing logs, offloading, stacking, stickering (if air drying), and perhaps delivering and unloading lumber, and of course cleaning up the branches, slabs and sawdust. And dealing with the people. Things are easier if the mill is portable and your buyer comes into your woods with muscle and truck and you don't have to have a lumberyard to maintain inventory until it's sold.

There may be some investment too unless you already have the stuff. I use my tractor for skidding, my bobcat for heavy lifting and clearing/cutting access where needed, big trailers for hauling, forks for moving things around, and a few thousand dollars for miscellaneous things like safety equipment, chains and skidding tongs, cant hooks, extra chainsaws, bandsaw blades, and more. Unless the plan is to sell "under the table" don't forget business licenses, taxes, and of course, insurance. Payroll for helpers? Repairs? Collection agencies? Advertising costs? Losses, thefts, lawsuits? If the goal is to make a profit, can you saw and sell enough at high enough prices? Can you even sell enough to break even?

The sawmills around here that seem to be making money are pretty big operations. The small guys seem to do it more for fun.

I'm not trying to discourage but I think it's important to know the business before you start a business. There are several active logging and sawing forums on the internet that might be good to study.

I researched all this before I bought my sawmill. I decided I didn't want another full time job. But it is a wonderful and very rewarding hobby for me. It's almost magic to watch what is revealed inside the log.

BTW, a great little book to read is The Good Woodcutters Guide.

JKJ

[dirk martin]

We'll have the local forestry dept. mark the trees to be taken out.
We'll have a professional logger do the felling, and stack all logs on a landing.
We have the needed tractors and front end loaders to move logs if needed.

We've got the help for tailing, and stacking, and running the saw.
I'm just wondering where one finds large buyers of green lumber....I'm not looking for hobbiest's that are after 100bf here and there....
At this point, I'm not interested in stickering, and kiln drying the lumber.
I'd prefer to just keep sawing, and sell the lumber green, for quicker cash turnaround.

[John K Jordan]

We'll have...
I'm just wondering where one finds large buyers of green lumber.

You've explained your situation better now. It sounds like you have everything but the market lined up.

This resource is widely used by both companies and individuals to locate wood products, including green lumber:
http://www.woodfinder.com/

Or perhaps hire a broker. Good luck.

[Mark Bolton]

At that point, it would be easy to quantify the viability as soon as you find some pricing per MBF on truck load quantities of dead stacked green material. I'd think your best bet would be to contact a broker or find your nearest large scale drying operation and contact them directly. The killer is 70 trees isnt really a lot in the wholesale market and I would fear that wholesale buyers will hit you hard fearing quality of sawing and grading issues. Most of the buyers we purchase large quantities of KD material from shy away from small sawing operations fearing they will saw anything they can get on the mill into boards and result in mixed packs with decent wood and boards from heavily crook'd, or twisted, trees, not sawing the tension out of the material, and so on. They have well-established relationships with sawyers and mills who feed them but it's surely worth a shot.

John's response and experience above is much the same as my own. When you factor in 3-4 guys, machine and mill time, loading and hauling, and now talking about paying a logger to cut and skid, its hard to imagine there will be much left over but who knows. It'll definitely be fun though.

[John K Jordan]

At that point, it would be easy to quantify the viability as soon as you find some pricing per MBF...

The WoodFinder site I mentioned before (no personal connection) may be a good place to check prices on green lumber. Click on "Green" and search and it will give list by state. Even if a supplier does not list green he may give green prices over the phone.

I looked at just one entry, and that because I'm familiar with this guy and his operation and I've bought from him in the past. He has some large buildings full of drying and dry lumber and the lat time I was there huge piles of logs waiting to be sawn. His sawmill was incredible. This guy is in TN which may be different from other areas. Most of his inventory is dry; green would be cheaper.

OUR CURRENT INVENTORY:
Ash 4/4 & 8/4, air dried $1.00/BF, kiln dried $1.50.
Eastern Red Cedar Under 10-in. wide, $.80/BF, 10 in. and wider, $1.00/BF select @ $2.00/BF.
Cherry mill run, air dried $1.50/BF; kiln dried $2.00/BF.
Eastern Yellow Pine $.50/BF; 12" and wider $1.00/BF.
Poplar air dried $.50/BF, kiln dried $1.00; 12" and wider air dried $1.00, kiln dried $1.50/BF.
Red Oak 4/4 and 8/4, #2, $.50/BF; #1, $.90/BF; quartersawn, $1.50/BF.
All #1 White Oak same as Red Oak.
Eastern Sugar Maple 4/4, air dried $1.00/BF;
Black Walnut air dried $2.00, KD $2.50.
Pawlonia Wild-grown 4/4, $4.00/BF.
SASAFRAS GREEN 4/4 $3.50 KD $4.00 BF.

Looking at this makes me want to go buy some Ash before all of it is gone. I don't have any Ash trees on my property. I am surprised the price of Sassafras is that much higher than cherry or walnut. I recently dropped a large standing dead sassafras, about 18" at the base, great wood but not always easy to find.

JKJ

[AL Ursich]

Great Thread...

[dirk martin]

Great Thread...

Couldn't agree more.
So glad I started it.
Lots of great info here.
Thanks gang.

[dirk martin]

These guys on Woodfinder sell green lumber, right? They don't buy it....right?