Can You Help Me Price Cedar Logs?


Elroy Skimms

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So I found someone selling cedar logs. He says the logs are about 1,000bf total, and the most narrow logs are ~6" wide. Milling will cost me about $300, plus I need to find a place to sticker and stack the goods. I'm hoping to make and sell a bunch of Adirondack chairs. Any suggestions for a good price for the logs, considering I will have to make a 4-hour round trip drive for them?

Cedar Logs.jpg

The Adirondack chairs will not be sealed, so I would assume I don't need to let it dry out too much. These are outdoor chairs in humid & rainy North Carolina. Is this a fair assumption or am I way off base here?

I can also sell off some of the lumber too, there seems to be good demand for it locally.

-E

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17 minutes ago, drzaius said:

No experience with logs here, but it looks like most of those logs will yield almost no usable milled lumber.

So you are saying size really does matter?

 

1 minute ago, RichardA said:

They appear to be what are around here call mulch cedar.... They get ground and bagged for mulch.  To small to be of much lumber value!   You'd be better served locating a miller that has cedar lumber.

That's what I was afraid of. I did find a local guy with a wood-mizer who has some cut cedar available. I'll check it out this weekend.

Thanks for the help!

-E

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I'm with drzaius, those are skinny logs, with a lot of checks and defects. Cedar isn't an expensive wood, so I'm nor sure I'd be willing to put up with the effort needed to manage all this. A quick google search shows sellers in NC asking $2-$3 per board foot for tight-knot S4S WRC. If you really want it, offer him $300 ($.30 / bdft), worst he can say is no.

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2 minutes ago, BonPacific said:

I'm with drzaius, those are skinny logs, with a lot of checks and defects. Cedar isn't an expensive wood, so I'm nor sure I'd be willing to put up with the effort needed to manage all this. A quick google search shows sellers in NC asking $2-$3 per board foot for tight-knot S4S WRC. If you really want it, offer him $300 ($.30 / bdft), worst he can say is no.

I can get rough 4/4 cedar for $1.87 from Wurth, if I order 250+ bf at a time. This guy did say he would take $300 for the lot as his starting price, so that's not a problem. Plus a 2 hour drive each direction, and $300+ for milling. If the narrow logs don't yield much at all, I'm at more than $1/bf after everything. The yield on those narrow logs would make or break this, and I lack the experience to make that call from a couple of photos.

-E

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I live in the charlotte metro area.  I've come across these two lumber dealers in my research I have yet to visit either one but have heard good things about them. 

http://www.sawmillnc.com which is located in Iron Station, NC (Near Lincolnton, NC) and 

 

http://www.walllumber.com/ which is located in Mayodan, NC (North of Greensboro)

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3 minutes ago, MattSC said:

I live in the charlotte metro area.  I've come across these two lumber dealers in my research I have yet to visit either one but have heard good things about them. 

http://www.sawmillnc.com which is located in Iron Station, NC (Near Lincolnton, NC) and 

 

http://www.walllumber.com/ which is located in Mayodan, NC (North of Greensboro)

Matt - Thanks for those, I had never heard of either of them. I'm also in the Charlotte metro area. I've looked into Queen City Lumber and a few other smaller shops. Wurth has performed really well for me, my only complaint right now is they don't keep cedar in stock. I don't mind paying a few pennies more per foot if it means I don't have to buy 250bf at a time!

-E

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15 minutes ago, AceHoleInOne said:

Elroy, one question, how did that load stay in the back of the truck and not all over the road? :unsure: 

Built a few of those chairs myself and used clear western red cedar. Love making those chairs, as I'm sure you will!!!

-Ace- 

It's actually not as bad as it looks, the camera angle makes it look really bad. It was only mostly bad. He was supposed to cut 8' boards which I can fully support with the gate down. At the last minute he said he had a few 12' boards available, and I figured I could counterbalance those with some 8' boards. When I got there, he only had 12', and some of his 12' were actually 13' 6". His generosity made the trip home a little tricky :) I still had 70% of the material firmly supported in the truck bed, and the tie down at the front end held it down in case it wanted to tip.

-E

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