It appears that we will have to move this summer. Not far, but still a major task.
Our landlord thinks commercial rents have gone up 120%+ in the last five years. We disagree. We can go to the parking lot adjacent to where we are now (access from Farlin, not Brown), but it has no building. So we need to build a structure and move the log and lumber inventory and solar kiln during our busiest season for log hauling. Oh what joy.
There are numerous details to work out, and it is probable we could use your help. Watch this space for detailed notices, but we will probably be willing to trade lumber for labor. Certainly when it comes to pulling wood from the bins and the dismantling and reassembly of the bins themselves. That part will probably occur in July, assuming we tackle big hurdles like erecting a new structure etc. It seems silly to move out of one shabby shed, go 300' away and move into a freshly erected shabby shed, but that is what it looks like is going to happen.
If you have city construction expertise or know people that erect metal buildings, please respond here or shoot me an email. We are gathering information and are all ears right now.
The good news is that, in a way, we get to start from scratch knowing what we now know. So hopefully things will be better than ever once we settle in.
Stay tuned. This will likely be a major blog focus for the next 6 months.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
some new wood in
Joe picked up two trailer loads of freshly cut lumber from our guy in Illinois this week. Poplar is not very photogenic, but persimmon looks better fresh cut than it does dry. So here is a shot of some persimmon:
The true color is the dry patch in the upper left. The black bits will all be checks and of course when dry it might look more like a pretzel.
We set aside a birch log last spring to spalt. Our track record on purposely spalting wood is not perfect, but this baby came out just fine thanks. I managed to sneak a picture before more got stacked on top of it:
The true color is the dry patch in the upper left. The black bits will all be checks and of course when dry it might look more like a pretzel.
We set aside a birch log last spring to spalt. Our track record on purposely spalting wood is not perfect, but this baby came out just fine thanks. I managed to sneak a picture before more got stacked on top of it:
The spalting goes the full length and we will have a number of these in 4/4 and 8/4 when dry. Joe even scavenged a few offcuts that the sawyer would normally not bother keeping for us:
It will be late fall or next year before this stuff is dry and in the bins for sale. But it is okay to start dreaming now.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
more new photos
Check out our gallery for new pictures. Note that I do not make any comments about the work since it would sound too much like an overly proud parent; it is amazing to see what you make from our wood.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Weather and the typical day
I wanted this blog to give you a better feel for what this urban logging thing actually is like on a day to day basis, yet I have clearly dragged my feet on writing up any particulars. The problem is partly because I figure words without pictures bore most people and taking pictures of a typical day for Joe (he is the one out there every day picking up logs) is a problem for me since I have a day job too. Partly because I must be lazy.
So rather than never providing the inside story, here is a glimpse without pictures. Joe is usually at work before my dog wakes me for his morning walk. He may trim a few logs from yesterday's loads and scan them for metal and pile them in one of three sawmill piles. He loves starting his day with the soothing sound of a chain saw. Different strokes and all. In the busier months, his calendar for pickups can go out 2 or 3 days. Tree services, municipalities, cemeteries, golf courses, and others call him when they remove trees and need the logs removed. Tree services that specialize in removals have learned fairly quickly that not needing to cut a stout log into chunks and hauling those chunks to the dump and paying to grow a landfill is a valuable time and money saving step. We haul for free. Even a home owner with one fat walnut log soon learns that free removal is cheaper than trying to get that log to a mill where it can be converted to cash. Aggregation is the only economic answer. We are aggregation. Still, to be honest, there is not enough money in log hauling for free to cover a big truck and a driver.
Removals generate more waste than just logs. Grinders take care of the smaller branches (some grind up to 18" material!), but occasionally we are asked to haul material that is not sawmill worthy and for this we charge a fee. Again, it can be a huge time and money saver for those who keep their business focussed. I have mentioned this before, but a key part of the economic equation for us is the lumber sales end.
Anyway, back to Joe's day. He may pick up a load or two of logs, haul some chunk wood, and then come back to the lot and load David's truck for a trip to a sawmill. David is an independent trucker who might haul ice cream one day and logs the next. Different trailers. He is reliable and seems fond of Christmas cards with sparkly snowmen on them. While our truck can haul ~2000 board feet of logs, his 18 wheeler can haul twice that. Plus, since most of the 3 or 4 mills we use are at least a 3 hour round trip, Joe simply does not have the time make these runs himself. So David is a big help even though it is relatively expensive to haul low value material. More than 90% of the log volume is simply undesirable grade and/or species that becomes nothing more than blocking or pallet. This is what a "loss leader"
business is all about. Suppliers have little reason to just give us the best 5% if we don't take it all. Still, I can clearly see why most urban loggers try to find a way to only work the good stuff.
Anyway, you can see that all of this is pretty darn weather dependent and that is why this is a slow time for Joe. When temperatures are below 15 or 20 degrees F, the hydraulics on the truck tend to balk or not work at all. Anyone know how they get hydraulics to work up north? When days are long and every chain saw in town is dropping trees, he has some pretty long days. He drank an awful lot of water this past summer.
My typical day is different. Once a week I make a trip to the PO box, write a few checks and make a bank deposit. Then I head to my desk job and wrestle a mouse. Not very weather dependent.
So rather than never providing the inside story, here is a glimpse without pictures. Joe is usually at work before my dog wakes me for his morning walk. He may trim a few logs from yesterday's loads and scan them for metal and pile them in one of three sawmill piles. He loves starting his day with the soothing sound of a chain saw. Different strokes and all. In the busier months, his calendar for pickups can go out 2 or 3 days. Tree services, municipalities, cemeteries, golf courses, and others call him when they remove trees and need the logs removed. Tree services that specialize in removals have learned fairly quickly that not needing to cut a stout log into chunks and hauling those chunks to the dump and paying to grow a landfill is a valuable time and money saving step. We haul for free. Even a home owner with one fat walnut log soon learns that free removal is cheaper than trying to get that log to a mill where it can be converted to cash. Aggregation is the only economic answer. We are aggregation. Still, to be honest, there is not enough money in log hauling for free to cover a big truck and a driver.
Removals generate more waste than just logs. Grinders take care of the smaller branches (some grind up to 18" material!), but occasionally we are asked to haul material that is not sawmill worthy and for this we charge a fee. Again, it can be a huge time and money saver for those who keep their business focussed. I have mentioned this before, but a key part of the economic equation for us is the lumber sales end.
Anyway, back to Joe's day. He may pick up a load or two of logs, haul some chunk wood, and then come back to the lot and load David's truck for a trip to a sawmill. David is an independent trucker who might haul ice cream one day and logs the next. Different trailers. He is reliable and seems fond of Christmas cards with sparkly snowmen on them. While our truck can haul ~2000 board feet of logs, his 18 wheeler can haul twice that. Plus, since most of the 3 or 4 mills we use are at least a 3 hour round trip, Joe simply does not have the time make these runs himself. So David is a big help even though it is relatively expensive to haul low value material. More than 90% of the log volume is simply undesirable grade and/or species that becomes nothing more than blocking or pallet. This is what a "loss leader"
business is all about. Suppliers have little reason to just give us the best 5% if we don't take it all. Still, I can clearly see why most urban loggers try to find a way to only work the good stuff.
Anyway, you can see that all of this is pretty darn weather dependent and that is why this is a slow time for Joe. When temperatures are below 15 or 20 degrees F, the hydraulics on the truck tend to balk or not work at all. Anyone know how they get hydraulics to work up north? When days are long and every chain saw in town is dropping trees, he has some pretty long days. He drank an awful lot of water this past summer.
My typical day is different. Once a week I make a trip to the PO box, write a few checks and make a bank deposit. Then I head to my desk job and wrestle a mouse. Not very weather dependent.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Shipping to Anchorage
We are truly spoiled living in the heart of hardwood country here in St. Louis. I often wonder what being a woodworker in Phoenix or Anchorage would be like. Sourcing material, especially unique character wood, would be a huge challenge. Expensive too.
One way to save is finding a reliable supplier and having it shipped two or three or four hundred board feet at a time. I am biased, but I think we could be that for more people than we are. We have sent wood to Florida, Texas, New Jersey and several points in between. And now Anchorage.
I exchanged a few emails and had a telephone conversation with Sean in Anchorage, and now he is getting some beautiful honeylocust and awesome cherry. Freightquote.com, which I had recommended to him (arranging shipping is the buyer's responsibility) gave him quotes all over $1000, nearly $3/bf. Then he spoke to his employer, who has a trucking relationship, and got a price of ~$600. So for about $1.50/bf, he is having wood trucked from St. Louis to Auburn WA, barged to Alaska, and then (as he put it), "trucked to the North Pole." That makes his cherry cost a total of $6.50/bf, a deal lots of west coasters should like.
Sure, someone else picked out the boards, but that is what the phone call can help clarify. With our minimal sapwood, there is little waste in the "A" cherry. It seems to me that if you have any kind of "in" with a trucking relationship, then midwestern domestic hardwoods can be yours at a very competitive price.
Remember we have a $500 minimum order to ship. We just are not geared for sending one or two pieces at the prices we charge.
One way to save is finding a reliable supplier and having it shipped two or three or four hundred board feet at a time. I am biased, but I think we could be that for more people than we are. We have sent wood to Florida, Texas, New Jersey and several points in between. And now Anchorage.
I exchanged a few emails and had a telephone conversation with Sean in Anchorage, and now he is getting some beautiful honeylocust and awesome cherry. Freightquote.com, which I had recommended to him (arranging shipping is the buyer's responsibility) gave him quotes all over $1000, nearly $3/bf. Then he spoke to his employer, who has a trucking relationship, and got a price of ~$600. So for about $1.50/bf, he is having wood trucked from St. Louis to Auburn WA, barged to Alaska, and then (as he put it), "trucked to the North Pole." That makes his cherry cost a total of $6.50/bf, a deal lots of west coasters should like.
Sure, someone else picked out the boards, but that is what the phone call can help clarify. With our minimal sapwood, there is little waste in the "A" cherry. It seems to me that if you have any kind of "in" with a trucking relationship, then midwestern domestic hardwoods can be yours at a very competitive price.
Remember we have a $500 minimum order to ship. We just are not geared for sending one or two pieces at the prices we charge.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Open Jan. 1
Just a quick note to let you know that we WILL be open this coming Saturday January 1. Normal hours 9 - 11 am.
We are sticking to our whopping four hours per month for retail - first and third Saturdays rain or shine, holiday or not. Partly because it works for most people, including us. Partly because once we committed to it publicly, I am not sure how we can turn it off.
Anyway, if your New Years Eve isn't too hard or too late, come on down and look at wood. What better way to start the year?
We are sticking to our whopping four hours per month for retail - first and third Saturdays rain or shine, holiday or not. Partly because it works for most people, including us. Partly because once we committed to it publicly, I am not sure how we can turn it off.
Anyway, if your New Years Eve isn't too hard or too late, come on down and look at wood. What better way to start the year?
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Hard maple price increase
Just a quick note that since we see very few quality hard maple logs and the lumber seems to fly off the shelf faster than we can stock it, I have concluded that $2.50/bf is too low for the good stuff. This is the approach to pricing we have always taken and, yes, it works in reverse too. Most of our initial prices were too low, especially for extraordinary material, but our prices for lower grade stuff have drifted even lower. This explains why you can buy cherry from us for $2.50 or $4.95 or $7. Not counting the sappy stuff for $1/bf.
I have not picked a new price yet. It will go into effect after our next retail session. We now have 8/4 and a few 4x4 pieces.
I have not picked a new price yet. It will go into effect after our next retail session. We now have 8/4 and a few 4x4 pieces.
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