Today's milling

[ESS]

2 minutes ago, Big J said:

Most of my knowledge as regards sycamore comes from a now retired timber buyer/grader called Gavin Munro. He bought and sold thousands of tonnes of the stuff back when it was fashionable. It's out of fashion now so practically worthless.

 

The end rearing is a solution to the issue of sap staining for smaller mills. Larger mills all vacuum kilned it, as far as I'm aware. That's one of the reasons it's often very cheap; because the production process is so quick.

 

Boring timber though, unless rippled or highly figured.

I knew Gavin. My knowledge comes from buying for an upholstery mill when I was 18, all air dried and cut all year round.

It was accepted that any exceptional butts that had to be cut with sap up because of contract time restraints would be destined for the same market. Parcels of exceptional quality were winter felled, and were rounded up to stop sap run if there was a possibility of time running away.

Quality Oak and Ash used to be treat the same, the company I started with would have fallers rounding Oak stands in winter if they had to be summer felled.

There is still a strong export market for white quality butts .

[Big J]

4 minutes ago, ESS said:

I knew Gavin. My knowledge comes from buying for an upholstery mill when I was 18, all air dried and cut all year round.

It was accepted that any exceptional butts that had to be cut with sap up because of contract time restraints would be destined for the same market. Parcels of exceptional quality were winter felled, and were rounded up to stop sap run if there was a possibility of time running away.

Quality Oak and Ash used to be treat the same, the company I started with would have fallers rounding Oak stands in winter if they had to be summer felled.

There is still a strong export market for white quality butts .

I didn't ever deal with export, only local and sometimes national markets. When you could buy perfect vacuum kilned stock at £14/cf if just never made sense to mill it myself. 

[ESS]

1 minute ago, Big J said:

I didn't ever deal with export, only local and sometimes national markets. When you could buy perfect vacuum kilned stock at £14/cf if just never made sense to mill it myself. 

Upholstery grade was never big money, 80p/hoppus delivered in when I was buying for the mill, but better than the alternative which was mining timber/refinery poles. There was a market in those days for sycamore thinnings for the turnery market , as there was birch and alder.

Winter felled clean white butts were a different story ,  £3, + even back then exceptional rippled logs name your own price virtually.

[openspaceman]

4 minutes ago, ESS said:

Upholstery grade was never big money, 80p/hoppus delivered in when I was buying for the mill, but better than the alternative which was mining timber/refinery poles.

Yes I used to send small sycamore to Nidd valley but the haulage meant the roadside price wasn't good, I guess mining timber was about 50p/Hft then and pulp a bit less.

4 minutes ago, ESS said:

 

 

There was a market in those days for sycamore thinnings for the turnery market , as there was birch and alder.

I supplied two turnery mills, they restricted the size range for sycamore and ash compared with birch or alder and would not accept sycamore in the summer or if extraction was delayed. Price was about 50% higher than pulp at roadside. It was almost always coppice rather than thinnings.

4 minutes ago, ESS said:

Winter felled clean white butts were a different story ,  £3, + even back then exceptional rippled logs name your own price virtually.

I felled veneers for a chap who exported to Germany and for the trouble he went to I would guess he got much more than that, comparable with cherry probably at £8/Hft, this was in the early 80s when veneer  yew would fetch £15/Hft.

[ESS]

2 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Yes I used to send small sycamore to Nidd valley but the haulage meant the roadside price wasn't good, I guess mining timber was about 50p/Hft then and pulp a bit less.

I supplied two turnery mills, they restricted the size range for sycamore and ash compared with birch or alder and would not accept sycamore in the summer or if extraction was delayed. Price was about 50% higher than pulp at roadside. It was almost always coppice rather than thinnings.

I felled veneers for a chap who exported to Germany and for the trouble he went to I would guess he got much more than that, comparable with cherry probably at £8/Hft, this was in the early 80s when veneer  yew would fetch £15/Hft.

It was Nidd I bought for.mid 70s. The prices I quote were from that time.They used 8qg and up,and ran 2 saw lines, cut 5000 hoppus week in week out. It would be Ron that was buying in the 80s?

The £3 was for planking butts, anything that would peel was a higher price, though generally they wanted a bigger qg log, planking logs were 14 qg up and would tolerate small defects whereas peeling logs had to be blemish free. I got £40/hoppus for a 24qg rippled log early eighties.

There was never really a hardwood pulp market in the north, although some parcels from South Yorks found their way to Kemsley on backhaul, I only ever did one contract, we were more geared up for bigger timber, but obviously with the amount of working pits there was a strong demand for mining timber , a lot of chocking gangs cut on site then and could use down to 5inch top diameter to squeeze 4 inch chocks out of , and with 2 foot straights there was little waste.

We also had an outlet in the north for refinery poles through BICC, it was a useful outlet for rough oversize softwood and shaky oak, they also took smaller diameter at one of their plants ,price was a couple of quid a ton more than mining,throw it on a trailer tree length and cut the overhang off. Oh how things have changed.

[Big J]

It's interesting reading your discussions of historic prices for British hardwoods. The prices have not kept up with inflation at all. Last I heard was good sycamore planking was doing £5-6/hf which is only a 100% price increase on over 300% inflation. 

 

The more I've done with timber, the more I've come to appreciate softwoods if I'm honest. You get the full spectrum of colour, figure and qualities in a tree that grows faster, more consistently and is much easier to harvest. Then couple that with the fact that it's much easier to dry, and for me personally, it's hard to find a case for hardwood, at least on a commercial basis.

[MattyF]

Are there any wholesale buyers out there for milling produce , I do remember seeing a guy asking for timber but can not find the thread.

[ESS]

2 minutes ago, MattyF said:

Are there any wholesale buyers out there for milling produce , I do remember seeing a guy asking for timber but can not find the thread.

Hardwood ?

 

[MattyF]

Yeah..

[Big J]

Squaredy (Gavin at Wentwood Timber) buys wholesale

Edited May 4, 2019 by Big J