Value of big straight beech

[Guest Gimlet]

I been offered some windblown beech. It's free, owner just wants it cleared. There are four blown trees, trunks between two and three feet in diameter. Two have been cut up into four, five and six foot lengths by someone else and the limbs taken for firewood, but two trunks are untouched. One is nearly three feet in diameter and straight and clean for about twenty feet. It's lying over another trunk and has a very large limb buried in the ground in tension. Whoever had a go at it before obviously though it was too difficult to deal with and so left it untouched. 

It's a massive chunk of free timber and I'm wondering what the value would be in taking it? It's on a level site but completely inaccessible to machinery so the only way to extract it is to plank it in situ. The big one will take some careful work to make it safe and then winching to get it into a position to be processed, so there's considerable labour involved. 

I appreciate it's not possible to value fallen timber without seeing it, but in general, how valuable and saleable is big beech like this? Is it worth planking or should I just bring in a mobile splitter and sell the lot as firewood? Even the four/five foot chunks that someone else has sliced, I can see all sorts of wood craft possibilities in. There's a huge number of table tops in there. 

Also, there is a near dead straight Scots pine which was poleaxed by the beeches when they fell. It's ivy-shrouded but there is at least twenty feet of straight bole, going from 18" at the butt to 12" to the first limb.

I know someone who has a planking saw. It's going to be a lot of work and it will be a case of sharing the spoils. Process or log?

Edited June 14, 2022 by Gimlet

[trigger_andy]

7 hours ago, Gimlet said:

I been offered some windblown beech. It's free, owner just wants it cleared. There are four blown trees, trunks between two and three feet in diameter. Two have been cut up into four, five and six foot lengths by someone else and the limbs taken for firewood, but two trunks are untouched. One is nearly three feet in diameter and straight and clean for about twenty feet. It's lying over another trunk and has a very large limb buried in the ground in tension. Whoever had a go at it before obviously though it was too difficult to deal with and so left it untouched. 

It's a massive chunk of free timber and I'm wondering what the value would be in taking it? It's on a level site but completely inaccessible to machinery so the only way to extract it is to plank it in situ. The big one will take some careful work to make it safe and then winching to get it into a position to be processed, so there's considerable labour involved. 

I appreciate it's not possible to value fallen timber without seeing it, but in general, how valuable and saleable is big beech like this? Is it worth planking or should I just bring in a mobile splitter and sell the lot as firewood? Even the four/five foot chunks that someone else has sliced, I can see all sorts of wood craft possibilities in. There's a huge number of table tops in there. 

Also, there is a near dead straight Scots pine which was poleaxed by the beeches when they fell. It's ivy-shrouded but there is at least twenty feet of straight bole, going from 18" at the butt to 12" to the first limb.

I know someone who has a planking saw. It's going to be a lot of work and it will be a case of sharing the spoils. Process or log?

To me it’s more hassle than it’s worth as I’ve a backlog of more valuable timber to slab up. I’m currently cutting up better logs than that for firewood as I’ll need a good supply these coming winters and what I don’t use I’ll readily sell. 

[Guest Gimlet]

So beech isn't that valuable?

[Squaredy]

2 minutes ago, Gimlet said:

So beech isn't that valuable?

Beech is worth maybe the same as Ash - perhaps £25 per cubic foot ( once milled and thoroughly dried) but only for fairly clean boards of course.  So in theory there may be a fair value there in timber.

 

But of course what you have to assess is how long it will take to find enough customers to make it worth your while. Unless you have markets for the timber it will take years, and of course that is after the years of drying.

[MattyF]

Leave it there for 3-5 years and it will spalt , then it's worth milling. Beech bars fetch good money but oversized I've seen be virtually given away.

[Dan Maynard]

1 hour ago, Squaredy said:

Unless you have markets for the timber it will take years, and of course that is after the years of drying.

....whereas the firewood you can sell much sooner and more easily. If you can get a muck truck and splitter in then not too bad to shift it in small pieces either.

[spuddog0507]

1 hour ago, MattyF said:

Beech bars fetch good money but oversized I've seen be virtually given away.

Thats something i have never worked out myself, we have tried to sell good clean beech saw logs but with zero results, then they just end up in the firewood stack,,

[Squaredy]

1 hour ago, spuddog0507 said:

Thats something i have never worked out myself, we have tried to sell good clean beech saw logs but with zero results, then they just end up in the firewood stack,,

There certainly are sawmills that take Beech, but of course like other species they want it to arrive by the lorry load, and need it to be forest grown.

 

Hence a few decent stems that add up to half a load with poor access are sadly worth nothing.

[trigger_andy]

....whereas the firewood you can sell much sooner and more easily. If you can get a muck truck and splitter in then not too bad to shift it in small pieces either.

That’s my thinking.

The Beech I’ve milled and used for my own projects is lovely timber, is a bit of a shame it’s not currently very desirable.

Saying that Dave seems to flog it quite readily.

[Guest Gimlet]

I think I'm going to take what slabs I can for myself for future woodcraft projects and log the rest. I irks me greatly to reduce fine timber to firewood but I can't keep it all.