Cost of Yew tree

[Forest2Furniture]

I've got the option to buy a yew tree felled last week, it's in four pieces.

 

Longest length is 16' and 24" in diameter, one at 12' and 15" in diameter with the other two pieces 10' and 12" in diameter, all are straight & solid.

 

Any ideas on what I should be offering would be helpful?

[Big J]

That sounds like very high quality yew. The main butt would attract a price of £5-7 a hoppus foot (27.4 hoppus foot assuming 20 inch mid diameter) and the smaller pieces a touch less.

 

Watch out for star shake on the butts, as it can be very detrimental to the timber you get from it.

 

Jonathan

[youcallthatbig]

I tend to shy away from big dia Yew when buying, silica deposits and shake seem to be a matter of course, prefer up to 15-18" max,colour is more uniform, and there also tends to be less mineral/iron stain from trees that have stood for the length of time to achieve 24" dia.

 

Tim

[Forest2Furniture]

Thanks for the advice.

 

This might be a daft question Jonathan but how do you work out hoppus foot of a tree?

 

Pat

[se7enthdevil]

it equates to 1.25ft3.

 

to work it out i have a little book that explains it thusly.

 

1 hoppus foot = cylinder, 1ft long girth of 4ft,

 

so basically if you have a log of 48" girth then it'll be really easy to work out. 48" girth equates to a log 15 1/4" in diameter and 12" of that log equals 1.26843166927 cubic feet. rounding off you might call it 1.27 but as a rough estimate 1.25 does me fine.

[ShooTa]

you can get a wonderful tape measure that helps work it out.

[agg221]

To work out Hoppus feet, measure the mid-quarter girth in inches (ie go halfway along the log and measure the circumference, and divide the total by four); square this and divide by 144; then multiply by length in feet.

 

Alec

[devon TWiG]

Yes, yew does often suffer badly from shake !!! and these will spread more whilst drying so you end up with lots of small sections of usable timber , however most owners think it is very valuable ( some can be ) and they often get left to rot as no one will pay what owner considers them to be worth , I know of far too many nice bits of timber left to ruin because of this situation ,shame really .

[Forest2Furniture]

Thanks for that guys.

 

I put a price in today based on what Big J said this morning and the owner thinks I'm trying to shaft them.

I know for a fact that none of the local timber yards will come out for just one tree so it looks like it will be left to rot!

[agg221]

Thanks for that guys.

 

I put a price in today based on what Big J said this morning and the owner thinks I'm trying to shaft them.

 

Yes, this is sadly quite normal. There comes a point where people assume that whatever you offer it must be worth more. Trouble is, they have no other frame of reference to compare with, and anything you provide them with they assume is biased. At this point, the only thing to do is wait for the next one (which usually comes along a lot sooner than you think in my experience).

 

Alec