To build 12 doors for an entertainment center, I recently went to my local hardwood supplier to purchase about 60bf of cherry. This supplier generally maintains a good inventory. When I started sorting thru the stacks I was appalled at the lack of good quality boards. There were alot of skinny boards with sap wood, knots, etc. The supplier had a good quantity of lumber, but it just looked awful.
I managed to find enough boards for the project after sorting thru the entire stack. When I questioned the supplier about it, he agreed that the boards looked terrible and then said that the lumber industry was selling LARGE quantities of logs for export to China.
In fact, he said the Chinese were buying whole tracks of land to be logged. He said he told his suppliers if it was a question of money he would be willing to pay more for decent lumber. His suppliers told him it wasn’t about money. Basically, it sounds like we (US woodworkers) are being hosed by greedy lumber companies with large contracts to foreign countries, who are depleting our stock of decent lumber.
Anyone heard anything about this? Am I late to the party here? Anybody having trouble finding good quality domestic hardwoods?
Thanks in advance.
Patrick
Replies
That's a horrible story...I hope you're wrong!
Much US and Canadian lumber has always been exported to Europe and the far east. With much of the wood furniture now being made in China, more US/Canadian wood is being shipped to the far east.
Also, on my new house built in North Carolina, all the 2x4's came from Germany or Austria. It is cheaper to import construction lumber than to purchase US or Canadian lumber.
given the amount of furniture production taking place in China these days, I wouldn't be surprised if those cherry logs were making a round trip.
Is that not what our counrty used to do?
I agree Patrick, its a damn shame. Like Howie said this has been going on for decades. I forget the exact figures I heard years ago but I think its in the 50+% of hardwoods harvested are exported. To the death of the milling industry too, as logs, we don't even get to mill them and hold back the best.
Just think of that fine furniture thats going to be imported. What a waste of great American hardwood. Wecome to Walmart.
Lets teach 'them' about formica and plastics.
Enjoy, Roy
I live in the heart of walnut logging country--the great Missouri Ozarks. A local saw mill that has been logging and sawing black walnut for 30 years closed down just this year. The owner's son now has a contract with China for all the walnut logs he can buy from loggers. China wants 200 cargo containers per month of walnut logs.
I personally watched him buy 360 FAS grade logs from one landowner on one winter day. His schedule was booked a month and a half in advance to grade and bid on walnut logs with other landowners in this state.
Those logs would have gone to the local mill which used to employ 30 people. The resulting lumber would then have been kiln dried, sold to cabinet shops, US distributors, and wholesalers.
I'm afraid China can consume our forests faster than we can grow them.
The chinese have done a terrible thing to the price of black walnut!
I used to buy it when it was headed to the pallet mills (because at the moment all the styles wanted were the light blond woods) Then I could get it for as little as 17 cents per board foot! Today the price is at $1.85 per board foot and I was recently forced to pass on the walnut I need to finish my home due to the cost!
The only good thing is the Chineese do tend to sell us back a great deal of that wood in the form of furniture!
Hello! Boy I sure hope that is not happening to our logs. Right now I'm sitting on 50 acres of beautiful oak, maple and cherry that i was thinking of having selectivly cut as my property hasen't been harvested in about 40 years. It now looks like i'll hold off for awhile and see what happens. I want the people in Western New York to earn a decent living from my timber and the homeowners in America to enjoy and appreciate fine lumber and fine craftsmanship in their homes from American workers.
>> His suppliers told him it wasn't about money.
I don't believe it. If it's not about money, what is it about? Is somebody holding a gun to the supplier's head? Holding his children hostage? Threatening to publish pictures of him boffing small animals?
Of course it's about money. Offer the dealer a hundred dollars a board foot for top grade wood, and I'll bet he can find you some.
PS - you might ask Frenchy if he has any. He seems to be buying large quantities of cheap wood all the time.
Patrick
Here in Australia that practice has been going on for years. First quality lumber is shipped to Asia as logs and comes back as fine furniture (and I don't mean Walmart quality veneered particle board either). Given that the standard monthly wage in China about the same as your hourly rate, it's easy to see why retailers can't resist. In the scale of international trade the demand of local shops is more trouble than it is worth for a lumber company that has to focus on this quarter's stock price in order to keep the shareholders (read mutual fund managers) happy.
It stinks, but short of doing a Frenchy — hey, is that a new term ? — and buying by the bund at the mill, what can a small player do?
Ian
I can tell you that when I visited a local hardwood supplier on Saturday I was shocked at the prices. Ouch! Maybe China is gobbling up hardwood the same way it's gobbling up steel and oil and every other basic commodity. The payoff comes when a billion plus Chinese consumers start buying American goods and services, but right now we're getting a big dose of sticker shock and inflation.
The demand for fine woods is growing from places like China, Korea and Singapore.. (used to be Japan before they stared to earn more than Americans did)
To get the real premium prices the sawmills often sign contracts for their whole production of certain woods..
I used to buy FAS cherry rough and green at the mill for 60 cents. Today it's over $2.30 per board foot of FAS
Cherry is very easy to dry, in fact I've never lost a board. (unlike hard maple)
When you buy at the end of the wood chain you'll always be forced to pay a premium and forced to choose through well sorted wood..
I hate that! I buy at the sawmill in a large enough volume that I get the good deals as they happen.. That's where the real treasures are.. that piece of uniquely figured wood that fails to make grade and is either going to be discarded or put on the 3B pile,
That whole log of burl that simply takes your breath away... Or those pieces of crotch wood that force you to slowly rub your hand over the piece while dreams pass thru you..
If the volume is too great find someone to share with..
I just helped a buddy of mine get a semi load (6500 bd.ft.) of assorted hardwoods shipped to him.. It cost $15,000 shipped from Minnesota to San Diego Calif. 1300 bd.ft. of cherry, 1200 bd.ft. of black walnut, 500 bd.ft. of birch, 1000 bd.ft. of red oak 1800 bd.ft. of white oak, 500 bd.ft of red elm (I know, but they think it's pretty) and 200 bd.ft. of Box elder
The wood was Mill run but the sawmill owner agreed not to send short boards or ones with giant defects such as rot or big holes..
I did stand at the tail end of the line and sorta selected boards, in that those with obvious defects went into the grading pile while sound good wood went into the load..
The sole exception was the birch,, We informally agreed that there needed to be a certain level of wide flawless boards. They sawed every Birch tree they had and the wideset flawless board I got was 6 inches wide Most had some character and very few were the finewhite wood that is so highly prized..
trucking amounted with the fuel surcharges to be $2.00 a loaded miles I waited untill I got an all aluminum trailer and truck with no sleeper in order to be legally loaded.. there are a lot of scales out that way the wod while green was proably below the legal limit but if it rained I knew it'would be pushing it
If we did this in july or August I suspect that I could add another 500 bd.ft. to the truck and if I found a driver who just wanted a back haul and wasn't worried about weigh stations I've seen 8000 bd.ft. go out on a trailer..
He only needs a little over a thousand bd.ft. for his project but he contacted wood working buddies and since they pay so much for wood there in San Diego the price sounded free to them..
To prevent fighting over individual boards and issues of fairness they agreed in advance to draw lots for who would pick from the pile first second third etc..
The rule was no sorting, take the next board as it came.. trade between each other afterwards..
We have import bans on some types of lumber like Brazilian Rosewood. Why can't we have export bans on our scarcest hardwoods?
Is Cherry being logged and sent to China? I have heard that the supply of quality cherry timber was getting very scarce and that was the cause of the higher prices and poorer quality. One sawmill operator told me that it is very rare now to find a cherry tree greater than 18" in diameter.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)
PlaneWood
A flooring mill near me was just quoted a much cheaper price on Pennsylvania walnut, landed, from China, than Penn. walnut, from Pennsylvania....they are indeed buying the logs, and milling them there.cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, N.S
Have you folks been noticing where all the crude oil is going also?
Read Jon Arno's take on cherry, since cherry is a nurse tree the nature of the nurse tree is to die out as other larger more aggressive trees grow up, (mean old bully's!)
Really large cherry trees would be rare! (no matter who's buying the wood)
About 30 years ago I bought some quartersawn 4/4 cherry and many of the planks were 18" wide. It had been stacked and stickered in storage for 30 years when I bought it. All I had to do was scrap the chicken poop off the top boards. Paid something like 75 cents per BF. The Good Ol' Days, eh!
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)PlaneWood
The Good Ol' Days
more like the "Long Gone Days". I'm sure 19th century Europeans told the same stories about the days when mighty forests of massive oaks blanketed Europe, before it was deforested for construction, heating, and cooking needs. People seem to forget that it was only in the last 100 years that wood was displaced as a primary fuel source. Even here in America we had the better part of 300 years to chop down and burn a lot of wood before fuel oil took hold.
As was said, it isn't always about money. There is something in the business world known as "Ease of Manufacturing". This flows all the way down to the bottom tier of raw materials.
If I am a supplier of raw materials, it is easier for me to sell 500 tons of that material to one consumer than it is to break it up into smaller lots and sell it to multiple consumers. Quite frankly it is just more convinient to sell my stock to someone who wants it all, and even if it means I get less $ for the same amount of material.Lazarus"Wisdom is the toughest of teachers! She gives the test first and the lesson after."
>> Quite frankly it is just more convenient to sell my stock to someone who wants it all,
>> and even if it means I get less $ for the same amount of material.
Yes, but 'convenience' is just the measure of the avoided costs of breaking it up for sale to multiple customers, in time, labor and other resources. You're not going to sell it all to one customer if the discount is much greater than all your avoided costs.
That is true if you are considering cost on a global scale. Every day a piece of lumber sits in my inventory, it costs me money. I don't have to pay anyone to hold it, but not turning the inventory is still a cost when thought of at this scale. So if selling a large amount to one consumer undercuts my going rate by an amount that is acceptable in terms of not only costs of smaller lot sizing, but also in terms inventory turns, etc... I will unload them at the lower price.
Therefore if I have a huge quantity going to a large consumer in one fell swoop, I can then turn around and turn another quantity to a group of smaller consumers in the same time it would have taken to unload the first lot to the smaller consumers to begin with.
As you say, I will not undercut the price of the material to the point where I am loosing money in my business, but if I am guaranteed a certain amount of inventory turns within a certain time period, I can average my selling price to minimize the effort of doing business. Lazarus"Wisdom is the toughest of teachers! She gives the test first and the lesson after."
Not to mention the cost of wood degrading.. a lot of woods need to be handled quickly or they rapidly deteriorate, Maple is the classic example but pine is as well.
one board of hickory can easily turn into two boards (or almost two boards) in the heat of summer. woods like walnut and cherry aren't as sensitive in that respect and white oak can darn near turn grey with out any serious degrade.
I used to have the stupid idea that countries exported the surplus stuff AFTER their own needs had been taken care of. Like I said...........stupid, especially when someone starts waving money around.
Just a bit off track here.........as a country we grow some very high quality garlic. It gets almost entirely exported. To supply the local market they import cheap garbage from China. Little wonder I grow my own.
Sucks big time.
Everything, 100% of it, depends on how you look at it.
DW
I'm certain that you can grow those garlic for less than they can be imported...
The export thing is a quandry, should we export our wood to buy stuff from them that they make? It lead to questions of balance of trade etc.. How is NZ doing in that regard? are they a net importer or exporter of goods?
net exporter or importer......
Well, hard to say now. An awful lot of agricultural stuff gets exported. Fruit,meat,dairy etc.
Now it seems we are providing some world class electronic/software stuff on a small scale. Tourism is huge and growing, so who knows?
The exporting of raw product that then comes back in as the finished article seems the ultimate in absurd. Why let the basics go, only to buy it back with value added?
Surely it is greater economic sense to employ your own country to make something that will be sold as finished. Is the elected government not supposed to act in the interest of those that voted them in? I dont see how this situation helps anyone.
No so many years ago tarrifs on imported clothing were removed. In an instant most in-country clothing makers lost their business and all the employees lost their jobs.
The "good" side was that the consumer got to pay less. I cant see how that can possibly be good. If everyone is used to paying $15 for a T shirt, and cant get one for less, so what? They just pay without complaint.
If the same shirt is now made in China and costs $10, for a short period of time everyone might be pretty happy with the cheaper price, until they get used to it and THAT price becomes normal.
The 5 bucks saved.........where does that go? on more cheap imported garbage, food,rent.........?
I suspect it went on more "non essentials". The ones who win are the importers of the cheap stuff, not the customer. It is now very difficult to buy clothing that isnt made in China. Poor quality for the most part.
I dont blame the producers of the raw materials, they like veryone else need the best price possible in order to survive and prosper. Removal of protection and incentives from the top, that is the killer.
Everything, 100% of it, depends on how you look at it.
DW
Edited 5/23/2004 6:14 am ET by AJinNZ
The state port here in Wilmington, NC, had an open house yesterday. There were two main commodities stacked up in the transit warehouses. Going out was processed wood pulp from a local International Paper mill. Coming in was loads and loads of European "2x" construction lumber from Austria or Germany.Howie.........
I heard many years ago that the Japanese were buying logs here and cutting veneers on board ship as they sailed to Japan. The veneers would then be graded, cut, and imported back into the USA. I also heard that they were dumping any residue overboard. They could do this cheaper than we could cut the veneer ourselves.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)PlaneWood
I would suspect that one of the factors in producing cheap veneer for example would be the total lack of any control over the waste products.
China for example has little or no environmental protection policies. Workers spraying paint in factories do so without ventilation. Nobody cares so long as a profit is being made.
As for importing 2X timber. Insane.
I worked on a house last year where the bricks came in from Australia. How it can be cost effective to ship something like a brick is beyond me. What a staggering waste of resources moving large amounts of bulky materials around the world, only to sell them in back to the country of origin. Middle eastern oil wouldnt have nearly so much control if massive quantities were not wasted moving things that dont need to be shipped.
The only way to beat this is to refuse to buy the end product.
Everything, 100% of it, depends on how you look at it.
DW
I recently read that 1/2 of all the concrete made in the world last year went to China. The place is growing by leaps and bounds and sucking up huge amounts of raw materials. Check out the price of steel too.Lumber is just part of it.
FB
It's pretty simple.
I sell the logs I don't mill myself to who pays the most.
“When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think...that a time is to come when those (heirlooms) will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our father did for us.’ “ --John Ruskin.
If you're really that concerned about not being able to get cheap lumber, do some research, get some hard numbers, and contact your legislator. Complaining on this site only creates hysteria and rumors reinforced by xenophobia.
Loggers sell their logs to countries like China because American retailers want them to build affordable furnitures to be imported to America to be purchased by debt-ridden Americans with credit cards who have insatiable appetite for affordable material goods. When was the last time anyone complained about the billions of gallons of Middle Eastern oil imported to U.S., or the tons of endangered, exotic woods we import from South America?
I do not like vast tracts of forests cut down for housing developments or old-growth trees sliced to make veneers for mass-marketed goods, but unless people stop blaming others and start collectively looking at ourselves for the problems -- no one will care. Be proactive, be involved.
http://www.forestcouncil.org
About a month ago I was walking through the lower level of the hospital where I work, and as I passed engineering, I noticed half a dozen pallets stacked up. They seemed an odd color for pallets, and I tought maybe I'd get some free oak for farting around on the lathe.
Lo and behold: the pallets were alost 100% cherry, with a few bits of poplar here and there. It was beautiful knot-free wood, marred only by the damnable nail holes. Some of the structural members were 10/4.
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A month or so ago, I was walking through the lower level of the hospital where I work, and saw half a dozen pallets piled up outside engineering. They looked an odd color for pallets so I took a closer look, hoping to score some oak for farting around on the lathe.
Lo and behold: the pallets were alomst 100% cherry, with a bit of poplar here and there. The wood was beautiful, too, knot-free and marred only by the damnable nail-holes. Some of the center pieces were at least 10/4.
Now, what is THAT about? After reading these posts, my fantasy is that the hospital equipment was manufactured overseas and shipped here on our lovely cherry. (I convinced security to look the other way and I grabbed up the whole pile.)
Charlie
When I first started to buy wood for my place The sawmill had several stacks and stacks of balck walnut.. They were heading to the pallet plant. The reason was this was 1999 and there was a lot of demand for blond woods and no buyers for the darker woods. I bought black walnut for 17 cents a bd.ft. (about 4500 bd.ft.) I also got the 4x6 timbers for three dollars each and the 4x4 timbers for only two dollars each..(each about 9 feet long) Cherry was around 45 cents and butternut was almost a giveaway..
right now the bargin is in Eastern White pine.. 40 cents they don't ever get enough to provide to a steady buyer but they do get it regularly..
Hackberry is another one of those woods that has a weak market. It's a interesting wood witha lot of charcter and some beautiful colors.. again reasonably priced.. Once in a while there is a dutch buyer who buys a bundle or two but often the trees just sit in the yard..
One of the most vivid woods is Boxelder. with wild red streaks against creme colored wood and almost never a market for it. (In fact the owner of the sawmill doesn't evan bother to saw it usually , it either goes straight into the chipper or to the pallet mill)
Hardwood (and softwood) being shipped overseas? Very old news.
The worst of it is, the lumber companies are making a killing on wood harvested on federal land and shipped overseas to places like Japan and China, and the only folks who ever fuss about it are the loggers, who complain whenever BLM or the Forest Service propose taking any land out of production. Lost jobs.
Everybody else just laments about the rising costs and poorer quality of the wood we use.
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