Replies

1. 
   fdampier5 | Apr 26, 2003 05:54am | #1

   Do not do it by the hour!  Never!  it's not done that way.. He could dawdle and take twice as long as a more efficent sawyer.

             Charges range from 20 cents a bd.ft. to $1.00

     by the bd.ft. is typical   yes it is normal to charge for damage to blades/bands

1. 
   Ron2 | Apr 26, 2003 11:53am | #3

   Frenchy: Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your help!

   Ron

2. 
   DavidxDoud | Apr 26, 2003 07:04am | #2

   here, I pay 25 cents per foot,  providing labor to off load boards and slabs - - $30 if the blade hits metal - - I wouldn't negotiate on a per hour basis unless I was doing some unusual cutting like large beams - it seems to even out  -

3. 
   RW | Apr 26, 2003 04:21pm | #4

   Agree the hourly rate is a little unusual. The sawyer I've used has a $60/hr sign for running the saw, and ostensibly uses that fee periodically, but when I've taken logs to him, he log rules it, gives me a price, and the only adds are if he busts a blade on a chunk of steel. Last time I did it, 800 bd ft was 53 cents per bf, $35 per blade, cut, stickered, kiln dried, I picked up. I lucked out. Found 2 .22 bullets and one big nail in the whole thing. But the blade didn't bust, and he didnt charge me for it.

   "The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb "      lyrics by Roger Waters

4. 
   JeffKurtz | Apr 27, 2003 01:23am | #5

   Let me jump in here in defense of the sawyer. 

   1. Custom sawing is slow and tedious - even more so when the chap you're sawing for is standing within earshot telling you how to cut his precious logs. (Or, to put it another way, telling you how to do your job.)

   2. No sawyer worth his salt is going to milk a job for as much time as he can get out of it.  Although there may be a few rogues out there, sawyers, like the population in general, tend to be honest fellows.  Sawing lumber is boring (that's why I got out of it) and one of the few things one can do to relieve the boredom is to constantly push the equipment to its absolute limit.  (This can be especially fun when one is wrestling with an elm log 40" in diameter.)

   3. Don't forget this guy has to pay for his equipment whether or not it's running, has to haul it around, maintain it, pay insurance, feed his family...

   4. Ask others about him.  Seems folks are never reluctant to share their opinions of other people - even when they're not asked!

   Jeff

1. 
   fdampier5 | Apr 27, 2003 06:21pm | #6

   Jeff,

     I understand the difficulty,  yet in my experiance those who charge by the hour tend to be slower and for some reason less efficent at getting good quaility wood from a tree..

     There is a legitimate reason to charge per mile driven to get to the site.. and yes any blade damage.  however,  I've watched too many poorly trained guys  just do slab cut after slab cut with each cut further degrading the quality of the boards.

     Extracting a maximum number of FAS boards from a log requires the ability to read a tree like a detective novel and  guess exactly when to turn and when to make another cut. In addition the first cut is something that can dramatically change the amount of FAS wood extracted from that particular log..  The real experts can do it in little more than a glance and be correct much more often than not. 

         One sawyer that I know will work for 1/2 the wood.. his condition is that he gets to select the first half leaving the second half for the owner..

     What a rip off! 

     most of the good wood is on the outside of the tree and he takes that.. leaving the heart and poor quality wood for the owner..

       The real slicko is the guy who charges by the hour and has the owner agree to hump wood..  standing around giving advice while the owner sweats to get the logs in place,  and hauls lumber to the stack..

      I watched that particular guy do several trees in the area and couldn't believe the people paying a absolute premium for wood that was of marginal quality.  Elm, Ash and hackberry none of them very large or particularly straight.   What's worse is that rather than placing the mill where it would be easy to access for the logs and lumber, he placed the mill where he didn't have to back up, ("I'm not too good at backing up ").

            Three years after the wood was sawn, the tarps over the wood have rotted and the warped boards are only worthy of firewood..   

     The average sawyer is as reliable as the average person.. some are wonderful and extremely fair willing to help an owner select which trees to use and which are really only worthy of becoming firewood.. the rest...