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Green Cherry lumber HELP
Greetings all;
After saving a bunch of Big old Cherry (fine Virginia ones) Logs I had aportable wood Mizer come and saw a bunch into some really pretty Boards. The new John Deere 790 with 419 FEL really helped. I am never ceasing to be amazed at what this "Little Tractor" can pick up and push and drag. I am talking dragging 35 foot 20 inch logs in 1st High with no problem. The front end loader lifts them enough to get the chain under and is a real time saver moving the boards as they are cut and loaded on the FEL to be stacked about thirty yards away.
The saw guy told me he was going to tell his wife to call and blame me when he buys a 790. Heh Heh. In any case now I am having a difficult time finding a buyer for this green Cherry. Is $3 a board foot too much? Is $2 too little? Can some one please Help this Green Cherry Lumber guy with some info and ideas how to market this stuff? Any and all help will be appreciated.
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Green Cherry lumber HELP
I don't have an answer, but an additional related question. I am removing a large group of very mature (48 year old) Pistachio trees. It makes beautiful lumber and is really hard to find this large. Is there a market for this? Any commments from wood experts would be appreciated.
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Green Cherry lumber HELP
Look around and you'll probably find somebody who sells specialty wood and ask if they're interested or who they buy from. I'm not sure if logs that are intended for furniture wood are sawed green or not but there are likely some storage requirements for sawed green wood.
I think it tends to split if it dries down too fast. Planks do warp as the dry so you don't want to saw the planks too thin because they need to be run through a plane before use.
People who supply wood to furniture builders may not buy green wood because it can't be used directly for furniture building. Wood used in traditional furniture construction usually is kilned down to a low moisture content and then stored in low humidity environments. Furniture made from high-moisture pieces that are glued together warp, split etc.
Your best market likely is to a mill that supplies finished kilned wood to furniture builders. Such a place probably tends to buy logs but might buy planks sawed to their specs. The planks would be graded since only a few planks from a tree have highly desirable grain patterns and warping characeristics. Some species, especially oak are quarter sawed to increase the yield of high value planks but at the expense of width. Anyway, there is a lot to this sawing stuff and I hope you ended up with planks that do have a market. If there are guitar builders in your area you might ask where they get their wood. The requirements are different than for furniture building.
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Green Cherry lumber HELP
Kiln dried in NY is seling for about $5.00 a foot and they normally charge about a $1.00 a foot to dry. Take hauling and everything else into fact and I think $3.00 a foot is about right if it is good wood. I bet the fellow who sawed it could tell you.
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Green Cherry lumber HELP
The furniture grade wood in this area are cut into 6x6s and then goes to the kiln and final sawing. I am sure they use a thinner blade to minimize waste. We see truck loads travelling around here as there is a number of furiniture plants.
You can stack and air dry the boards and then sell as dry later, if you have the room in the barn.
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Green Cherry lumber HELP
What an education I got going to some of my customers! WAs it quarter Sawn? How pure, ie how many knots? Anyway it could be worth up to ten dollars a foot! I'm going to stick with tractors I think!!!!!
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Green Cherry lumber HELP
Art is right! Veneer grade cherry is out of this world price wise. Its not uncommon for a clean limbless log to go from common to veneer and quad drouple the price.
If you are that unsure of what you have you probably should get a professional to apraise it.
If you are going to use it. Use lots of stickers to minimize warping as it dries.
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Green Cherry lumber HELP
Some friends down south bought a house in a country town that has a very large black-walnut on it. They say they figure that tree would pay off the mortgage. A furniture-grade tree can be worth a bunch. I believe that some stands of instrument grade trees (mostly spruce etc. for soundboards) are so valuable that they rate their own security guards.
My grandmother was very proud of her cherry dining room set. I have it now and it is something to be proud of. She was asking me about it and I incidentally observed that it's veneered and she was horrified. 'No!' she says it's solid cherry. After smoothing some feathers, I said it likely is solid cherry, it's just that the manufacturer put some very high class veneer over plainer cherry wood. I'm not sure the feathers were quite smoothed but it's true enough that high-class logs are worth much more as veneer than as boards.
I know about this sawing stuff more from the standpoint of selecting wood than actually doing the sawing. If you tangentially cut logs you get a bunch of boards with 'moon' end grain and that's not what you want because they cup. Fancy sawing techniques increases the number of boards that have better grain but there's more waste and narrower boards. It only makes sense to do on high-class logs. I thought of a practical issue on this subject a few days back. I built a few decks and I noticed that rain stays on top of some of the planks. I now realize that if I looked at the end grains and put any 'moon' grained pieces facing up that wouldn't happen.
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Green Cherry lumber HELP
Hey Daves tractor
I was just reading a wood working magazine, "WOOD" by Better home and gardens that has an article about regional woods. The article spoke about nut bearing trees "Hickory and Pecan" having desirable wood working characteristics so if the wood has good color and can be worked without tearing and doesnt have a lot of bark inclusions and flaws it could be of some value. Is the wood a hardwood? Will it dull tools? Does it cure well? Depending on the answers I am sure some one would want to at least try it. If you have it milled let me know as I would be curiuos to try a couple of the boards as a a Neophyte wood worker. Thanks.
Tracer
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Green Cherry lumber HELP
Tracer,
The wood is a lot like black walnut. Very hard and dense, but with less inclusions. Our orchard is all grafted, and where the wood goes through the graft there is a significant color change from a dark walnut to a golden streaky color. Unusual to be sure. It planes nice and seems to be good to work with. I'm thinking this is a good excuse to buy a portable bandsaw mill. Of course the bigger problem in marketing the wood is properly drying and storing it beforehand. Thanks for the input.
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