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A fair price for rough cut wood?

Michael Edelman

Michael Edelman

Joined
Feb 26, 2021
Messages
81
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Location
Huntington Woods, MI
Website
michaeljedelman.com
A friend of a friend is emptying his parents’ house, which includes a lot of lumber and sawn and split pieces suitable for turning. Today I picked up this 4’ tall stack (which filled four 2’x2’x2’ poly sacks) with the plan to pick up more. There’s perhaps 200-300 lbs of wood there, all of it well seasoned. What’s a reasonable price to pay him for this?



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Difficult to say - lot of smaller chunks, but it looks to have a lot of variety. The question is ' a good price for whom?' It is as likely as not a liability for the family and simply the act of you hauling it away is a big deal. If it is made up of sizes and species you want and can easily use there is some value...I'm a bottom feeder - so would offer a small amount - however depending on circumstances might come up a bit. How good a friend they are, and if they'd be interested in receiving a turned piece in return would be a consideration too.

I recently had to clean out a family members house, and was happy to get *anything* for a lot of the things there.
 
Well, Me, I'd pay firewood price - Around here it's about $50-$70 a face cord ($50 if picked up, $70 delivered) I always would go on the assumption that most of it would be going for firewood or wood chips , there's little if any return on investment when buying wood for turning (and often even for flatwork) unless you are in a region or area where people don't mind paying a premium for handcrafted woodworks. So, it's pretty much either a hobby (in which case, pay whatever you're comfortable with and what they feel is fair) or a break even deal (pay as much as you think you might be able to get out of the resulting turnings less your time & expenses) Of course you can weigh that vs "how good of a friend are they and how much you want to help them out financially"
 
Yeah honestly I'd pay firewood prices but not much more. The reality is until you start turning it you have no idea how good any of it still is. Could be a ton of checking that you can't see and could end up with a lot of firewood anyway.
 
What is the value or perceived value to you? From there if you have the need put your value on it and try giving them that. If folks want to give me wood (whether it is good or not so good) and they want a bowl from it then that is what they want don't over think it.
 
Firewood price is good for me, and maybe offer them some turned pieces. I would expect a lot of it will end up as fire wood anyway. Most of the logs I get are firewood, and any value that is added would be because I make some thing out of it, not because the wood has extra value. There probably some pieces that would would be 'better'.

robo hippy
 
Offer a turned item or 2 and nothing else.
I get all I want for free and they even help me fell/cut it up and load it. I cut logs up into 32-36 inch lengths (have tractors with loaders all locations so sometimes in 6-8 foot length), bring it home. Some gets cut lengthwise beside the pith as much as possible then sealed. Most gets split up as firewood, I only keep pieces that have character. Majority of my wood is red oak, ash and some elm so nothing fancy.
 
Michael Edelman said:
This is the next batch. Mostly smaller pieces. Those racks are about 4” wide and 6’ tall.
Click to expand...
Since it is a friend, ask them what they want for it. And figure out if it is of value to you. If not, offer to help sell it to local clubs.
 
IMHO - your friend has already told you that he doesn't want to name the price. Look at the wood. Ignore the stuff you wouldn't have bought from any other source. This is seasoned wood? Like 3 years or 1? If it's 3 years old and sound I'd count the stuff that I am pretty sure I would use and give him $1 apiece plus something turned from the lot. If you DON'T see pieces that you are pleased to have, or if it's seasoned firewood but not seasoned turning stock, well, that's a whole different thing. From the pictures it looks like someone painted the ends and those pieces don't seem badly checked. The unsplit birch? $0.
But this is just what I'd do. Among the best and oldest of friends? I would far rather over pay a friend by $50 than realize later that he didn't feel fairly treated.
 
My first photo was just some of the wood. There was a lot of sawn wood as well, and some really nice material. I think we ended up taking around 180 pieces for which we paid $500, or less than $3/piece.
 

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It takes time, effort, equipment and tools to build up a varied selection of wood blanks and logs for lathe turning. A one-time investment
of $500.00 on an existing wood stash is a good deal. You saved yourself a lot of time and effort with this one acquisition.
 
Mike Johnson said:
It takes time, effort, equipment and tools to build up a varied selection of wood blanks and logs for lathe turning. A one-time investment
of $500.00 on an existing wood stash is a good deal. You saved yourself a lot of time and effort with this one acquisition.
Click to expand...


This was very much our thinking. The wood had been collected over many decades by a skilled craftsman and was all well seasoned.
 
I split the stash with Mike and provided the trailer to transport it. I already have a decent stash of domestic wood from the woods on my property, but I was thrilled to get this stuff. It's definitely NOT firewood! I got a bunch of good sized mahogany blanks, maple, sycamore, elm, osage orange, birch, and several log sections I haven't identified yet. I'm gonna let this stuff acclimate to my "shop" (garage) for a while before I do anything with it.
 
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