Lumber grading - the very basics GUESS THE GRADE

[FredP]

Originally Posted by jeff...

Wow Fred you da man there, does your wife know you are da man?

Your right it's #1 common and if I were to rip the pith out, it would become FAS at 7" wide x 8' long. This is a good example why an edger and end trimmer are vital pieces of machinery in a FAS ~ Select yard. And the very reason why us other guys who don't have edgers and trimmer produce a lot of #1 common

yeh fred!!! akchooally it wasnt as much a guess as an ejukated obserashun! I worked in a few sawmills when i was younger and we used to rough grade our lumber as it was stacked and stickered. then the grader came by and we gots ta see how close we got! we got bonuses for gettin it right [ usualy a bag o redman! ] and the owner was pleased when we got it right too. all mthe FAS stuff was sold to the exporters and they had the big bucks!

fred

[jeff...]

Originally Posted by FredP

yeh fred!!! akchooally it wasnt as much a guess as an ejukated obserashun! I worked in a few sawmills when i was younger and we used to rough grade our lumber as it was stacked and stickered. then the grader came by and we gots ta see how close we got! we got bonuses for gettin it right [ usualy a bag o redman! ] and the owner was pleased when we got it right too. all mthe FAS stuff was sold to the exporters and they had the big bucks!

fred

Well remind me to get you a bag of redman

[FredP]

Originally Posted by jeff...

Well remind me to get you a bag of redman

no need fer that stuff these days but thanks fer the offer! might want a tour of the mill one day when its back up and runnin though. BTW I ran the edger!

[jeff...]

Originally Posted by FredP

no need fer that stuff these days but thanks fer the offer! might want a tour of the mill one day when its back up and runnin though. BTW I ran the edger!

Been a long time since I priced lumber - I have a list of suppliers that I used to use to help me figure out what the going rate was. So I poked around a little and found hardwood lumber prices have hit all time low prices, actually lumber prices are the lowest I've seen since I started paying attention to them about 3 years ago.

For the purpose of this thread I went out and looked up plain sawn White Oak lumber and found that kiln dried rough cut #1 Common is going for about $2.00 a board foot. Select is about $2.50 a BF and FAS about $3.00 a BF

Taking my 4/4 x 9" x 8' guess the grade board and imagining it were white oak instead of quarter sawn sycamore. The value of the board as it sits being a #1 common is about $12.00 (6 board feet times $2.00 a board foot). If I were to edge the board to make it into a FAS board it would measure 4/4 x 7" x 8' or 4.6 board foot with a value of $13.80 (4.6 board feet times $3.00 a board foot). Just by edging the board I could increase it's value by $1.80. That doesn't seem like much really when you price a nice edger at about $16,000. I would need to throw about 8900 boards like this one or about 45000 board feet through the edger just to re-coop the cost of the edger.

Now you know why you got a bag of redman Fred