Rant for the day,

Don Baer

Moderator
Staff member
I went to one of the wood suppliers that I use today to get some wood for a project for the church. I need to make 14 plaques. each one will be 15x 16.5 and shaped like a shield. They will be painted so all I wanted was some clear wood that I could put together with a minimum amount of glue up. I selected some clear pine 9 " wide so I could get the width with 1 seam. Actauly the wood was 9.25" x 72" for the prototype. It was 5/4 thick. I figured 5.78 db.ft. at $3/bdft for clear pine came to $17.34. Now keep in mind I have bought well over a thousand of bd. ft. of other lumber from this supplier this year so he know me on site. They have recently had a change in ownership the father sold the business top the daughter so there is a change in management.
Any how when the clerk rang up the order his figereing was higher then mine by .6 bd ft. which admittly isn't much but it's the principle of the thing. He said they figered the bd. ft. based on the pre-milled width and my 9.25 boards started out as 10" wide. At the time I didn't say any thing but now it is really bugging me. I'll go back and give them the chance to make it right but I may be eliminating one of my suppliers from my list.
 
I've yet to figure out the board feet from my purchase today. Guess I'll go do that tomorrow and see how much I got ripped off.

It's one of those things where, eh, cherry doesn't really grow on trees around here, so I know I paid a higher price than the guys back east.

I expect to be disappointed by a few board feet at least... I will report back..
 
Don, it sounds like this could be part of that Trust thread. Bummer. Yeah it's unfortunate that most businesses act like "what have you done for me lately." I would expect them to give you a good price just because you say it's for the church. I'll be interested to see what kind of price and service I get next time
from the place I just bought all that Ash from.......

This is why when I buy big ticket tools, I deal with the manager at one particular store. If I talk to him I always get about 20% off, no matter what it is. Talk to anyone else, you get the price on the sticker.
:(
 
If it was S4S, I thought it was common to charge for the pre-milled size. Not necessarily cool, but fairly common. Still, for a customer who has spent as much money there as you have, they should be rounding numbers in your favor, not theirs. :rolleyes:
 
My yard charges pre-milled size on S4S. I do have to watch the one guy who is there off and on when I'm buying natural edge stuff as he has a tenancy to just measure and not look at what he is measuring. They measure natural edge at pre-milled (full quarter) thickness but actual width(?). They are on the lower end of the pricing swings for a given species so I'm OK with it. The next closets place with reasonable quality stock is over an hour round trip, my usual yard is 10 minutes away.
 
Sorry to hear this Don. You hit a nerve with me on that one. I share your experience.

The whole bdft concept is out of date to me. Wish someone would overhaul the industry and make it like everything else. Put a price on the piece of wood period. Then i know when i am looking if i feel that piece is of value or not to me as the consumer. I really dont like the Russian Roulette concept at the end. There have been more than one occassion where i have put the whole lot back and walked out because of huge difference of opinion as to the bdft and then the calculation that follows.

Perhaps the daughter is now feeling that Dad has been to generous over the years and is trying to make the place more viable who knows. Still no way to introduce a change in pricing policy.
 
Lumber is bought and sold by the board foot. All board foot measurements are the rough sawn size 1 x 12 by one foot = 1 board foot. Now if you really want to get your dander up go buy rough off a band mill. You will find that the board is 7/8" x 11.5". Band mills cut smother so less has to be planed off to have a finished board. The price is still the same and the log going into the mill is scaled the same as if it was going into a regular mill. Here's the cool part depending on the log the band mill can get 2 or 3 more boards out of it than they paid for. And yes we all pay for the planer shavings in our board foot. But at least if you want a bag of them it's going to cost you 4 bucks. :thumb::rofl::rofl:
 
Lumber is bought and sold by the board foot. All board foot measurements are the rough sawn size 1 x 12 by one foot = 1 board foot.

Which means it is also purchased for sale by the vendor at that same rate. All the way down the line from the standing tree to your hands.

If every board were marked by price individually, then the cost would be higher for the additional handling.

And there are vendors who sell by the finished dimensions. Their price per board foot is higher. Costs are always passed to the final consumer. Rounding UP has always been the norm. Reading the talley stick is where the real ripping off happens. Next time we meet I'll show you how they do that. Remind me to bring a talley stick along.

This exercise was an annual event for beginning classes when I taught woodworking in California. And it always was an eyeopener.

Sorry, Don.
 
Well, did a little checking around and I think the guys at my place had pretty fair prices, considering where I live. Nice clear pieces of Cherry 6' to 9' long, 4.58 per board foot. Haven't figured the board foot, but it 'looks' right to me. about 42bf.

And the cherry panels were 60$ a pop. Considering the price the borg wants for their warped plywood, I don't think it was that bad.

I'm sure folks can get better deals other places, but like they say, location, location, location...

I'll be going back soon. I see some bubinga in my future... (No reason, I just like saying 'Bubinga')
 
Guys, I hate to tell you but near all places figure BdFt by nominal sizes rounded UP to the nearest whole number. In thickness it is to the nearest Quarter. (Just like building materials are called 2X4s when we know 3.5 X 1.25) Most places figure the length to nearest foot (rounding UP)

This is not unusual or Cheating, as that is the way they paid for it. :(

However, I have found a few salespersons who will measure exact and do the math, but they are rare and hard to find. :thumb: Just like the farmer who puts in 13-14 ears of corn in the Dozen bag whilst the Grocery chain counts them to the kernal. It is all business as usual.
 
The other thing you'll find with trim is that they are selling it by the LF. Which has nothing to do with BF but you can bet you last dollar that it is more by the LF than the BF.
Just some food for thought, Don you say you have bought at least 1000 BF from the guy in the last year and fell as though that's a substantial amount of business for them.
They I'm sure have customers that go out of there yard with that amount every day.:eek:
 
I rarely buy wood, sometimes at the local Borg I'll get a few pieces of construction lumber...know I probably get ripped off, but they seem to price it by the piece, so I can do a fair estimate of what my project will cost.

When I do buy turning blanks, I go to my local lumber importer... they measure their wood by the finished sizes and usually charge a reasonable price per bd ft... the co-owner is kinda cute and really a sweetheart, so don't mind paying most of the time...her husband is a nice guy too but he does the hard work, she collects all the money... most of the time I buy chunks that are individually priced, rather than by the bd ft.

I'm not involved anymore, but as Chuck says, when I was working we bought lumber by the truck load, or train car load and on a big job, we've used a full carload of lumber in 3 or 4 weeks... I was in charge of the plywood importation...we brought it in from Brazil because it was cheaper than the local supplier... in a 4 to 6 month period, I had 67 20' containers.. each container would have 6 or 8 bundles of plywood.. and it was finer plywood than Georgia Pacific was selling... fewer voids in the layers. It was in metric sizes though rather than the imperial sizes most were used to.
 
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