How is the price of logs calculated?

Question

If you are buying logs, is the price of these logs determined by their weight? Thickness? I'm specifically wondering about birch trees.

Answer 1

I work at an OSB mill, and the price is based on how much the logs weigh.  The trucks are weighed with a full load of logs and weighed again after the logs are unloaded.

  

I've never worked in a lumber mill, but they may set the price on the quality of the logs.  Straighter logs will make more pieces of lumber than bent/crooked logs, but this is just an assumption.

Answer 2

I think there are determined by their weight...

Answer 3

Basically diameter and length are taken into consideration. For some purposes knots are subject to discount, but when we get to hardwoods that have some real beauty associated with knots and curved grain, they may be a premium,,, as in bird's eye maple.

Logs that have been well seasoned and show no deep cracking will bring a premium compared with newly cut logs. We used to have hardwoods cut square, piled and banded to prevent cracking over a period of 4 to 6 years (depending on how hot the market got.) That was mostly walnut.

A log that shows marks indicating that it fell across another log, or on a rock, is likely to be priced as though it were cut at that location, or a bit worse.

Diameter adds more to price than just more wood. It alters how the wood can be cut and used.

Answer 4

according to the qualities, specimen and quantity of the log

Answer 5

Here in Bolivia - it is by the type of timber ( $$ ) firstly and then by the cubic meter,  A typical 40' truck will deliver about 22 cubic meters of timber to the sawmill.  Commercial timber species here go from about  $90 to $300 per cubic meter.

The more expensive logs be the tropical hardwoods and these have greater weights per cubic meter.  

Birch if I recollect correctly from my time in Ireland be one of those products you would have to go to the yard and have a haggle with the administrator for the price as it truely depends on quantity required, quality required, length required, etc.

Answer 6

The price of logs are based on the number of board feet of lumber they will yield. And of course the type of log, for example a walnut log is a lot more valuable than a pine log.

Answer 7

logs are "scaled" at cutting to determined board feet in the log...not the weight of the log

Answer 8

how many there is in a pile