Lumber milling rate to charge?

Question

I have the oppurtunity to plane and join a load of various tropical hardwods. Mostly Cocobol and Mahogany and need to figure out what rate/bf to charge. I techincally won't be charging the person but doing the milling as a trade for some of the wood.

What I was thinking was setting a price/board foot, for example $1/bf. Then take the average market price of the lumber to arrive at my %. So say the wood was $10/bf for every 10 bf I would get 1 bf. This formula does not account for blade resharpening and wear and tear.

Any ideas on what to charge and if this seems like a good approach would be helpful. I'm not lookking to make money on the deal, rather spend a little of my time and hopefully walk away with a couple of 100 BF on nice wood on my lumber rack.

Thanks

Hambone Slim · Accepted Answer

Instead of a bf rate, why not figger 45/hr + $100 blade charge + fuel surcharge if you're doing any pu & delivery? Come up with a price your time and materials were worth, then ask for your fair share of the booty accordingly.

-- Timothy Juvenal

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arw01 · Answer

If a hobbiest figure what your time is worth. A local shop will charge like $60.00 and hour + tool wear. This type of wood will wear out knives and tools, figure that in also and the time to replace the blades, ship them, drive them.

It would cost the owner a few hundred to buy a decent lunchbox planer, then they need dust disposal as Cocobola is a cargingen and having that dust/chips could cause you trouble without good chip collection.

Jointing is about $0.50 to $1.00 a bf at the local yard, so I think you are low.

Alan

Lumber milling rate to charge?

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