PAR

[jfc]

I dont understand why you think i am lucky . Both my local yards will mill up what i want when i want . Even if i buy 4ths and 5ths and need them re sized they will just do it there and then .
I doubt its because i put more money through them than some of you guys do so what could it be that gets me this special treatment Maybe because i go to the yard and have a laugh with the guys in the mill rather than getting in with a rep , i do that too ? I really dont know i'm just telling it as it is with me

[jonnyd]

I occasionally buy PAR myself. I get laminated oak sections for doors and windows comes straight and true everytime and you just order the lengths from stock sizes of 2.1m 2.4m 3m and 3.6m taken with a short length for rails so they can get rid of there short sections. I have done the maths on this and it is actually cheaper than buying rough sawn 3 inch oak.

If i want hardwood PAR it is not cost effective as it only starts getting reasonably priced on an order of 100m and gets cheaper at 250m and 500m and for most of my jobs i dont need that much.

I am with Mr G in that i prefer to do it myself picking the best bits for the job from the shortest lengths Also if I am doing some furniture or a kitchen I need to have control of which planks are to be used for each component so i can cut the planks for colour and grain match and have the same grain running through a row of cupboards or to create a visual effect avoid defects etc. If you are providing one off items i feel this is what the customer is paying a premium for.

[gazza]

Dec 7, 2008 13:09:28 GMT engineerone said:

i think that you will find many of the enquiries about buying pt's are based on what one ought to do, not necessarily on what is both practical and time saving.

however, if you are doing different jobs each week, then in all likelihood par is a better economic decision.

so i'm along with dom and jason
paul

woops, hit the button by mistake.

Paul i think you are missing my point, being, that most members ask if it would be worth buying their own planer as the costs of buying hardwood and getting it planed up are very expensive.
In most cases the answer is yes it would.

If you are doing different jobs each day or week, all the more reason to prepare the timber yourself.
How much time would be spent at the woodyard explaning what you need ?

[engineerone]

no gazza i don't think i did miss your point.

1/ obviously it depends on the relationship that you have with the yard, and knowing jason his is quite good ;D

2/ i assume that everybody has a cutting and finished size list
you have to take time to produce this, and then whether you do it yourself, or take it to a yard, i think you take the same time in both situations. not suggesting you get the yard to cut to length, but mill the wood to the dxw that you need.

i therefore stand by the point made by jason, dom and i that in many cases it is actually more cost effective.

paul

[jfc]

How much time would be spent at the woodyard explaning what you need ?

About as long as it takes to say it
Maybe i am special , Dom keeps telling me i am and so does my mum so it must be true !
I do have a PT and use it if i want to break down my stock for a job but its no money spinner . Fun to do now and then but unless i can get sawn for less than half the price of PAR then its not worth it .

[Dan Tovey]

It depends on the job.

This week I'm making a solid walnut sideboard. It will all come out of 1" sawn stock but componants will be machined to a variety of widths, with the carcass sides and top glued up from whatever width boards I have.

I will want to select the nicest boards for the top and the door frames, with the inferior ones going inside. I also want the thickest finished timber that I can manage. I will be aiming for 23mm - the timber yard would plane it all to 19mm.

Quite obviously, I must machine the timber myself.


After Christmas, I am making a kitchen with oak doors and drawer fronts on bought-in MFC cabinets. For this job, I will buy PAR for the door frames to save time.

And if it's no good, I'll send it straight back!

[lynx]

I've been on the phone to the supplier. They are going to send out sawn boards for me to finish the items I need. Not the result i wanted but it gets the job done

[mooretoolsplease]

At least something has been resolved with this, fingers crossed it wont ost you too much in time to sort yourself.
Just to ptu some numbers on things, most of my standard frames are made from meranti/shorea. Doesnt particularly matter which, as they are sold as hardwood.
typically these are from 3x2 and 4x2, with a 6" cill.
I buy in 4x2 PAR for £3.59 per metre. For me to buy the sawn timber, assuming no waste, and the cu. ft. price of £23.25 the price for the same metre of 4x2 is £4.18.
This isnt unique to 4x2, this is the same across all of the sizes I buy.
The 95% of the timber I buy in is straight, square and to dimension within .25mm.
for those that think its cheaper to buy in sawn timber than PAR, would you care to explain this

Matt

[mrgrimsdale]

Dec 8, 2008 10:59:02 GMT mooretoolsplease said:

At least something has been resolved with this, fingers crossed it wont ost you too much in time to sort yourself.
Just to ptu some numbers on things, most of my standard frames are made from meranti/shorea. Doesnt particularly matter which, as they are sold as hardwood.
typically these are from 3x2 and 4x2, with a 6" cill.
I buy in 4x2 PAR for £3.59 per metre. For me to buy the sawn timber, assuming no waste, and the cu. ft. price of £23.25 the price for the same metre of 4x2 is £4.18.
This isnt unique to 4x2, this is the same across all of the sizes I buy.
The 95% of the timber I buy in is straight, square and to dimension within .25mm.
for those that think its cheaper to buy in sawn timber than PAR, would you care to explain this

Matt

I'd explain this as a very odd pricing policy from your supplier. ;D Maybe he gets the PAR and the sawn stuff from different sources, or there is some other difference, grade or something?

[engineerone]

more tools i make no attempt to answer your point, however as i have said before, we a couple of years ago, looked for some internal doors, which we wanted pre-painted.

these are like hen's teeth in the sheds. however we found some really nice doors, in a small outlet, but they were all hardwood, coming from indonesia, ready made. now i personally do not want to paint hardwood, it is a waste. but when i asked about softwood doors, they quoted twice the price

i somehow though do not see woodyards operating like tesco and doing loss leaders, however, i can see that it might actually be imported in par sizes, and thus is cheaper

paul

[dom]

For the disbelievers, here is my Math.
These prices are based on buying at least 10 cubic feet, I would normally have ordered at least 100 or in cubic metres but for the sake of simplicity it has been broken down to cubic feet.
1 cu.ft of European Oak, inch and a half rough sawn
To the unsure a cubic foot is a board 12' by 12" by 1"
Cost £32.00
30% loss add £9.60 = £41.60
Add machinists time, the fact that the are around him is idle, electricity, wear and tear, blades. Lets be generous and say £20.00+£41.60=£61.60
If we're lucky we end up with a 12' foot board, or more likely two 6' by 9" by 1"and a quarter.
My supplier will sell me exactly this for £12.00 a linear metre which works out at about £72.00 per cube
So £72.00-£61.60= £9.40
It's costing me £9.40 more for about 30 minutes work.
If you're not earning £18.80 an hour( remember that's gross) you need to find another trade.

[gazza]

Ok done a bit of ringing around today to compare prices,
I have a job coming up that requires 32 cubic ft of 8" x 1.5" and 38 cubic ft of 5"x 1" Iroko.
PAR sizes to be 175mm x 32mm and 100mm x 19mm

A few didn't do any machining at all ( the one i use included)

So outfit number 1,

8" x 1.5" sawn £885.83
PAR £ 1431.90
£546.07 to machine
5" x 1" sawn £954.80
PAR £ 1485.00
£530.20 to machine

Outfit number 2

8" x 1.5 " sawn £941.70
PAR £ 1720
£778.30 to machine
5" x 1" sawn £1155.00
PAR £1738.00
£583.00 to machine

Both of these hardwood suppliers are not local to me but will deliver free and will need 2 weeks notice for machining. They do all the machining in house.

I also rang the supplier who i know uses an outfit that shoves it through a 4 sider, in banana out banana as Dom says. The quality of their stock isn't great either, so i wouldn't dream of giving them the order, anyway their price was

8" x 1.5" sawn £890.00
PAR £1000.00
£110.00 to machine
5" x 1" sawn £878.00
PAR £1153.00
£275.00 to machine

So i can understand that if outfit number 3 had good machinists their price would certainly justify buying it PAR, but not so for outfits 1 and 2 at £1076.27 and £1361.30.

[jfc]

Even your cheapist place is over the top .
Do you guys put in orders nearly every week ? Maybe thats why some of us get it cheaper

[lynx]

i paid £500 for machining but that was around 3 cubic metres of hardwood.

[Sgian Dubh]

I charge 0.8 hours labour per cubic foot of rough sawn wood to square it PAR. Therefore, for example, initial dimensioning of 10 ft³ = 8 hrs.

You can slice and dice the arithmetic anyway you like after that depending on what you charge per hour. I charge this on top of a mark up on the purchase cost of the timber. My mark up over purchase cost is usually 50%, but sometimes I mark up by 100%. This is to cover my expenses in getting the wood, plus profit.

Therefore 10 ft³ @ £30 a foot= 300. Add 50% mark up which comes to £150. Resale price = £450.
Add 8 hours machining at your labour rate, eg, £40 per hour = £320

Total to customer is £450 + 320 = £770, plus any tax you charge, or not as the case may be.

I find it hard to imagine how a furniture business could find the initial machining of wood and board materials unprofitable. It is only unprofitable if you dan't charge for it, or don't charge enough, and reselling timber is only unprofitable if you don't mark it up, as you should.

This is not to say that there are times when it is better to get someone else to do the initial machining of your materials. I have done that many times; I simply charge whatever it costs to get the job done and resell it with a mark up of 50% to 100%, depending on the job.

Slainte.

*Edit. PS. I should have included the information that the hourly rate I gave, ie, 0.8 hrs per ft³, applies where grain selection and machining accuracy is especially finicky, such as for fine furniture. Lower charges are often suitable where this work is not so critical, eg, paint grade work and less pernickety joinery products; sometimes a figure of 0.5 hrs per ft³ is suitable.

[modernist]

Although I normally prep my ownn timber I did use PAR on my HD workshop units to save time, or so I thought.

One problem I had not forseen is that you are stuck with whatever seasoning and storage the yard decrees with some undesireable results.

On my metalwork bench the frame was square as made and by the time I came to fit the drawers was 8mm out owing to twisting of the timber while drying. The rear frame stayed true as it had a glued in MDF panel but I had to "cold set" the front with a long sash cramp overnight before I could fit the drawers.

If this had been rough sawn I would have left it in the building for a month or so before rough sawing to size and the problem would not have occurred.

cheers

Brian