The Lumber Guy

Monday, March 26, 2007

Never sell lumber to:


1. Family members

2. People from your church

3. People from whom you buy lumber

A fellow called and wondered if he could trade some walnut for some cherry. He had sawn several logs and had run short of cherry for a floor. I said it was generally a bad idea to do that. I’d tried this early in my lumber career. The problem is that I have to buy at wholesale and sell at retail to make a living, so people usually get less lumber than they give me and feel cheated. This was a perfect example. He would bring me air dry wood of lesser value and receive kiln dried wood of higher value.

“I understand that,” he assured me. “You tell me what it’s worth and if it breaks even, fine and if not I’ll pay the difference.”

We had lots of cherry and no walnut at the time so I reluctantly agreed he could bring the lumber over. He brought a pickup load of walnut. A few days later I went through it—all low grade, and no end coating so there were end checks. The sawyer sawed it just a little thin.

I told his answering machine his 300 BF of walnut would buy 100 of cherry. He needed 250 to finish his floor so he’d have to pay for 150 BF of cherry. That’s a pretty good deal, unless you are trying to get a cherry floor for almost nothing. He decided he’d take his walnut back.

I learned this valuable lesson: people (like me) who don’t learn from experience are doomed to repeat their mistakes.