Replies

1. 
   MisterT | Jul 18, 2002 03:06am | #1

   We just got some WRC 2x4s & 4x4s for a deck rail system. the lumber yard priced 2x4x10'  A & btr at 32$ a piece! They found some C&btr for 19$.

   Glad I'm not paying for it!

   I just have to cut it up!

   Measure twice, then ddouble and triple check!

   Mr T

   Do not try this at home!

   I am a trained professional!

2. 
   FrankB89 | Jul 18, 2002 03:08am | #2

   Sounds a little pricey to me here in the Northwest, but most of the high-grade clear tight-grain WRC is coming out of British Columbia so maybe the tariff factor is coming in to play.

    

3. 
   Piffin | Jul 18, 2002 03:16am | #3

   "What's up?"

   You are trying to buy a rare and valuable commodity in small quantity. For clear I've been paying up to $6/BF in Maine and New Hampshire. Don't forget that you are paying for shipping from the left caost too.

   Excellence is its own reward!
1. 
   rez | Jul 18, 2002 04:58am | #4

   and some of you guys wonder why people salvage old houses.Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.

4. 
   TurtleBoy | Jul 18, 2002 05:35am | #5

   Here in southern RI, you could try a number of different lumber yards or call Liberty Cedar. They have an 800# and used to listed in FHB. I'm sure that they deliver to most if not all southern NE and parts of NY. I have only needed small quantities when I've gone there. The cedar is costly but they have the best selection.

   Good luck, and remember to ask them to convert the price from board foot to linear if that will make it easier to compare against other suppliers.

   Turtle boy 

5. 
   observer | Jul 18, 2002 06:18am | #6

   You are buying a premium grade of a scarce premium softwood subject to freight from the other side of the continent and the beloved softwood tariff. It's going to be pricey. With that in mind, your prices don't really look that bad compared to what it sells for here at the source (provided you don't include the currency exchange).

   Kiln dried, rough, clear vertical grain cedar (boat planking grade) 1" and 2" x 6" and wider is currently going for $6.50 per board foot, Canadian dollars

6. 
   KCPLG | Jul 18, 2002 06:56am | #7

   Hard to believe that back in the early part of the century cedar was considered worthless and was left laying in the clearcuts just the douglas fir was taken out to the mill. My last property was logged in the 1940's and all the cedars that were left on the ground were still solid enough to take to the mill when ever I needed cedar for anything. Most of them were 2 to 3 feet at the butt and hardly a knot. I used most of it up prior to selling the place 2 years ago.

   kevin

1. 
   KenHill3 | Jul 18, 2002 08:24am | #8

   Here in the Northwest I've demo'ed some walls in old houses where the shiplap sheathing was all cedar.

   Ken Hill

1. 
   MisterT | Jul 18, 2002 01:10pm | #9

   Okay all,

   The next logical question is...

   What , if anything, is a more economical and more available alternative to WRC for ext. railings and such?

   MrTDo not try this at home!

   I am a trained professional!

1. 
   vasalesman | Jul 18, 2002 02:32pm | #10

   T, your earlier post about the price difference between "A" grade & "C" grade is part of the answer.  Ordering selected length when random will work is also.  As a salesman & not a (real) builder, I've sold lots of WRC over the years that I know was overspec'd for the intended purpose.  Decent STK cedar is very useable for plenty of work.  When a customer tells me he needs 25pcs of 1x12-16 S4S A grade cedar, I will push to find out how it's being used to see if a less expensive option exists.  If not, the guy's gonna get sticker shock.  If he tells me he's cutting it down to smaller pieces & only one side is going to be seen, or it doesn't need to be completely clear, that a small knot here & there is OK, well that just saved him a pile of cash.  Effective & economical buying of WRC requires clear communication between the builder & the supplier.  Come to think of it, what product doesn't?  But that's another subject altogether.  Lengths, knots or lack thereof, dry or KD, surfacing, overall order size are all factors.  High end WRC is expensive.  It's also durable, beautiful, & somewhat limited in availability.  Most building products are ultimately governed by "you get what you pay for".

   As far as alternatives, here in VA, ipe is gaining a good foothold but it's fairly pricey also.  Mahogany is used often & isn't quite so expensive.  I personally don't enjoy selling it though as I feel it is misrepresented.  Yes, it is mahogany but it's from southeast Asia & Indonesia instead of South America.  The same logs made into plywood are often called lauan.  Sometimes they only makes it into pallets.  This stuff just isn't furniture mahogany, which is what most folks are anticipating.  The durability is not so great either.  Deck & porch guys here have been moving toward more man made products.  Lots of composite flooring, PVC boards & trim, and aluminum & PVC railings are being installed.  The funny thing is they often cost more than anything else.  Labor can be lower though without needing to paint or getting preassembled rails.  Maintenance costs can be much lower for the owner too, which is another selling feature.

   Al

7. 
   Mooney | Jul 18, 2002 03:12pm | #11

   Pay the man and quit your companin. I cant even get what you are talking about . WE use knots here .

   Tim Mooney

1. 
   Boxduh | Jul 18, 2002 07:04pm | #12

   Thanks for everyone's input.  I checked my invoices and quotes from previous housebuilding projects, and the current pricing I have for this little furniture project (a double Adirondack chair with integral cocktail table between the seats) is fair.  We trimmed out our last two houses in STK WRC, had deliveries come straight to the jobs here all the way from Winthop, WA, and so the price for the clear grade seemed high at first glance.  Boards are on order, and should deliver tomorrow.  I am making full-sized patterns today for all the bandsaw work.

1. 
   Redfly | Jul 18, 2002 07:17pm | #13

   There are lots of places here in the NW where you can see stumps in the middle of parks, etc, where someone has come in the middle of the night and cut down an old-growth cedar and carried it off. Tree poachers.

   I can look out my back window and see three nice WRC trees not 25' from my window. hmmmmmm, better keep an eye on them.

1. 
   jimblodgett | Jul 19, 2002 12:06am | #14

   I can't resist telling this.

   A few years ago I hired a local sawyer to mill a bunch of fir logs I stumbled my way into.  Later that year he calls me and asks if I'd be interested in buying some old growth cedar.  Seems a neighbor of his had an old, and I mean old, cedar log wash up on his lawn in a flood and wanted it gone.  The sawyer wondered if I'd be interested?

   So I go take a look and there's this log, about 20 feet long, maybe four foot in diameter and the center is rotton.  So soft you could stick your hand in it.  Snakes living in there and everything.

   BUT (notice how big that "but" is?) around the outside was sound, although it was hard to determine just how much good lumber that old log might yield.  So we settled on him bucking it in half, to ten foot lengths and milling as much VG 2 x whatever width he could get without milling the sides...I hate to admit he was tickled I agreed to pay him $200.00 for whatever I might get out of the deal.  Turned out to only yield about 400 board feet of 2 x stock. 

   This stuff turned out the darkest, most beautiful WRC I've ever worked with.  I just used some of it for exterior window and door casing on a house we're remodelling.  Now I'm gonna resaw all the rippings from cleaning up the sides of the boards into 5?16" cedar panels for doors and various cabinetry for the same house.  Life is good.

   Brinkman for president in '04

1. 
   MisterT | Jul 19, 2002 12:10am | #15

   Crazy legs,

   OK I'll bite. Who is Brinkman?

   Mr TDo not try this at home!

   I am a trained professional!

2. 
   Redfly | Jul 19, 2002 12:27am | #16

   Jim,

   A similar story:

   My brother used to be a builder in Lake Tahoe, and one year a local lumber yard went down the tubes and sold off all the lumber in the yard. There was a stack of slimy old black lumber way out in the back 40 with about 50 years accumulation of rotten tarping on it. The pile was about 3' x4' x20', and nobody seemed to know anything about it. My brother buys it for something like $50. Turns out it was OLD OLD growth CVG redwood 1x12s. He runs the stuff through a planer and it turns out to be drop-dead beautiful, - growth rings about 1/16" apart.

   He used a lot of it to side his new house and I made some furniture out of some of it.

   Makes me cry just thinking about it.

   I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have never even seen a piece of CVG old growth redwood - its a thing of beauty, but the trees are soooo majestic and mystical that I get chills just thinking about them getting cut down.

   Wasn't there a tree called Southern Long-Leaf Pine or something that has now gone extinct but used to cover a lot of the Eastern US?

   Anybody know what I'm talking about?

3. 
   Mooney | Jul 19, 2002 01:53am | #17

   The long leaf pine is gone in the south where it is raised. They went to loblolly , and you builders dont want it.

   Tim Mooney

4. 
   Piffin | Jul 19, 2002 04:31am | #18

   Virgin Long-Leaf pine is Heart Pine lumber. Therer is still about 150,000 acres in production but on plantations. Not extinct but the limber from it isn't the same because the growth rings aren't as close as the old virgin growth.

   Excellence is its own reward!

5. 
   jimblodgett | Jul 19, 2002 05:23am | #19

   Nice score.  I love finding treasure like that, or the tools you stumble on in the classified ads or at auctions.

   Mr. T - I pity the fool that doesn't know who Smokey Brinkmann is.  The man is an innovator, for sure. 

   Brinkmann for president in '04

6. 
   SgianDubh | Jul 19, 2002 05:31am | #20

   I'm a fool too. Who------ or what, is Smokey Brinkman?  Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture

7. 
   jimblodgett | Jul 19, 2002 06:40am | #21

   Smokey Brinkmann is a working class hero.  A leader in his industry who...wait a second...are you even registered to vote in this country? For cryin' out loud.  Wait 'till Adrian sees this. 

   That's it.  I'm complaining to the webmaster...ANDY!  HEY ANDY!Brinkmann for president in '04

8. 
   joeh | Jul 19, 2002 07:15am | #22

   Jim, I have a small flitch of Brazilian Rosewood. It's about 6" wide by 6' long. Maybe 8 pieces left.

    I bought it about 25+ years ago from a cabinet maker who had moved out here to Southern Calif from Michigan. He decided (correctly too I realize now) that this place sucked. He packed his tools, but sold me some of his veneer as he figured it wasn't worth the hassel of shipping it back.

   It looks like the fake wood you see in a Cadillac dash, beautiful dark tight swirley grain with orange highlights. Lot of oil in it, bleeds through most finishes I tried when I was ruining large chunks of if when I was young and dumb.

   I haven't used any of it in a long time,it's in my  someday  stash for the someday projects.  Joe H

9. 
   SgianDubh | Jul 19, 2002 05:30pm | #24

   "wait a second...are you even registered to vote in this country?"

   Nope, but I was curious. Slainte. RJ.RJFurniture

10. 
    MisterT | Jul 19, 2002 01:57pm | #23

    I still don't know who he is but it would be cool to have a pres named Smokey.

    couldn't be any worse than the last half a dozen Bozos,

    TDo not try this at home!

    I am a trained professional!