Did a delivery for a new station today 94BULLITT on the other side of my home town. Just to give you an idea of how i do the bundles. I have a Harbor Freight cargo conveyor. Works great. The owner had actually bought this. First time for him selling wood. Ive made storage racks for stations before out of 2x4's/framing lumber etc. 30 bundles. Mostly ash cut and split from standing dead in January. Some red maple mixed in as well. I dont put handles on them. Always paid COD.
I can tell you take pride in your firewood. It is cut and split nice. The bundles look very professional. I looked into doing bundles a couple years ago. I found some post on other forums, were people said they were getting $2 a bundle. That is not worth it to me. I would consider doing it for $3.50. I happened to think of a small country store that is close to a camp ground and boy scout camp. I don't think I have ever seen bundles there. I also know a guy that has a Christmas tree farm. I don't know if he would sell bundles. I could probably get him to pick them up so that would save me from delivering and sell to him for a lesser cost. The thing holding me back from pursuing this is, I don't want to get a call, and someone say I need 10 bundles. That would not be worth my time to deliver. How do you work that? Do you deliver on a schedule? Do you have a minimum order quantity? I got a truck with an 8' bed and this year I am going to sell wood by the pickup load. I've been selling by the dump trailer load, I'll still do that too. I've been thinking about getting one of those HF bed unloaders. I've seen some videos of them and they look like they work good.
Those are nice bundles! We do about 200 cords a year at state parks and have found that our 2 cubic ft by volume bags outsell bundles about 6 to 1.....We are strictly retail and just give a cut to the Parks Department or friends group we are contracted with...and I have real time sales data so I know when they need refill so I get get there as they sell the last bag.....We gross about $1200 a true cord
Are you using a processor? Do you resplit after the wood is processed? Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
I would just dive in and give it a shot, assuming you don't have to invest in a bunch of additional equipment. After about 10 cords or so, you'll have figured out whether it's for you or not. I may sell some bundles here or there to locals, but a full scale cordwood operation, particularly if paying for the logs, would turn this thing that I still mostly enjoy, into real work, quickly. I'm trying to avoid real work, and just do productive stuff I enjoy, if I can get away with it.
94 Bullitt......we just buy seasoned split wood (medium to small splits) 17-22 inches long from local guys during their off season. We bring them bags 34x34x43 and a collapsible frame so they can split and hand toss into the bag to cut down on their labor (6.75 bags of tossed in equals a full 128 cu ft cord), then we skid steer to trailer, bring em home...dump bags onto our bagging table and bag and stack from there and then deliver when required.....my money is invested in the delivery/sales system...we just have a splitter for sticks that are too fat and chain saw if they are too long. So my cost of wood is artificially high.... when we get a bigger place, we will have tree guys just drop off the wood they were going to chip or burn to get rid of and then buy the processing equipment to do it ourselves.....but including, wood, bags, bagging, transportation, cut to the parks or friends groups and swipe fees, the profit is more than $6 a bag.
Sorry I just saw this message. It did not come up on the tapatalk app on my phone. That is really interesting. I would have never guessed that you bought all of your wood. You have a good system with the bags. That way you know how much wood you are getting. I bet it keeps you busy bagging and delivering the wood. How hard is it to dump the big bags? I have a hard time getting my rounds close enough to my splitter and conveyor, that it set up at my pile. Maybe I could get some bags and set the splitter and conveyor at the rounds, with a bag under the conveyor. Then I could dump the bags on the pile. I always like to hear how others run their operation. I'm always looking for ways to improve. Me and my Dad cut for 3hrs Saturday. Of course the 2 saws I chose to run Saturday we giving me problems. To finish up the day, the rope broke on my clone MS660 saw so I was done then. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
That is a lot of wood! We just skid steer to the table and tilt... gravity does all the rest...here is the bagging table
I use a tractor with a log grapple to move the logs from the pile. I made a video of cutting Saturday. I'll post it in this thread once I am finished. Here is a video of my grapple.
I am hoping for over 4 cords. I've spent a little time the past couple of nights splitting. Are you using something like Dino bags?
In a previous post you said you have difficulty getting the rounds to the splitter. If you don’t cut as much at one time, you can carry the logs right to the splitter with your grapple, cut a relatively small amount then split those then repeat.
I cut a bunch because it is a pain to cut for an hour, then split, then cut again. It works better if you can devote your time to doing one things. One thing holding me back is the size of the area that I process the logs in. I need a bigger more open place. This is the first load I have used the log grapple on, so I am still figuring things out. I was planning on trying to use my root grapple to move the rounds to the splitter. I think what I really need is a skeleton bucket. I have a path cleared now where I can get the tractor to the splitter.
Everyone needs to find what works for them but putting down the saw and firing up the log splitter doesn’t require any more lost time than starting the saw back up after just moving logs around. In time I’m sure you’ll find what works best for you.
A lot of the times when I cut, I may only have an hour. So if I cut for a half hour or 45 minutes, it is not worth it for me to get the splitter out. I tried using my root grapple tonight, to move rounds. It seemed like it worked pretty good, but a skeleton bucket would be better. I'm not sure how much time I actually spent splitting. I know I got out there at 7:00, but a friend came over I talked to them for a little bit. My pile of splits tonight seem pretty good for the time I spent. I don't feel as wore out as last night, when I was throwing and carrying the rounds to the splitter. If I split tomorrow, I am going to try the root grapple again.
I will. I made a video last night of moving rounds with the root grapple. I'll post it here once I edit it. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
