Some contacted me about a cord of oak. But they would like my normal 15"-17" splits cut in half. What would you guys charge?
Several thoughts. I would get full payment up front. Once you cut in half you probably won't find another buyer. It will take quite a bit of time standing in front of a saw cutting down a cord worth of splits. When I cut my standard 16" smoking wood splits in half for bagged orders, I set up a stop block on my miter saw. Easy work, consistent cuts, but takes time. How many extra times will you have to touch the wood before pickup or delivery? Is this a repeat customer or one and done? I don't necessarily have the answer but it may help to get you there.
Thats quite a few cuts , I have been cutting some 18 inch splits in half for my smoker as well running them through the bandsaw. For this I am fine with it. If I had to make as many cuts as you are looking at I would probably use the miter saw. Might even consider a cheap one from maybe Horrible Freight or a used one that I don't care so much about and offset in the cost of the wood.
I keep short cut offs in ibc totes. I'd offer them that for about 25% more and see if they bite. I don't think I would go about cutting every single split in half and if I had to I would probably charge 75% more. If they did it once, they would see how much work is involved.
Take 25 splits and cut them. Measure time. Add your hourly rate to the cost of the wood and see if it makes any sense for you or buyer.
Tough call Personally I loathe quoting but it has to happen so...... Figure out how much time you think it's going to take including handling ect. Double it X what you want per hour.
How long did it take you to cut it the first time? add that much time to it again and charge accordingly. custom cut like that 100% prepay.
A few years back I bought a lil stove I wanted to try...it took 16" wood, mine was all cut to 20" then...I bought a big HF miter saw and ran almost every stick of wood I burnt that winter through the saw...PITA. That stove got sold the next summer just because I was done with cutting wood to length after that winter was over (4-5 cords used) still have the saw, make ya a deal on it Ohio dave ! I just had to trim 6" off my splits and tried cutting it off using my 660/32" bar with the wood held in a 1/3 cord rack, but I didn't care much for that either...I might have been able to tweak my system and make that work better though, dunno...
How soon do they need the wood? I don't think I would touch the order unless I had the logs and could do the original bucking into 8" rounds. Then I would charge at least 50% more for twice the bucking (over 16" lengths) and handling!
It’s all split now though. He’s probably looking at 3 to 4 times longer than what it originally took to cut. That’s a lot of handling.
I did this for a customer about six months ago (one rick). He had a Morso wood stove which takes 12" pieces max. Probably took me over a hour to lay out the pieces and cut 4" off. I gave all the chunks to my Dad to burn in his stove. Will never do this again. I'd have no problem cutting 12" if I had months of advanced notice and he was a regular customer. Haven't heard from him again--thankfully.
But the difference here is each split needs to be cut where the first time, it was logs being cut and then split. Way more saw work now and a pain to hold those splits down while you cut.
So…. they're small enough to use a miter saw this time. Clamp a block to the gate at 8-9” and chop them off. Probably be quicker other than the volume. I’d use an hourly rate of $85/hour at 3 hours and tag that to the cost of a cord of wood. prepay only.
My wood for sale is stored far away from any electricity so it would be load them up, haul them to the miter saw, unload, cut, and reload....a ton more work is all I'm saying no matter how much you charge.
Maybe tell them no rework of existing wood but offer a new custom order. Can still run 2 shorts through a splitter at once.
