is this a deal? Maple lumber

[Brad Gobble]

Local guy dropped some trees 5 years ago and had it rough cut at a local sawmill. Mostly (90%) Western Maple, mostly 4/4, nothing wider than 6" wide, stickered and air drying under cover. Lumber pile is 25 layers, 8 to 10 feet long, 5 feet wide. He's asking less than $1800 for it all.

Quick calculation appears to be ~1200 BF. Assuming 10% waste and gaps in the pile we are just over 1000 bf. Is $1.80 BF worth it?

My most pressing project is a BenchCrafted style Shaker workbench. If I can milk enough 8/4 maple from the pile to make a decent top (~60 bf) and another 60bf or so for the cabinet beneath it. I then have a LOT left over.

I have storage as well but not enough room to store stickered. Can I flat stack it now?

Thoughts?

[James Phillips]

I do not think it is that great of a deal. Not bad, but to me not great. It could depend on location though. Based on the numbers you show I think you could be over estimating the amount of wood in the pile. I guess it would be about 800 bdft given a little space between each board.

[Clisby Clark]

Here in GA, I'm paying around $2/bf for clear maple. I don't have anywhere near room enough to store that much wood and the price is too close to retail for me to have any interest. I'm not familiar with Western Maple, though.

[scott vroom]

This thread might help:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?8034-Types-of-Maple

[Chris Fournier]

I don't think that this is much of a deal and it could actually turn out to be a disaster. If this maple has not been dried very carefully you could have lots of "sticker stain" which would pretty much turn the lot into paint grade. Don't forget that this lumber is mill run not graded F&S and the two are really apples and oranges. as as been pointed out, you should be able to get top grade sap white and better hard maple for very close to this price from a distributor.