How Much is an Apple Tree Log Worth?

[Mark Wyatt]

This is an offshoot of some other threads discussing apple lumber.

I can acquire this apple tree log. It is freshly felled after damage in a storm. This is the main trunk section and it is 25' long, tapering from 12" to 7". If my calculations are correct (and they probably aren't), I think I can get about 50bf of useful lumber from this log, assuming a 50% loss ratio which seems right from what I've read about apple. Can anyone check that calculation?

What do you think a reasonable offer would be for this log?

[Chris Fournier]

Having bought a lot of logs over the years I would say that that log is not really "worth" anything in a commercial lumber sort of way. The heart is punk, the diameter is too small to yield any useful heartwood and it is mad full of defect. This would be a turner's find, not a lumber find. I would say that the log is worth firewood value at most. Harsh but fair.

[george wilson]

You are harshing his mellow,Chris!!!! Too bad there is so much discoloration. That is a common problem with apple.

[Mark Wyatt]

Thanks again to SMC members from saving me from committing costly errors. This is exactly what I need to know. I'll pass on this log and keep looking. Several local sawyers I contacted will mill a suitable log if I find one, but they are not in the business of sourcing apple lumber.

[robert raess]

I think it has value for turners, if you want to go that route..lots of guys go with $15 large box with USPS, and a healthy pc. of apple in that size box you could get $15-$30 size is approx.4-5"x 12"

[Joshua Clark]

There's some good wood in there for sure, not enough to mill into boards, and there's a lot of sapwood there, but enough good wood for small thing like planes, tool handles, turning blanks. Apple is wonderful to work with and makes excellent tools. If you can get it for free or not much, I'd say go for it. Apple checks like hell so whatever you do with it, get it cut/split and the ends sealed quick.

A neighbor of mine cut down an apple similar in size to that one. I got the bottom three pieces before another guy hauled them away for firewood. I offered to trade him 3:1 oak for apple but he already had the other stuff in his truck and he wouldn't unload. I got my few pieces home and opened them up to find they had beautiful figure. I wish I managed to get the rest of that tree..

Josh

[David Weaver]

When I was a kid, we used to drive through the orchards north of gettysburg (i think there are 20 some thousand acres of them up there) and from time to time, we'd see all of the trees tipped over. That was about 25+ years ago now, and those were larger trees. What's there now is nothing by the pygmy sized trees, and those trees will never make more than a chisel handle sized tool.

I'll bet that the large majority of those trees that were tipped over when they were mature were just burned. There is so much oak and large hardwoods around us down there that we never would've bothered to go fart around with those trees even for firewood. The trunks weren't long, since they were planted orderly with plenty of space, maybe they'd have been no good.

I'm with george - I'd never bother to cut that log for lumber. It's not got enough heart to quarter for planes, and if you flatsaw an apple tree, you'll have a new benchmark in mind when someone describes wood that twists and cracks. You could take some of the trunk can cut it into blanks, and see if you can figure out what to do with it later. Save plenty of margin, because you'll have surface cracks.

When mine was drying, I glued the cracks with CA. I wouldnt' want to do that on a large scale, but it started to get deep cracks almost immediately.

[Mark Wyatt]

Thanks for the advice David. Maybe I'll have another photo to post soon. A friend called and let me know about another downed apple tree and the owner sent me an e-mail saying he wants to get rid of it. We'll see.

When I was young in Western New York, we used to help out an older gentleman who had three enormous apple trees in his yard. It's a while ago, but I remember needing a long ladder to reach the lowest branch. My mom would make applesauce from the apples. Some where the size of small pumpkins. My brother, sister and I would take the largest to school for show and tell.

Wow. It just occurred to me that my dad remodeled a room for that gentleman and my mom cleaned his house every couple of weeks for years and I think the only payment they ever got was apples from his trees. It was just what you did in those days. Different times...

[David Weaver]

When I was young in Western New York, we used to help out an older gentleman who had three enormous apple trees in his yard. It's a while ago, but I remember needing a long ladder to reach the lowest branch. My mom would make applesauce from the apples. Some where the size of small pumpkins. My brother, sister and I would take the largest to school for show and tell.


You hit on exactly the reason they use pygmy trees now, they yield the same per acre (supposedly) and it's a lot easier to get to the apples.

We never had apple trees, just pears on one side of the family, and nothing on the other. My dad's brothers used to tell me how as kids, they'd not be able to keep up with the pears (eating them) and I guess they didn't can them for reasons I don't know, so they'd take a 22 and try to throw the pears and shoot them out of the air with a .22.

My mother picked fruit in the orchards when she was little, mostly in the spring picking cherries. They paid the kids by the bucket, and labor laws were kind of loose, I guess compared to now (*little* kids were allowed to take a bucket and pick, too). That work is all done by legal and illegal immigrants now, maybe it's a liability thing. There have to be abandoned fruit trees up there somewhere, I just wouldn't know where. I know what you mean by the apples, but have no idea why they're that way. Some of them are so big, they're hard to eat, and some of the hybrids (like some honeycrisp) are so sweet that when they're that big and that sweet, they will make you half sick if you eat the whole thing.

Anyway, for disston to have gotten apple to run through the factory the way they did on the D8s and the 12s and 16s, etc, there must've been a lot of large trees. It's hard to tell what their wood looked like new because it's so dark, though. It is so hard to find clear apple, but most of what I've seen looks pretty clear on the newer saws where the stain isn't that dark.

[john brenton]

All I'm seeing is apple wood smoked ribs....LOTS of them.

[David Keller NC]

Mark - If you're looking for apple to make tool handles, then the tree you've pictured would be worth picking up for maybe $25 or so due to lots of knots, smaller diameter, etc...

But the main comment here is that you may want to consider buying European steamed pear. It's fairly easy to find at lumber yards that specialize in importing, and you can get relatively large sizes that are clear. Not sure about quarter-sawn, though - that might be a special order.

[russell lusthaus]

Apple wood makes nice bows - if you or someone you know is so inclined. 6 feet of the straightest section can yield 4-6 bow blanks - depending how much twist there is to the grain and how many knots holes are in the sides. Very worthwhile to a bowyer to split it open and see.

[Tony Shea]

Just a quick comment about the image on the shown tree. The pith looks way off center, which in my experience and what I've read is a sure sign of reaction wood. I recently cut down an apple in my yard that was growing very sideways and the pith was way off center as that one looks. I knew while I was cutting my tree that this would end up the case as it had a hard lean to one side. Anytime I've dried lumber from such trees they turn out useless and dangerous as heck on the table saw. I would avoid any tree with an off center pith. And most of the apple around this area looks very stressed.

[Mark Wyatt]

Ah, the negotiating skills of some people. I looked at another down apple tree today. It was a dwarf, gone wild. The bottom 5 feet was about 10" in diameter, the rest was small branches. I figured, "what the heck, I'm here with my saw I'll make an offer." I offered what I thought was an over-generous $20 for the main trunk.

The response: "I'd rather just burn it for that."

Okey-Dokey, see you later.

[Joshua Clark]

Anyway, for disston to have gotten apple to run through the factory the way they did on the D8s and the 12s and 16s, etc, there must've been a lot of large trees.

Apples were an incredibly important resource to early Americans. I believe this began to change in the late 1800s to early 1900s with the mechanization of farms and urbanization of the population. When those old, big apple trees became obsolete it must have provided a huge source of good, big apple lumber, something we don't see today.

To illustrate the point, here is a 1917 Disston advertisement that shows a glimpse of just a portion of their lumber yard. Check out those huge stacks of apple lumber drying and the multiple piles and railcars full of huge apple logs.

http://hyperkitten.com/pics/tools/ads/disston32_thumb.jpg
Full size image is here (http://hyperkitten.com/tools/ads/display_ad.php?picture_file=disston32.jpg)

Josh

[David Weaver]

I'd love to have just *one* of those big logs to quarter. It'd satisfy my toolmaking jones for the next 20 years.

[Carl Beckett]

Which makes me wonder - what is the equivalent board foot price of firewood??

Here in New England firewood has shot up - maybe $350/cord in winter when oil was high. That seemed like a lot - I wonder how many board feet you could get out of equivalent amount of firewood, and the resulting cost. Given the time to mill and stack and dry, etc, and waste, Im wondering if firewood isnt the better value proposition for the seller?

[David Weaver]

Cord is 4x4x8 - or 128 cubic feet of wood, Take out saw waste, figure maybe 9 or 10 4/4 boards for each foot of thickness - 1152 board feet.

But no branch wood, little sap, no voids, and figure that probably a quarter of a cord of wood is air space, so 864 board feet of lumber, etc. who knows how much tree lumber you have to come up with to make 864 feet of finished lumber, and how much branch you have to throw away.

If you had a processor, I would rather cut firewood. Lumber is a lot of work, and I've never met a rich hardwood sawyer. Comfortable maybe, but not rich.

Never met a rich firewood processor, either, but probably don't have too much firewood coming back for surface cracking or color.