what to charge...

[Mike Jones NM]

Need a rough idea on what to charge a contractor to thickness plain about 800 square feet of rough sawn pine and fir. THis will range in width from about 4 inches to 12 inches.
Is it normally priced by the foot, square foot???
Thanks for any input

[Byron Trantham]

You are selling time to the contractor. You sated 800 square feet. Did you mean 800 board feet? The widths don't matter so long as they don't exceed your planer's width capacity. Does he want both sides planed? I would charge for two sets of blades for the planer ($100 in my case) and $25/hr. Do you have room to stack this much lumber on both sides of the planer? You will want to pass them all through at the same setting, reset the thickness and pass all of them through again until you achieve the desired thickness achieving the same thickness for all boards.

As an aside, if the boards are bowed, the planer will keep the bow. Is that what he wants? If not, then they need to be faced jointed first. More time. One last point. These boards should probably be sticker-ed and stored in the area where they are going to be processed to allow the wood to stabilize.

Get stock in Ben gay!!!!:D

[Josiah Bartlett]

The way I would do it would be to figure out how long it would take to do the work, figure out what minimum $ value your labor and shop time was worth, and use that number.

However, I'm an engineer, not a pro woodworker.

[Steve Milito]

I'd try and figure out the most he was willing to pay, and do it if it was worth my time. We can call it the capitalist approach. :D

[Mike Jones NM]

Let's see. WOuld be about 800 square feet. Kind of a long story. On a different contract I made the boards on the mill for him. They are rough sawn but only on three sides, 4th side is still raw wood so they will have to be run through a table saw to make various width boards.
They will be used for the floor in a cabin is where the 800 square feet comes from.
The width be as random as can be.
Steve I like your idea

[Steve Clardy]

My lumber supplier charges me 10 cents a board foot.

They can surface both sides at the same time.

[Lee Schierer]

Last I heard, the going rate around here was 15 cents per lineal foot. Width didn't matter as it all goes through the planer. I'm not sure if they do both sides at once or have to flip it over. They leave the edges rough, unless you pay for jointing too, which is 10 cents per foot.

[Scott Banbury]

Charge by the lineal foot--the only folks who don't are the guys with the 36" double sided planers with segmented rollers that can be gang fed.

Depending on what kind of planer you have, you may have to pass the wood more than twice on each face, especially if you are having to skip plane to try to get them flatter.

With my 15" planer I would only do the job on shop rate--otherwise just one extra pass could seriously eat into profit.

[Scott Thornton]

I would charge for a new set of blades, plus by the hour and linear foot. There just isn't enough money there, IMHO to make it worth your while for the mess, time and wear and tear on your machine. Hopefully you're not using a little lunch box planer though...

[Todd Jensen]

$25/Hour?? Ouch. I'd charge him a day's labor($300-600) plus 2 sets of blades, and let him know I'd be returning about 10+ bags of sawdust to him with the finished boards unless he wanted to pay for my dump run. And say it all sweet as pie. :) ...Next!!

[Chris McDowell]

My supplier charges .17 cents a board foot to have stock planed and one edge straight lined. It's not a get rich quick kind of venture. That's why I let them do it even though I have the machinery.

[Per Swenson]

Todd has it right.

Days pay...plus.


Per

[Dave Lehnert]

My dealer charges $7.00 per 100BF (his lumber)

What kind of planer are you using?

[Mike Jones NM]

Appreciate the replies. Will be using a ridgid 1300LS
As for the dust and chips, they will pretty much hit the ground and he can deal with them as I will do this on site.

[Per Swenson]

Mike,

I use a ridgid on installs.

But.

I wouldn't use it anywhere with out the dust collector

attachment that hooks to a shop vac.

She will bog down as the chips collect around the rollers.

The attachment is only 10 bucks or so.

Per

[Mike Jones NM]

Thanks Pat, will look into that also.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Treat the ends~!! Avoid cracking from rapid humidity transfer. The customer may blame you if the wood gets checked. It can check just from the humidity changes from where it is now to your shop and back again.