Amazed by price of fir plywood here in NW

[Craig D Peltier]

How much is it in other parts of country?

3/4 A2 Vertical Grain here is 107 at my cheap suplier and 137 at the closer one. Its more than cherry!:eek:

4/4 is 5.25 bd ft here.

We have fir trees all over here! I hate when demand of a product ups the price to the consumer even when its readily available. I.E. Maple and Cherry.

[Greg Funk]

How much is it in other parts of country?

3/4 A2 Vertical Grain here is 107 at my cheap suplier and 137 at the closer one. Its more than cherry!:eek:

4/4 is 5.25 bd ft here.

We have fir trees all over here! I hate when demand of a product ups the price to the consumer even when its readily available. I.E. Maple and Cherry.
Those nice vertical grain fir logs are usually old growth timber for which there is a limited supply hence the higher price.

Greg

[Terry Teadtke]

Tell me about it! A couple of years ago I wanted to build a new front door and side panels out of fir for my Craftsman style house. Ended up using white oak because it was a lot less expensive than the fir. There are several 100+ year old fir trees in my neighborhood and I now see them with dollar signs all over them. Unfortunatly when one comes down in a wind storm they get turned into firewood as it would probably be cost prohibitive to have someone come in and saw the down tree into lumber. Oh well...

Terry

[John Browne]

Where can you get CVG 4/4 for $5.25/BF? I was at Crosscut Lumber a couple of weeks ago and it was a buck more!

BTW howdy. Nice that two DOOOOVallers are on SWC...

[Warren Clemans]

There are several 100+ year old fir trees in my neighborhood and I now see them with dollar signs all over them.
Terry

I could be wrong, but I think doug fir that grows in urban environments is not going to look anything like the stuff they use for plywood veneer. It doesn't have competition for sunlight so it grows too fast. Also, 100 years old is just a baby compared to the trees that they used to saw into expensive lumber.

I just finished stripping 100 years of paint off the doug fir wainscoting, box beams, and trim in my dining room. At $6.50 a b.f., there's probably $10,000 worth of lumber in there at today's prices. It's astonishing when you think that they used fir originally because it was dirt cheap...

[Terry Teadtke]

Warren,

It may be a little late now but I stripped all the paint off my woodwork in my Craftsman house a number of years ago. I removed all the woodwork I could, door jams, 1x4 and 1x6 moldings, etc. numbered them. Then I and ran what I could through a planner rather than using a chemical stripper. Of course I still needed to use a chemical stripper on doors and other moldings but I saved a lot of time and money even including the sets of blades I nicked on unseen nails.

Terry

[Terry Teadtke]

John

You may consider looking for clear fir and hemlock at your local lumber yard. I purchased a lot of 1 x material at Parr Lumber at a pretty good price.

Terry

[Craig D Peltier]

Where can you get CVG 4/4 for $5.25/BF? I was at Crosscut Lumber a couple of weeks ago and it was a buck more!

BTW howdy. Nice that two DOOOOVallers are on SWC...

I buy alot of wood maybe? I do.

[Paul Girouard]

Cost of spotted owls is high. VG Fir used to be a / the paint grade wood of choice here in Washington , those days are over.

Whats amazing is how thin VG Fir veneer is :eek: How do they slice it that thin:confused:

[Warren Clemans]

Warren,

It may be a little late now but I stripped all the paint off my woodwork in my Craftsman house a number of years ago. I removed all the woodwork I could, door jams, 1x4 and 1x6 moldings, etc. numbered them. Then I and ran what I could through a planner rather than using a chemical stripper. Of course I still needed to use a chemical stripper on doors and other moldings but I saved a lot of time and money even including the sets of blades I nicked on unseen nails.

Terry

I considered doing that, but the thought of disassembling all those parts, making sure I got all the nails out, etc., just seemed too daunting. I used a contraption called the "Silent Paint Remover," an infrared heater that doesn't get hot enough to vaporize lead paint or catch your house on fire. It worked really well. Still, it was an epic project.

[Warren Clemans]

Cost of spotted owls is high.

Not sure what you mean by that...cut down more than 95% of the resource and the remaining 5% gets really expensive. It would be slightly cheaper if we didn't have environmental regulations, but then the remaining big trees would be gone that much sooner.

[Terry Teadtke]

Saving the remaining old growth forest for future generations to enjoy? Saving an owl species from possible extinction by saving the old growth forests? Having to pay more for premium clear fir for the reasons above? I can deal with that.

There’s been a lot of news over the past year in our local media about a 750 year old Spruce tree near Seaside Oregon appropriately named the Seaside Spruce. The Seaside Spruce is tied with a Spruce in Alaska as being the biggest Spruce trees in the US. It’s only about 200 feet tall but over 50 feed around at the base of the tree. Unfortunately it was discovered that the Seaside Spruce was rotting from the inside out and may not live much longer. Then during a windstorm this winter, sure enough most of the tree fell to the ground. Not much of a shock considering the condition the tree was in. What was a shock, or better said a pleasant surprise was the main topic of conversation for several days in the area was the Seaside Spruce. Apparently many people from all walks of life really care about old trees and just not the “tree huggers”.

http://www.lewisandclarktrail.com/section4/orcities/seaside/sitkaspruce.htm


Now there's a gentelman that has taken cuttings from the Seaside Spruce to grow new trees.

http://www.lewisandclarktrail.com/section4/orcities/seaside/sitkaspruce.htm


Terry