Plantation Teak

[Bob D.]

I came across someone selling some plantation teak at $2/bf.
It is close to me so no shipping charges, I can pick up with one
of my trailers.

Only issue is I've got to take it ALL, and it's way more than I
can/will ever use.

Is $2/bf as good a price as he claims it is? I've looked online
but curious what prices others are seeing and I know it's relative
to your location just curious. I'm in NJ not far from Philly and this
lot of teak is only 10 minutes from me.

 

[squall_line]

I don't know if that's a good price or not, but I'd say to make sure that the seller and you are on the same page as to what "bf" actually means. 

I've seen plenty of people list lumber claiming board-foot prices when they really mean linear foot (especially narrow pieces) or even something completely out of left field that no industry professional would ever consider to be a "board foot".

 

[pixelated]

The hardwood supplier near me shows 4/4 FAS plantation teak for $34.00 a board foot on their website.

 

[JonathanJung]

BUY IT ALL.

My main supplier sells virgin (gasp) teak for around $24bf. So $2bf really is a once in a lifetime price.

 

[squall_line]

I get a sneaking suspicion that this may be a multi-hundred or multi-thousand board-foot pile, if a) the price is that low and b) it's more than a person thinks they can handle in a lifetime.

That said, if the quality is there (teak can still rot), if the price is honest, if you have time to sell what you don't need, if you have a place to store it, and if you can afford the price, it's probably worth buying it all.

I'm still skeptical that "board-foot" means the same to the seller and the buyer in this case, but I've seen people dump valuable stuff for cheap in the past, too.

 

[Bob D.]

Thanks everyone. It IS a large quantity. I was told about 7k bf.

I went and saw the wood today. There are pallets that fill a 30 foot semi trailer. I would say the trailer is filled about 5 foot high and 20 feet deep for the full width of the trailer so just under 8 feet. And it is stacked solid. Most of it looks to be slightly less than 4/4.  I would say 20 or 22 mm thick. And as someone earlier mentioned it is not wide pieces. Most appeared to be in the 4 to 6 inch width range from what I could see. And the longest pieces I saw were ~7 feet. So that is probably why the price is low.

I should have taken a photo and some measurements but I wasn't there for the teak, I wanted some 5/4 x 12 cherry for a project I am starting for my sister.

So rough math. Let's say 7.5' x 5' x 20' or ~750 cf. I cubic foot is 12 bf so that would be ~9000 bf. Again rough math (feel free to check me) based on guesstimates but I am usually pretty close on estimating distances. So if he tells me 7k bf I believe it is in that neighborhood. I would certainly get a better calculation before buying.

IF I had a 20 foot shipping container I could probably squeeze it all in there but it would be tight.

There is no way I could use over 1000 bf in my remaining lifetime unless I was to start manufacturing something. I could see myself using a few hundred bf but not 7k.

Don't really have a place to store it unless I bought a 20 foot box but those are hard to come by in todays climate and when you do they are expensive compared to a couple years ago. I bought a 20 foot one time for $2300 delivered. The manufacture date was 2 months before I got it so I know it was brand new, only used one time. You can't touch a one time box for that kind of money now around here.

Don't want to spend the next 10 years selling it off either.  Anyone here have a use for it?

 

[squall_line]

[eek]

[blink]

[scared]

[jawdrop]

I no longer doubt that the price is by a legitimate board foot.  I humbly repent of my skepticism.  Maybe [member=44099]Cheese[/member] can stop his refurbishment project and just rebuild his entire patio set from scratch...  10 or 20 times.  [poke]

The only cost-effective way I can think to transport and store that is a U-Haul U-Box / Pods or something similar.  Even then, it's a monthly fee that adds up pretty quickly.

Whoever was left to manage your estate after you passed would probably curse you long after you were gone, too (I'd imagine that process may have already started happening for this particular gentleman).

Group Buy? 

FOG Tent Revival Meeting and everyone gets 50-100 bf as a party favor?

My brain is too small to wrap my head around how to disburse that volume of wood.  I'm surprised he isn't selling it a little at a time with a set of plans for adirondack chairs or something, not sure why it must go in a single load.  I'm still a little speechless.

 

[semenza]

The longest pieces are 7'. I wonder how many shorts are inside the stack? 

Does the seller generally sell smaller quantities?  I think based on your cherry purchase ... yes.  Which makes me wonder why he is not just selling it as per normal. Is it that hard to move the 7' boards at something in the $15 - $20 bf range?

I would want to see more of that stack before dropping 14k.

Seth

 

[James Carriere]

It can also move a considerable amount.  My local yard stocks plantation teak and a high percentage of the boards which are stored vertically and covered have significant crooks or bends to them.  If you do decide to move forward with the purchase I strongly suggest you invest the time to go through several layers of the lumber to ensure it is actually usable as is.  Even at $2 per B.F., if it's not usable for your purposes it's too expensive.

 

[bruegf]

I bought a batch of several hundred bf of burmese (not plantation) teak shorts most of it 8/4 around 30 years ago.  At the time I had a boat project that I planned to use it on.  Ended up selling the boat before I got around to starting the project.  I've used a few pieces for various projects in the following decades, but most of it is still stacked up in basement and I've never had any luck trying to sell it.  I'm guessing eventually my son will burn it as campfire wood after I'm gone.

So my advice is don't buy it unless you want to stare at the stack for a long time

Fred

 

[Bob D.]

The reason it must all go in one lot (I was told) is the seller does not have time to sell it off in small
quantities. I got the impression that there is time pressure on him to divest himself of this lot of
teak and many other items on the property.

Yes, it would be good to see more than what can be viewed by looking at the back end in a trailer.

He has even offered the trailer which he claims is roadworthy for $1k (really, roadworthy?) as he says he
needs to move it out ASAP.

It's all too rushed for me to really take it seriously. He may be serious in selling but my spidey sense is
saying back away. I had the feeling of buying a used car only driven by a grandma on Sundays to church.

But the wood is real, I saw and climbed up in the back of that trailer and touched it.

 

[DavidCBaker]

Kinda sounds like there's an upcoming bankruptcy or court judgment that he knows is just around the corner, and anything he gets for this is more than he'll have for it around the corner. Not to be all goofy about this (especially because it's an asset that nobody else will probably want to mess with), but the courts can clawback any sales like that, up to 90 days, should that be what's happening.

 

[Bob D.]

Good point, hadn't thought about that David.

I could see me making a set of chairs for our patio but
after that I would have ~6800 bf taking up space. :-(

He does have a few pieces of 8/4 maple that interested me.
I could find a use for that.

 

[Cheese]

1. Maybe [member=44099]Cheese[/member] can stop his refurbishment project and just rebuild his entire patio set from scratch...  10 or 20 times.  [poke]

2. The only cost-effective way I can think to transport and store that is a U-Haul U-Box / Pods or something similar.  Even then, it's a monthly fee that adds up pretty quickly.

1. There are somedays that I think remanufacturing this furniture would be faster than refurbishing it.  [big grin]

2. That's a slippery slope indeed. My neighbor started ripping out his kitchen so he rented and placed 2 pods in his driveway to hold the contents of the kitchen. 5 years later the pods are still in his driveway and the refrigerator is still in the garage. [smile] [tongue]

Here's a list of exotic lumber prices from Forest Products Supply a local cabinet shop. $34.20 per bd ft...while the local Woodcraft charges $42.00.

[attachimg=1]

 

[HarveyWildes]

No brainer for me - I'd pull out some stops to buy it!

I bought about 2500 board feet of #3 cherry about 15 years ago for $1.15 per board foot (plus whatever it took me to haul it from Iowa to Colorado).  My guess is that after adjusting for the waste inherent in #3 quality wood, I still paid less than $2 per board foot of usable wood, and often was able to minimize waste by carefully selecting pieces where the unusable wood in a board more or less ended up in wood that would have been cut waste anyway.  It's hard to imagine that a stack of teak, which I assume is better quality than #3, could have more waste than that.

I've probably used about 1000-1500 board feet myself.  I gave some to my son, and sold some, and I'm down to less than 500 board feet now.

BTW, it didn't take me 15 years to sell what I've sold.  I held on to most of it until about two years ago because I harbored the illusion that I would make interior doors out of it.  Alas, I never had the time to do that, so about a year and a half ago I started selling and giving away to family.

 

[bruegf]

Years ago my father bought a bunch of rough cut cherry that a customer of his had from a tree he took down and had been air dried in a barn for a couple of decades.  We ended up using the boards that had sap wood as wainscoting in my first house.  Made beautiful wainscoting from what would have otherwise been waste wood.

Fred

 

[Bob D.]

"No brainer for me - I'd pull out some stops to buy it!"

I don't have $14k I want to lay out there and wait for a return on, even
if that return is under a year. I don't have any storage space so that
complicates matters too and would add to my initial outlay. I do have a
place where I could park a 20 ft. shipping container and that's what it
would take. Or buy the teak and the trailer it's currently stored in and
just haul the whole mess over to my place and park it.

But I have no immediate projects that teak might be a good choice for.

I have other plans for the cash I have on hand. Either a 4x4 foot CNC
or a 10"x30" metal lathe and a benchtop mill. Still working on rearranging
the shop to make room for one or the other. I have a couple machines to
sell off to make room. PM701 mortiser, 10" RAS, my old drill press, PC 16" Omni-jig.

 

[rmwarren]

[member=60461]Bob D.[/member] whereabouts in Jersey is it located?

RMW

 

[rvieceli]

[member=8712]Richard/RMW[/member] go for it Richard! You can retire and market teak patio furniture.

Ron

 

[rmwarren]

[member=8712]Richard/RMW[/member] go for it Richard! You can retire and market teak patio furniture.

Ron

Yea, just what I need, encouragement...

Thanks Ron.

RMW