# Sawyer Labor Cost



## djg (Dec 24, 2009)

I was wondering how you guys who do custom sawing price your work? I know most charge by the BF, but I'm a little confused how you figure it (I don't mean a definition of BF). If a log will yield 100 BF, do you charge the same if you make only 4 cuts to get a cant or if saw it all up into 4/4 lumber? I was gong to take the furniture grade lumber off the log and then leave the lower construction grade lumber as a cant. I have no use for the lower grade so I would just cut it up for firewood. But if the charge is going to be the same, then I might as well have the remainder sawed into something. Hope my question is clear.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Here's one of those answers that's not the answer you want. Not every sawyer will price it the same, depending on the variables. If I were sawing a lot of logs and by the BF, I would charge by the BF no matter what dimensions I was cutting. If it was justa few logs and mostly all thick stuff, I'd probably give him total price on it which would be lower than what it would if I charged by the BF.

Blade meets metal = extra. Always. But just ask your sawyer then decide how you want it.


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## Gene Howe (Feb 28, 2009)

The guy that did my skeet into cants charged by the machine hour.


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## Logger (Nov 26, 2009)

*price of cutting*

I charge .40 per board foot, or 40 per hour. In clean,green logs i know i can cut 100' an hour. If the logs come dirty or need branches or stubs cut off i go by the hour, I just cut for a guy that dried the logs first and were tough to cut, the time to cut them went 4 hours over the footage I got out of them, in this case i split the differance and added 2 hours time to the amount of footage cut. Hope this makes sense Mike.


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## beelzerob (May 2, 2010)

The sawyer I take my logs to charges per hour (dunno how much) for just cutting, or charges $0.70/bdft for cutting and kiln drying it. 

The only portable miller I've found so far charges 0.28/bdft to come and cut your logs, but we wants a min of 1000 bdft to do, or else he'll tack on an extra fee to make the trip. Broken blades (due to metal) are another $36.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

beelzerob said:


> The only portable miller I've found so far charges 0.28/bdft to come and cut your logs, but we wants a min of 1000 bdft to do, or else he'll tack on an extra fee to make the trip. Broken blades (due to metal) are another $36.


Sounds reasonable. His blade charge is a bit high but that's his call. It's not cheap to drag a mill around and all the stuff the customer never sees is time and money. If I did do any mobile milling I would only take jobs that had at least 3 days worth of sawing, and preferably a week or more. 

Around here that means cabin, house, or barn jobs. I get requests for that but have always passed. If I ever do take a mobile job it'll be one of those - they pay pretty well when you can just set up and saw log after log after log for days on end. 

Not knocking mobile sawyers I have plenty of respect for what they do - just not my bag.


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