Lignum Vitae Marketing Help

I would sell the chunks as-is.  Put no labor into it and plop them into a box to ship.  Buyer pays shipping.

Hi, Peter:

I'm not sure  where your guy got his numbers from.  $300 for ALL of it?  Per my post, I'm seeing 3"X3"X12" pieces on ebay for over $150.  Based on that,  even assuming it is overpriced, I can cut up the smallest chunk and get 5 times that for it.

Unfortunately, $300 wouldn't pay 1/4 of my gas to drive it to you.  This is going to be a giant boatload of work, but I probably owe it to Gil to try to do better than that.

Appreciate your time to reply.  Looks like I'm stuck with the hard way.

Best

Mike

You have two choices - saw it into blanks and try to market it for a purpose (pool cues, for example) where the end user has something valuable, or sell it as logs.

Lignum is rare, but that doesn't mean there's a market clamoring for it aside perhaps from museums or historical boat places. and they may have arrangements to get stuff from the source in bigger quantities since they can navigate the restrictions or whatever that would be. 

1) saw it and sell off what you saw. Be ready for a relatively low yield compared to what you believe might be in the long and saw the blanks as straight as you along grain directions, which may also increase loss a little bit
2) list the logs on ebay or some other marketing platform and keep lowering the price until they sell

You may want to list a guarantee that it's genuine LV giving the buyer the right to return the wood if they can prove its not, and if you sell logs, provide a guarantee on what amount of the yield inside the logs will be uncracked and undamaged by bugs (no clue if bugs are a problem for it). 

If you're selling as an individual, I'd expect somewhere between 10 and 50% of what you'd expect a retail dealer would get for it. If you feel like you should be able to get average proven dealer retail for it, you'll have it for a very long time.

You will have vastly better luck on ebay if it is cut down to usable sizes.  A bandsaw with a carbide blade should do the trick and will cut quicker than you might expect.  What I would do is look at the sizes of turning blocks currently sold on ebay (regardless of species) and figure on doing something similar.  You might need to make a saw sled to do the first cuts in half from rounds.

Make the purchase easy for the customer, explicitly say that you combine shipping.  If they buy multiple blocks, figure up the shipping via priority mail flat rate, and refund them the difference between what ebay charges for individual blocks vs all combined into one box.  You can ship something like 50 lbs or 75 lbs in a medium flat rate - I forget the figure exactly, but it's big.  Bullet casters ship lead to each other this way.  The main thing is to reinforce the box with extra sheets of cardboard inside and fill up the extra space with packed paper so the heavy crap can't get any momentum to blow through the sides.

DON'T make cookies.  Useless stupid things that crack readily.  For the amount of sawing, you'll do better selling turning blocks, spindle blanks, and pen blanks.

If you want to build a crate and ship the whole bunch, I might be interested.  I have a bandsaw that will cut it as well as an odd taste for exotic stuff.  Depends on the price.  I look at the work of solving these problems and see an opportunity instead of work - but that means a steep discount for saving you the work.

The easy way to ship freight is drop your crate off at a transfer warehouse, then have your buyer pick up at another transfer warehouse near them.  That way you avoid the costs of having the freight company solve the last mile problem for you on both ends.  Build your crate such that it can be easily forked and stacked, tough enough to have other stuff stacked on top - you get a better freight class rating that way - that equals less cost to you.  

Yeah, it's a lot of work.  I expect if it had already been cut down to a convenient size, your friend would have used it up or sold it ages ago.

@Used to be John in NM,
If *****@plateautel.net is no longer your email address, contact me with a current one you want associated with the existing account for John in NM.

Thanks Peter, I got the email and made a pass phrase for the old account.  Finally got sick of the kids on reddit

HI, All:
Apparently I didn't select the option to get email notifications, so had no idea I had all these helpful replies.  Thanks to everyone for the good advice.  I'm new to this forum, so please forgive my clumsy efforts to insert pictures, etc.   To Joe:  Trying to sell the chunks whole is what my exotic wood dealer has been trying to do for over 3 years.  I assume I'm going to need to break it down to smaller sizes.   Concerning "combining shipping" and "offering refunds/rebates" the best I can tell, only ebay stores are able to combine shipping and offer to return part of the purchase price.

There have been 2 developments since my last post.

1:  I grabbed the smallest chunk and went to work on it with what I had on hand, ie a chainsaw and a table saw.  David, you were correct.  I was appalled at the low yield.  I got 4 small, irregular chunks with cracks, gaps, sap wood, etc.  I put them on ebay for my best guess of 1/2 what I see on there for asking prices.  Roughly 2 weeks, no hits.  I have already lowered the price.  Concerning "combining shipping" the best I can tell, unless  you have an ebay store, combining shipping and offering refunds is not possible.


2:  I purchased a cheap 3/4 HP 14" bandsaw (about $500) at Harbor Freight.  I installed a 1/2" X 3 TPI blade on it hoping it would be able to rip this stuff.  Based on how fast it dulls a chainsaw, I suspect John is right that I will need a carbide blade.  Not sure what exactly will fit this saw.  I'll look into it if this blade dulls as fast as I think it will.The rip fence is home made, but should work for what I am doing.

I have a couple more questions, being aware how long this is getting.
1:  I saw references to "turning blanks"  "pen blanks" and "spindle blanks".  John, could you suggest sizes I should strive for for each of these?
2:  The 2 largest chunks both have crotches.  The largest chunk has a sort of separated center.  My first thought is to chain saw them right down the middle of the crotch.  Is that likely the best approach, or should I cut them differently?  Should I try to isolate that "separated center" out of the largest chunk?  Photos hopefully inserted here:

Again, sorry this is so long.  Any help greatly appreciated.
Best
Mike

If the pieces you show are the best yield you can get out of the log sections, I'd try to sell them whole as turning blocks and let the customer decide how to dissect them. As an aside, the purchase of the HF band saw could be a concern. I bought one probably 20 years ago and had a small log section get away from me when cutting turning blanks, and the resulting catch broke the blade and bent one wheel (and scared the crap out of me). They may have beefed up the wheel design since, but originally they were made out of thin aluminum, 3 spokes as I recall, and very flimsy. I was fortunate to find a pair of 14" Jet wheels on Ebay reasonably priced which were substantially heavier and were a perfect fit replacement. The saw has worked well ever since. DO NOT TRY TO COSS CUT round stock free hand. It's asking for a disaster, use a sled of some sort to secure the round stock.

Hi, Dale:

Well, the piece I started with was the smallest, and worst condition piece, but I figured I didn't have much to lose there.  Whomever said the market is limited and it would be hard to sell was apparently correct.  I'm getting no hits on the 2 lots I currently have on ebay.

Your assessment of the saw is likely spot on.  the wheels are aluminum, and don't look all that robust.  That said, the right mistake can damage almost any tool.  I couldn't spend 3 grand just to cut up 5 chunks of wood

Sounds like good advice on cross cutting.  I'll keep that in mind, but that will likely be done with the chain saw.  I'll also have to do some rip work with the chain saw just to get it to sizes the band saw can handle.  I just need some idea what size to make the pieces.  The large, crotched piece has the center kind of separated, and is fraught with cracks.  May not cut out to anything large, but I see a LOT of "pen blanks" on ebay that are very small and priced surprisingly high.

The time I made some pen blanks I think I cut them at 3/4" square and random short lengths.  At the time I was sending a batch of maple burl parts to be stabilized and figured I would use up all that scrap I couldn't bear to burn making blanks to sell.  I ended up donating the pen blanks to a local store in Albuquerque, after I looked at some ebay prices and decided not to bother selling them.  The store was very happy to get them.

Turning blanks are usually 1.5" square up to 2" square.  Bigger than that they usually make bowl blanks instead in more random sizes.  One thing that you could make are mallet blanks, around 3" square and short - like 4".  Those are for round carver's mallets.  Somewhere I have one that is cracked, made from a piece of LV limb.  If I see it today I'll measure it for you, but I moved my shop last year, lots of stuff is still in boxes - effectively lost until I make time and storage space.... maybe I have too much stuff!

Thanks, John:

That info will help a lot as I attempt to plan the breaking down of these huge chunks of wood.  That said, if the last 2 weeks of no hits on my 2 ebay ads are any indication, I will not live long enough to dispose of this wood, and Gil, who is 84 now, will not live to see any of it.  Whomever here said there is no demand for this stuff is apparently correct.

Sure appreciate the help!

Mike