Need help determining value of my walnut and cedar

[Uneekarts]

I hope this is the correct place to ask.

I have 4 planks of walnut about 6 to 7 inches wide, 3/4 thick and 6 to 7 feet long. All 4 are nice grain and color.

My brother passed away a couple months ago and he has a shed of (a guess) 50 or so planks of rough cut cedar of various widths and lengths. A lot of it looked to be 8 or more feet long. Any idea what a basic value on that would be? I am trying to help my sister-in-law dispose of it.

I appreciate your assistance as I have no idea what a reasonable price may be.

Doc

 

[CarvedTones]

You need to figure board feet, which is a 1" thick piece that is 12" x 12" or equivalent. For example with 3/4" thick walnut, 6" wide a board foot would be a piece 32" long. Retail on walnut these days is over $5 a board foot, but there is generally an assumption of 8' boards and shorter boards are usually less. Also, there is an expectation of paying less when wood is sold by an individual. Cedar is cheaper, more like around $3 a board foot retail. Again, expect less than that when sold by an individual.

 

[BSHuff]

Lumber is priced as 'board feet'. A board foot is 144 cubic inches of wood. So the formula
(Length X Width X Thickness)/144
will give you the board feet using inches for the measurments. The thickness is the rough thickness of the wood so add a 1/4 inch to thickness if it is planed smooth. So if you have 3/4" smooth wood, your thickness would be 1 inch. If you had 1" thick wood, it would have been 5/4 or 6/4, etc.

So your walnut would be about 14 board feet (78L X 26W X 1T)/144.

Once you get the board feet you can get prices from a wood vendor. For example http://hardwoodstore.com/lumber-prices so ~$7/bf Note however that their prices are for kiln dried, high grade, straight, not checked (cracked) lumber that will have a good yield. If your lumber is twisted, checked, stained, has large sap wood pockets etc it will be worth a lower price. Compare that to a sawmill price of ~$2/bf for off the saw rough lumber that is not as prepared and needing more work/waste to get the same usable wood. As well lumber store prices are usually high retail, so second hand it will be less. With the Hardwood Store of NC price on 4/4 walnut at $6.95 a BF and the sawmill price of $2, I would say without seeing your wood that $4 to $5/BF would be what you could be looking at for price.

So your 14bf X $4/bf = $56

Very good grain, unique figure, thick slabs, long lengths, etc will command more money. This should give you a start to begin figuring out the values.

 

[Uneekarts]

Thanks, that's what I needed. The walnut is ( in my mind ) in good shape, smooth and no sap, etc... I bought it directly from a Hardwood lumber retailer quite a few years ago during one of their clearance sales. Dean Hardwoods out of Wilmington, NC if anyone is familiar with them. I think they have since closed but not sure.

The cedar, I really have only looked at a time or 2 when my brother was giving me "the tour" of his toys and such. I will need to get out there and get my hands dirty to figure that one out. I do not believe the cedar came from a damaged tree though. I think it was "harvested" cause it was in the way or something. My sister-in-law wants a picnic table made out of it so I plan to make her something, we'll see what and I may get to enjoying it and make a few things for sale rather than just unload it all.

Again, thanks muchly for the knowledge.

Doc

 

[Truefire]

Doc, just for a side note, do not discard the wooden planks that are twisted, cracked, have knots, etc; It could be cut up into smaller pieces and sold to many of the woodturners on the site that turn all sorts of things out of smaller pieces of woods.

Oft times dependent upon the characteristics of the wood, you might end up getting more for that 'bad" piece than you would have thought.

Chris

 

[Woodfish]

Do you still have the walnut? I live in Durham area so I would need to get it for less than $4/bd. ft.
in order to make it worth my while.