Pricing Moulder Services
How to charge for machining someone else's material. January 13, 2006
Question
What are you charging to run moulding out of other people's material? I've been asked to run truckload quantities of another company's material into flooring. Would it be priced per board or linear foot? The material will be run through a standard five head moulder. The lumber will be received moulder-ready.
Forum Responses
(Solid Wood Machining Forum)
First, I would make sure that your definition of moulder-ready is the same as theirs. I charge 750 per MDF on the inbound side for running other people's wood through my shop for flooring (5 head Weinig). That includes planing and ripping, moulding, and end trimming prior to wrapping into 20 sq ft bundles. If all I had to do was send through the moulder and restack for a truck (no trimming or bundling), I would still want 350- 400 per mbf. Otherwise, might as well run my own stuff to sell.
There are a variety of factors that can be used to establish pricing. First is probably the difficulty of the runs and out of what kind of material. Second is how long the runs are. If running under 1000 feet, you should always charge for setup of your moulder.
Example:
s4s 70.00
bases, cases, chair rail 150.00
t&g's, crowns 200.00
Third is what your competition in the area is charging. You can charge slightly higher or lower depending on your quality and turn around times. This is about what I would charge for a truckload quantity of oak flooring: 10,000 minimum = 0.25 per linear foot.
Poplar s4s 10,000 = .20 per lift
Hard maple crown 10,000 = .35 per lift
Reclaimed lumber 10,000= .45 with a good contract on who prepares the lumber
When you have to rip, pre-plane and sort material first (someone else's stock), do you charge for the amount you process or the finished board footage? I guess my question arises from the angst of processing reclaimed stock from rough, rlrw and iron contaminated!
I charge for the amount of lumber brought to my shop, not the finished product. If I get 1000 bdft of rough lumber in, the charge is 750 dollars. I do my best to get as much yield as possible, but there are too many variables, like grade of lumber, that are beyond my control, so I would not want to only be able to charge for the finished product. Higher grade, well sawn lumber yields better and is easier to process, low grade junk is a nightmare to process and takes longer, only to have a low yield. On the salvage stuff... maybe you could charge an hourly rate to prep the lumber for further processing.
