Ash to China !

[Altissimus]

I know in the past mills here have sold containers of chips for biomass to China , was explained to me at the time that stateside we wind up with tons of empties that have to go back. I also remember clearly the Mill owner a few years back commented because I was obviously happy that we hit Veneer Grade on some pieces , he told me Veneer is great but it's actually quality conventional Sawlogs that keep him in business. We just sold some to them this week and did alright , Ash is up but none of it is getting sawn here. Into containers and onto ships for Chinese buyers. Feels a little not right somehow ....

 

[lxskllr]

I wonder what they use ash for? It doesn't seem like a widely used wood. Baseball bats, tool handles, and traditional canoe gunwales are all I can think of. It's a cool wood to saw. Makes hard and heavy boards. I don't know what I can do with them, but they're fun to hold and contemplate.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Hell. Who knows what they did with all that ponderosa pine we sold them. I just figure it'll show up at Walmart someday...

 

[Altissimus]

Probably sawn to value added flooring as Home Depot sells tons of

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Beetle stained decorative fashion wood.

 

[Tree09]

I can already imagine putting it together on the floor, with my wife wondering why I'm taking so long, it's just a simple dresser or something At least you usually get another 3/32 allen wrench made from crappy steel lol

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I keep them in a drawer and you can easily find them since they are shinier than the good ones

 

[Tree09]

Hahahahaha i have the same drawer

 

[flushcut]

I can already imagine putting it together on the floor, with my wife wondering why I'm taking so long, it's just a simple dresser or something At least you usually get another 3/32 allen wrench made from crappy steel lol

I think they are made from reworked coat hanger stock.

 

[Altissimus]

Guess it's all about cheap labor , just surprised me .... shouldn't have as all the tandem trucks full of softwood here go to Canada and has been this way for many years.

 

[Burnham]

Premium PNW logs have been shipped to several Asian countries for many decades. There is and has been for many years a ban on exporting logs harvested from federal lands, but the private timberlands have sent zillions of board feet of raw logs overseas.

 

[Cobleskill]

Brilliant. Export raw materials and import finished goods.

 

[Burnham]

I'm sure some of the wood sent to Asia comes back as finished products, but last I was hooked into that scene most of it was going to their domestic markets, as they just don't have the raw materials from local sources sufficient to meet their needs.

Some of that in-country demand is esthetics driven. The Japanese construction market needs natural wood in the form of posts and beams, to match consumer demand. Our softwoods provide that esthetic. It was interesting to me that the highest prices here would be for Douglas fir, but in Japan it was Western hemlock and Noble fir, as those woods finish out in light tan almost white colors, while DF is more reddish...reflecting those esthetic preferences, even though DF is a superior construction material for post and beam.

Still would have been far smarter for the US to produce the end product here in US sawmills...

 

[stig]

Whitish color is why China and Vietnam buy our Beech logs.

 

[Altissimus]

White Logs Matter ...

 

[Kaveman]

About 15 years ago, I was selling Alligator Juniper logs to some rich fat cat in Dubai. Shipped by air freight from Albuquerque. Sultan shiny slippers was paying stoopid money for the stuff. No clue what he was doing wit it.

 

[stig]

As for Ash, if we didn't have the Chinese market, Europe would have been up the creek when all the Ash trees up and died within few years from a fungal infection.
China was the only silver lining on that cloud.

 

[SeanKroll]

I Heard that some of the timber is going to China for forming concrete in their buildings. Single use of hemlock, IIRC what I Heard.

 

[lxskllr]

That seems like a waste. That's what they make crappy fast growing pine for. Speaking of which, I wonder if they're growing crappy fast growing pine? They've got the land for it.

 

[Al Smith]

A lot of these mid western premium white oak logs get sent to China and come back as oak plywood .I'm not certain if any of the premium plywood is made in North America . Fact a local yokal who has a log yard sells most of their logs to China Arrow Forest, LLC. - https://www.arrow-forest.com/ .