How Can 4 Little Sticks of Wood Cost So Much?

A short time ago a lady asked me in all seriousness, why four little sticks could be so expensive. Having grown up with a father who was a US Forester, and later Bureau of Land Management with the Dept of Agriculture, and was a timber Cruiser when I was born, while we lived in the last company logging town in California (Johnsondale, CA), and as a lifelong woodworker,  I had a little bit of knowledge about the subject. You see, I don’t think that milk comes from a gallon jug in the grocery store, because I’ve milked that cow/goat.

So, this is what I told her, as to – -

Why Framing is “So Expensive”

First, you plant many seeds and pay a Forester to look after them

Then you wait about 100 years for a good one to grow up tall and straight.

Then you pay an Ecological Impact Surveyor to come along and Survey the Ecology and make sure there are no Spotted Owls, Darter snails, pigmy rabbits, Red Bellied Skanks or other endangered species living in the potential logging zone.

Then the US Forest Service sends a Timber Cruiser out to mark the trees to be cut.

Then you pay the government to hold an auction on the timber

Then you pay a logger to cut the tree down and buck it into a 12’6” log

The guy with the skidder, drags/skids it over to the monkey who throws a cat noose on the leading end

The High Wire Jack slings the log up or down hill (it’s always on a hill don’t you know) to the loader

The loader either stacks the log or loads it on the cradle of the truck.

Then you pay the trucker about $500-1000 to haul the load (1 log or 20) to the mill.

At the mill, the Puncher reads the log ends and grades the species and size,

Then an Eagle snatcher grabs the load and takes it to the pile it belongs in by species.

Then two Waders come along and sort the pile for the day’s run or a hold

When the log rolls, first a Skinner runs his passes to rip the bark off which is the first time it makes money in its life.

Now the “Pole” (skinned log), meets the first Grader who looks for straightness and clean shape butt to tip.

Then you pay a knowledgeable guy called the Sawyer to slice and dice the log to get the most products from that bit of tree. He’s not expensive, that 20” thick tree won’t take up more than 3-4 minutes of his time.

Next the boards fly into a pile that a Fork Lift driver lifts over to an area with other square piles of 1,000 board feet called a unit. There they will sit for a few weeks to a few years depending on how thick they are. All the while, that wood is costing rent of that space on the ground.

Eventually you pay for a guy with a larger fork lift that picks up the piles and drives them into great big sheds called kilns. Think of them as very big Susie Homemaker ovens. The wood will “cook” at 140°F for about a week.

After the Kilns, the wood is sorted by two very expensive men called Fine Graders, who grade each and every piece into 9 different categories. Moulding is the highest grade, and will produce the least amount of units moving forward from here.

The units will be auctioned to wood vendors, which is why wood prices go up and down.

When the moulding manufacturer calls for some units of lumber, the vendor hires a guy on a fork lift to load a truck, a secretary to type up the order and bills of lading and input all that into files including the records that go to the Department of Agriculture and Bureau of Land Management, and possibly the US Forest Service and maybe even the state forestry division, the Forest Stewardship Council and Wood Association of Responsible Production; as well as any other Ecological Impact watchdog organization that may have a vested interest.

When the lumber arrives at the milling plant, it is off loaded (there’s that guy on a fork lift again), and checked for grade and moisture content.  Anything over 6% is rejected, and 5%-6% needs to sit for days or weeks to get back down to 4% moisture content and stable (remember the old adage “Time is Money” – - it really applies here).

The 4% or lower is graded and ripped by a couple of moulding specialist Sawyers. These high paid guys will rip and mill to maintain the best or most consistent appearance in the moulding.

Then you pay for the Moulders who actually maintain and run the expensive machine that makes the final shape of the moulding.

Once the wood is massed into shape, it is run through the sanding machine one or two passes until the surfaces are the consistent pattern and smoothness needed for the finishing phase.

The finishing takes place in a large room that is just slightly more positively charged with clean air than is being taken out. The only place cleaner is a “White Room” where they make computer chips.

Depending on the finish and appearance, the moulding may take as many as a dozen passes through the paint booths. Each pass takes time to make the pass, and to dry. For each layer of color or different coats, there is expensive time for a team to tear down, clean and reset the equipment. And all of this is the fiefdom of the Finisher and their staff

Once the moulding is finished and dry and cured, it is time to wrap the sticks in bundles of two which is a job for two people.

Then the moulding is crated and ready to be shipped, (by those same two people), to the vendor. So they call a trucking company. (Man, those truckers are everywhere.)

After the vendor has taken the moulding in, one of his crew has stuck it in a rack, and accounted for the shipment, they can begin to sell it to the picture framer.

The framer can order those two sticks, have the moulding chopped to near the size they need, chopped with miters to exactly the lengths they need, or even have it chopped to size and joined. So one or more of the vendor’s crew will pull the moulding, chop, join (whatever is needed) and wrap it to ship to the framer.

Once the vendor has filled out all the paper work, and loaded the truck, the trucker brings the frame parts to the picture framer.

Then the picture framer processes the moulding until they have a “frame” ready to fit by a fitter.

Along the way . . . it only took a little over 100 years and about 100 hands to make your frame; please treat it as such and take care of it. Yours may not be the last hands that will take care of it.