Finland Timber!

[deema]

I've been in Finland recently and just cannot believe what they use, what is for us poor Brits, the best quality timber for.........scaffolding and shuttering for concreate casting of the roads, bridges. I don't mean the odd length, I mean thousands if not millions of cubic meters of the stuff. Long, thick, straight grained, almost knot free, used once and then I assumed burned or dumped. My friend could not believe me swooning over the bridge scaffolding.

I was shown birch ply.....what size do you want? Not just 8x4, but almost any size you want. Any thickness, and compared to the stuff we get, it's just awesome and in comparison cheap as anything.

I thought I'd gone to wood heaven. Trouble is I can't think of a sensible way to get the stuff home.

I was also informed that after a good old storm, when a lot of trees topple over a lot are just left to rot as the price of timber falls so low no one can be bothered to harvest the trees!!!! I was shown trees that were busy rotting in the forests, and what trees. I simply could not believe it.

 

[davin]

I know what you mean, Wait until you try and buy timber there though! more expensive than here.
Now if you want to fill a container up with Birch, I am in.
Not the silly little bits of Birch you get in the UK but big creamy boards of the stuff.
I was working in Denmark earlier in the year, spoke to guy at a timber yard, Swedes travel to Denmark to buy softwood as it's cheaper.....
Kiitos

 

[Bluekingfisher]

Looks like you could have a budding business enterprise there.

 

[heimlaga]

The timber market in Finland har gone totally mad.

The big sawmills and logging companies dominate the market and do everything to minimize their own effort. They usually don't care about different qualities of timber. The sawmill line is set for one size of logs and all logs of that size becomes the same product regardless of their quality. Logs that are too thick or too short become pulp. A 3,4 metre long log of high quality knot free slow grown pine is pulpwood to them as it is below minimum lenght. A 45 cm diametre pine log of the same quality is also pulp because it is over maximum thickness.
At the same time they sell knotty and fast grown wood for joinery and furnituremaking. It is next to impossible to get hold of wood of the quality needed for making window sashes because most of it ends up as pulp or concrete molds.

Windfallen trees often rot in the forest because the logging companies do not want to buy a small number of logs. If you don't let them clearcut 5 or 10 hectares they aren't interrested. Unfortunately a great proportion of younger people are loosing contact with reality. They don't really understand the connection between trees and timber. They think that timber has to be bought from the big timberyards and that trees are only good for selling.

I buy a mayor part of the wood I need as windfallen trees or sometimes standing trees "where is as is". Then I use my Massey-Ferguson 165 with winch and log trailer to haul the logs to a local sawmill where I get them sawn for a reasonable cost. The rest comes from several small sawmills where they still bother to sort the wood according to quality. Other young people make fun of me....... and then they wonder why I always can afford the wood I need for my projects around home.
I have never bought a piece of sawn birch in my entire life. I cannot afford it...... but in a former hay shed I have a big stack of it that just keeps getting bigger.

 

[Bluekingfisher]

The timber market in Finland har gone totally mad.

The big sawmills and logging companies dominate the market and do everything to minimize their own effort. They usually don't care about different qualities of timber. The sawmill line is set for one size of logs and all logs of that size becomes the same product regardless of their quality. Logs that are too thick or too short become pulp. A 3,4 metre long log of high quality knot free slow grown pine is pulpwood to them as it is below minimum lenght. A 45 cm diametre pine log of the same quality is also pulp because it is over maximum thickness.
At the same time they sell knotty and fast grown wood for joinery and furnituremaking. It is next to impossible to get hold of wood of the quality needed for making window sashes because most of it ends up as pulp or concrete molds.

Windfallen trees often rot in the forest because the logging companies do not want to buy a small number of logs. If you don't let them clearcut 5 or 10 hectares they aren't interrested. Unfortunately a great proportion of younger people are loosing contact with reality. They don't really understand the connection between trees and timber. They think that timber has to be bought from the big timberyards and that trees are only good for selling.

I buy a mayor part of the wood I need as windfallen trees or sometimes standing trees "where is as is". Then I use my Massey-Ferguson 165 with winch and log trailer to haul the logs to a local sawmill where I get them sawn for a reasonable cost. The rest comes from several small sawmills where they still bother to sort the wood according to quality. Other young people make fun of me....... and then they wonder why I always can afford the wood I need for my projects around home.
I have never bought a piece of sawn birch in my entire life. I cannot afford it...... but in a former hay shed I have a big stack of it that just keeps getting bigger.

It comes down to the corporate world we live in. High prices for poor quality and minimum effort.

Good on you for harvesting your own timber.