What would you pay for...

[StevieB]

OK, the squash club I play at is having a refit and is discarding its old bar. I had a look at it and found its approx 12 feet long, 2 ft 6 inches wide, 2 inches thick and is what appears to be a piece of solid mahogany - not planks jointed but one piece.

Question is, when I asked for first dibs I was told sure, but a donation to the on site nursery would be required, amount to be agreed later. Fine by me not a problem at all, question is how much. Any one have any idea what such a piece of timber is worth? since I would have to cut it at least in half to transport it and I dont have space to make a table or similar for it I will probably end up chopping it up for smaller projects. Thus I dont want to pay a premium for a piece of timber that size if I am going to immediately cut it into smaller pieces that I could get elsewhere for cheaper. Also its not really fair of me to donate £50 to the nursery if they could stick it on e-bay and get £300 for it. So to the original question - what would you donate for it....

Cheers,

Steve.

 

[LyNx]

Not sure how much to pay but are you sure it's solid, that sounds like a big board to have as one solid piece. But i may be wrong. Worth checking out the price for a board that size from your local mill to compare.

Andy

 

[devonwoody]

Steevie B

I would take a core sample horizontally before commiting any serious money or do it the Greek blokes way Achmides ( or something) and weigh it. :wink: :wink:

 

[StevieB]

As far as I can tell its solid. The top is varnished and the grain appears to be continuous. It also has various nicks and chips in it as well as a square cut out for a post and all these indicate it to be solid timber as well. end grain is consistent with it being a solid piece of timber on the one exposed end. I am confident its not veneered, and almost confident its one piece, unusual as this may seem. It is still in situ at the moment so I cannot check it over fully though.

S L Hardwoods quote £21.52 for 1m x 25mm thick by 300mm wide, and I reckon I could get 6 of these from the top (if I had the ability to resaw 2" thick material to 1") plus some left over. This would indicate very roughly a price of £150 to buy in boards the same volume of timber by my rough calculations if you ignore the premium for 2" thick mahogany that SLH dont even stock its so rare! does this price sound roughly right to anyone?

Steve.

 

[devonwoody]

Bare in mind that when resawn it should be classed as sawn timber because it would still need to planed and thicknessed both sides again, and could well involve worn or replacement blades if you find anything nasty embedded.

By the way 300mm is only 12" wide.

 

[ike]

I'd suggest working out the volume and value it between half of mill price and what a salvage yard would pay for it (which IME won't be very much) - maybe then around 25% of mill price? Then compare that with what your conscience tells you is a fair donation to the good cause and adjust if necessary.

cheers,

Ike

 

[Scrit]

Salvage purchase value would be around 20% of the rough sawn timber value (based on my own experiences of selling iroko and teak). No more. And that's assuming it's already been pulled out. Check that there is no hardware buried in the underside of the bar top, though.

Scrit