I. D. Wood - Just for the fun of it!

It is seldom that that we, in the hardwood lumber business get something that is both fun and useful on a daily basis but here is some thing to consider if you have an I Phone or I Touch.  I know that if I had one I'd definitely spend the $2.99 to have all of this information and visual references at my fingertips.

I.D. Wood is your Pocket Guide to Woods from around the world with full screen samples and detailed information for over 50 different woods. 

The standalone application will work with or without an Internet connection so that the samples and information are always at your fingertips. From the basic to the exotic, I.D. Wood turns your mobile device into a virtual guidebook for seasoned woodworkers, cabinet makers, designers, artists, architects, collectors, antique dealers, hobbyists, gunsmiths, musicians, homeowners, boat builders, carpenters and others.

I.D. Wood , a product of Double Dog Studios includes over 50 High Quality Full-Screen Wood Samples (raw cut and non-finished). If you have more interest in this product, contact the producer by clicking on the I.D.Wood link.

Note of disclosure: I have no connection with this company, assume no responsibility for its product functionality nor receive any commission for plugging their product.  Though it may be a good idea!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Double Helix Tracking Technologies Uses DNA to Track Timber, Fight ...

Double Helix Tracking Technologies Uses DNA to Track Timber, Fight ...: "By some estimates, up to 30 percent of the hardwood lumber and plywood traded globally could be of suspicious origin. Third-party certification (from the Forest Stewardship Council ,e.g.) and legality verification programs are in place, ..."

Is the lumber market turning up?

Yesterday during an episode of "Power Lunch" on MSNBC it was noted that the 5 year decline in lumber futures had reached what was determined to be the "bottom" and was going back up slightly. You have to realize that these characterizations are a matter of perspective based on where you are in time but still, it could represent the beginning of a change for structural lumber. It should also be noted that of the 5 panelists there, two had never even looked at lumber futures and seemed to think they were being pranked just talking about it.

See this story: http://www.internationalforestindustries.com/2009/11/19/updated-softwood-lumber-market-outlook-for-the-us/

It should be noted that housing starts declined about 10% for the month of October but there may be good reason to believe that everyone was waiting on Congress to see if they were going to extend the benefits on tax credits for housing.

What are your impressions?

Additions and improvements

Recently I have included a Google Gadget in the form of a "button" along the right side of the blog that will allow you to call me at no expense to you. This is part of "Google Voice" and is a very interesting part of the package. If you have a chance to get a Google Voice account I would recommend that you do so. I use the product every day and it works well. A disclaimer here: I have not been asked to review this product for Google but may well receive some commissions for ads placed on my blog some time in the future. Any connection is pure happenstance.

In addition, late this week I will have a new feature, a link off of the blog here to my special stock list for Superior Hardwoods. There is also a link at the top of my links section that will present you with a form that you can fill out that will allow me to send stock lists, special offers, etc., directly to you whenever other information is sent out. Just in case you missed it I will include that link for you here. It is: http://ow.ly/Cv33 Please be assured that any information shared is for our internal use only and will not be sold to or shared with others.

Until next time

TheHardwoodFed: President Obama recognizes forest industry- says wood is one of our Nation's most enviro-friendly building materials. http://tiny.cc/E

TheHardwoodFed: President Obama recognizes forest industry- says wood is one of our Nation's most enviro-friendly building materials. http://tiny.cc/EsFOc:

Finally! A little credit where credit is due!!

"TheHardwoodFed: President Obama recognizes forest industry- says wood is one of our Nation's most enviro-friendly building materials. http://tiny.cc/EsFOc"

Abundance and Scarcity?

The events of the last two weeks have been a virtual confirmation of what we expected to have happen (see my earlier post) as we move through the calendar towards the end of the year. It seems to have been an exceptionally wet fall in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. Log and lumber supplies seem to get much lower the further south you go. To say that this industry experiences wide swings would probably be an understatement as we have been notorious for over producing whenever it was possible to do so and pricing has gotten more competitive over time. When the economy went down everyone was already operating on slim margins. Since then, most companies have been operating at a loss but pursuing a “last man standing” strategy. There aren’t as many people/companies standing now and some of the survivors will fall soon as well. There probably isn’t enough producers with enough resources out there to overproduce much at this point. Inclement weather will play a big role in availability and the buying public may get a shock that they have not prepared for, little or no supply.

I wish my vision of what was going to happen had been wrong and that everything had worked out so that we have a stable, orderly market. We expected supply dislocations in the market but we also expected customers to understand the forces at work and to be pro-active. Perhaps that is happening now but it appears likely that there will be some items that will be really high in cost or just not to be available for awhile. This would truly be a new phenomenon for our industry.

Other parts of the country are not experiencing the same set of circumstances. In the East and the North East, shortages may not be as widespread but supply will be spotty due to lack of motivation by some business owners to invest in any inventory or the available funds to do it. For our industry, periods of great abundance are almost always followed by periods of great scarcity!

Thoughts about last week

In conversations late last week with customers who are larger distributors and companies who are serving the "Big Box" stores, it is fairly certain that we have had a slight trend downward again in business activity and orders. This is going to be a real paradox where we have reduced supply and reduced demand in relative lock step with one another. It certainly can be argued that supply is dropping faster in the Mississippi / Ohio Valley regions than in the East and the Northeast. It may well be the the supply in this region is dropping faster than the demand!

Domestic demand continues to be somewhat soft while export demand increases. This may well be a combination of the drop in the value of the dollar as well as a recognized threat to the Europeans of the possible further reduced supply due to bad weather associated with winter.

I frankly had expected activity to increase throughout November before tailing off once again in early December in anticipation of year end inventories and the holidays. If you have a different perspective on the market dynamics or what is going on, please feel free to offer a conflicting view.

Ethanol Refinery Turns Wood Chips Into Fuel

Ethanol Refinery Turns Wood Chips Into Fuel: "A Pennsylvania facility can produce 100 million gallons of cellulosic fuel annually, and the company wants to license the technology to others."

This is an interesting article worth a read. For those industries who are not currently recycling their own sawdust and end cuts, etc., through their own waste fired boiler, this may(?) be a better option than a contribution to the paper industry or fiberboard products.

It is definitely worth a discussion. Check and see for yourself.

Why are rates to Canada so high?

I know from past experience that there has been some friction at the border between the U.S. and Canada because of pricing differentials, tariffs, etc., on the part of softwood producers. This was not a gray area, just an out and out hot spot! I know from having to ship product across the border into Canada that life can be a little difficult for the truck driver, the dispatcher and even the one who is issuing the paperwork. I can attest to that because at times I’ve been working feverishly to get documents perfected and transmitted to the border ahead of the deadline (5 p.m.) for trucks crossing during the night. If you don’t get the paperwork there by 5 p.m. they have to spend the night at the border, costing someone(?) money and they start the process all over again at 9 in the morning. Everyone is just a little less happy at that point!

Currently, it is an extraordinary challenge to get trucks to go to into Canada from the Midwest at a reasonable rate. Reasonable in this case is a comparative judgment based on what we pay for long haul trucking here in the United States compared to what those rates are going into Canada. There are numerous reasons why this might be occurring. There was an attempt to define what the critical reasons are but I didn’t want to get involved in a debate about anti- US or Canadian sentiment nor to get involved in an obscure argument over the logistics of border crossings. The only thing that really matters is that the cost structures for going from the US into Canada versus two points in the US are significantly different. The difference is about $.60 per mile on a 500 mile run and that is prohibitive. This might be a great place to employ some useful technology to streamline the process and reduce costs.

If you think about this in a way that compares the costs of cross border traffic here to that of the costs of shipping product by container to some other country the implications are pretty scary. For just another $500(?), loads can be shipped all the way around the world!

A new era in Canada-U.S. relations

Wednesday Sep 30, 2009

By

Edmonton Journal

The following is an abridged version of a presentation by Grant Aldonas to a CN trade relations forum organized by the U of A's Western Centre for Economic Research. Aldonas, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, is a former U. S. undersecretary of commerce, and was an adviser on trade issues to the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain.

Building on a foundation of shared values and friendship arising from confronting common challenges together, relations between U. S. and Canadian relations have remained close over many years. At the same time, there have been serious disagreements and points at which goodwill ebbed....

The early years of this decade witnessed another ebb tide in our relations. The most significant conflict lay in differences between the Bush and Chretien administrations over the perceived threat of Iraq's putative weapons of mass destruction and the subsequent U. S. invasion of Iraq. But the continuing friction over U. S. security controls implemented after the events of Sept. 11 and another flare-up over softwood lumber led many to question whether the we were on the cusp of a more definitive breach in U. S.-Canadian affairs.

A FRESH START

Seven industry groups back second annual ‘green’ seminar - | ISWOnline

Seven industry groups back second annual ‘green’ seminar - ISWOnline: "Industry News
Seven industry groups back second annual ‘green’ seminar"

SCHAUMBURG, IL – Five major wood industry trade groups and two other wood organizations have come on board as cooperating associations for the second annual Dollars & Sense of Going Green Conference, Nov. 19-20 at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel.
The cooperating associations include:

Appalachian Hardwood Manufacturers Inc.

Association of Woodworking & Furnishings Suppliers

Business & Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Assn.

Hardwood Plywood & Veneer Assn.

Wood Component Manufacturers Assn.


Representatives of companies belonging to any one of these groups will qualify for a $75 discount on registration for the unique two-day event.

The rains came and stayed past their welcome!

Here in the central regions of the country the rain visited us mercilessly this week and continues to pound us in some parts as we speak. This is typically the time when primary manufacturers accumulate inventories for the winter months but it just isn't happening not only due to the weather but also the market and credit.

This only adds fuel to the calls for higher pricing as it relates to probable scarcity in the coming months.

Is "Crunch Time" coming?

Some time ago I wrote that there was going to be a "collision of values" between the cost of lumber and value that people would pay for it. That time is rapidly approaching. It seems that the buying public is not in the mood for any price increases yet, there has to be price increases at the supply end as supply will dry up. More for some than for others but there can be no doubt that landowners have reached a decision point where they are less willing to sell their wood lots for less and are deciding to set on the sidelines to see what will happen. Loggers are starved out, broke and just tired of working for less than nothing. Banks are, of course, not being real interested in financing new production without some reasonable guarantees of profitability. Is it there?

Producers are reluctant to buy anything that they don't already have sold and I think that we are going to enter some more turbulent times when the buying public has to pay more for things that they have been able to get at a much reduced price. Will this result in back orders? Substitutions? Elimination? What are your thoughts?

International Film Festival in Louisville

It is unusual that we have a major cultural event happening in the Louisville are and there not be as much buzz about it as should be perhaps. However, this October marks the first International Film Festival here in Louisville and it is an opportunity to bring one more dimension of arts and culture to the Metro Area. Here is a synopsis:


Louisville’s International Festival of Film (LIFF) is committed to screening artistic films not usually presented through commercial venues, giving independent filmmakers a place to showcase their work. The festivities will be October 2nd and 3rd at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. You can click on the tickets link for that information. Otherwise, you can see all of the details at: http://www.louisvillefilmfestival.org/index.html