Lumber Briefs: Was the 2018 Canadian Rail Car Shortage Real or Imagined? Matt Layman There is a longer, quite fascinating tale to be pondered on the subject of this year’s historic western Canadian shipment backlog, however, for now let’s skip the conspiracy theories and stick to the confirmable facts. The source for this article’s information is the... Read More August 2018 Issue #10229 Page 87
Lumber Briefs: Lumber Doing Its Seasonal 180° Matt Layman Now 39 years into this lumber gig, there is one thing I have more confidence in than anything else. It is the foundation of my entire lumber career and reason for my success forecasting lumber market timing. The repeating lumber market cycle. Some of it sloshes around, yet, in spite of all the... Read More July 2018 Issue #10228 Page 81
The Last Word: The Last Word on Spruce vs. Southern Pine Joe Kannapell Now is the time to consider Spruce-Pine-Fir (SPF) as a substitute for Southern Pine (SP). As noted below, #2 SPF’s 19% higher bending value and only 10% lower compression value usually enables longer spans. Cull rates are generally lower with SPF, and it is lighter and easier to... Read More July 2018 Issue #10228 Page 109
Mind the (Member) Gap Glenn Traylor Everyone knows that member gaps can be caused by uncalibrated saws and poor jigging stops during truss set-up. But did you know the most likely cause of member gaps is the lumber carriage shifting or moving the lumber at an angle, thereby causing a skewed cut? This is especially true when a gang... Read More June 2018 Issue #10227 Page 26
Lumber Briefs: Lumber: Why So High? Matt Layman Rationing On May 23, in its most active lumber futures day ever, the market traded $68 of volatility from $15 limit down to $30 limit up and back down $15 to unchanged. Why is that? Futures suspected what we Layman’s Lumber Guide members have known since mid-May. BC mills are not... Read More June 2018 Issue #10227 Page 83
The Last Word: SYP Grades Component Manufacturers are Buying Joe Kannapell What better way to assess buying trends than to recap the lumber specified on truss designs? The following charts illustrate the material derived from 80,000 truss drawings totaling 12.8 Million Board Feet of wood. Not surprisingly, more than half the total volume is consumed by visually graded... Read More June 2018 Issue #10227 Page 111
Lumber Briefs: Trucking Shortage: Lumber’s Summer Nightmare Matt Layman We lumber types have come to expect the unexpected. Hence, there is great value when we can identify, well in advance, what the next price manipulating phenomenon might be. 2018 has been a year of looking for an elusive lumber market top. Early in the year I went so far as to call 2018 a bear... Read More May 2018 Issue #10226 Page 77
The Last Word: The Last Word on Southern Pine Lumber Joe Kannapell Southern Pine grading greatly complicates the task of making lumber substitutions. The progression of the structural values of Machine Evaluated Lumber (MEL) is nothing like the progression of values of either Visually Graded or Machine Stress Rated (MSR) lumber, which both ascend like rungs on... Read More May 2018 Issue #10226 Page 107
There’s More to Lumber Qualification Than Just the Grade Stamp! Glenn Traylor Picking usable lumber involves more than just the initial grade stamp. We can think of the stamp as the first step, but we can’t stop there. Truss fabricators depend on the lumber supplier to provide effective grading protocols that will produce materials with predictable design values.... Read More April 2018 Issue #10225 Page 36
Lumber Briefs: More Lumber Price Volatility Ahead Matt Layman There are three fundamental lumber market components that will likely combine to make 2018 the most volatile year for prices on record. LABOR: ICE gave notice last week that it intends to crack down on undocumented workers in the construction industry...on the jobsites. We already... Read More April 2018 Issue #10225 Page 83