Roaddogs Forrest
Specialty Wood Supplier for Scroll Sawyers and Laser Artists

Many thousands of people these days indulge in lasercraft, Scroll sawing and intarsia artwork. One of the biggest problems for them is obtaining good quality wood in the thin sizes they need. Wood in general is based and sold on board feet. Which is 12"x12"x1". These artists work with wood less than 1" thick. This type of wood takes extra resawig and processing so it is sold based on square foot, and is sold at the same price as a board foot. This means that a 2 board foot piece can yeild 5 square foot of 1/4" thick stock.

Examples of My Artistic Laser Craft

Examples Of Intarsia Artwork

Examples of Scroll Saw Artwork

Small business with multiple cash flows and minimum downside.

Current needs of $650,000.00 with 1 year forbearance. Looking for terms of 15 years amoratized 5 year balloon.

Multiple cash flows that all revolve around a small scale sawmill and workshop.

Wood Mizer LT50 portable Sawmill

Urban logging has become quite popular these days and large cities all have their version of this green idea. It is a wonderful thing seeing trees in these concrete jungles rescued and repurposed into furniture and artistic works. But what about areas in the country where trees are plentiful and far too many end up in the chipper, burn pit or landfill. My research has shown obtaining logs to cut in these areas are not a problem. The main challenge is in the transportation to the sawmill. Logs are heavy and cumbersome. It takes time and manpower. Then depending on what you are sawing for will depend how profitable each log will be.

For example cutting for furniture will yield far less profit than will stock cut into laser blanks. Not to mention furniture lumber to be valuble it needs to be not less than 8' in length whereas laser blanks can be made from 2' or 4' logs. Your charge rate is different as well because when selling furniture lumber, it is sold by the board foot which is 1" thick x 12" wide and 12" long. When selling wood for the scrollsaw or laser artist it is less than 1" thick and sold by the square foot which is thickness< 1" x 12" wide and 12" long. This equates to a yield roughly 2 board foot = 5 square feet 1/4" thick. Regardless you can charge the same price per sq. foot as you can a board foot.

LOG YIELD

Based on 18" DIAMETER LOG

With a $650,000.00 loan 15/5 We will need to process and sell 4- 12' saw logs milled for laser blanks to break even every month. It does not take much to break even with just the saw mill and what I have in mind has multiple income streams as you will see.

First thing we need is a piece of property that has mature hardwoods on it like this property at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. 85 acres $370,000.00
https://www.landsofamerica.com/property/Coffman-Bend-Drive-Climax-Springs-Missouri-65324/7119518/

Welcome to Roaddogs Forest.

Our goal here is to have our sawmill and a ready supply of wood, if and when needed. As noted before, this part of the world is tree heavy so obtaining logs should not prove a problem. However when the occasional log drought comes around we will still have logs from our own property. A piece of property this size will have mature trees die or be blown over at about 1 tree per 5 acres per year. This would yield about 17 trees per year. Each of these trees should produce 2+ saw logs each. This would provide 34+ of the 48 saw logs we need to break even for the year. We should be able to also salvage 1/2 cord of firewood for each of these trees. (another income stream)

Next we will build a workshop with portable sawmill. All aspects of its construction will be filmed and posted to youtube which will add another revenue stream.

These days to have a truly successful business you will need to have an online prescence. Our business will be no different. While the mainstay of the site is the sawmill and wood supplier we will be making videos and posting to youtube of every aspect of this business from the building of the shops to the milling of lumber to the clearing of paths or cutting firewood or improving the overall property. We will have many instructive videos. Instructive videos are always popular on youtube and our videos will set themselves apart with computer generated animations and graphics in addition to video of the actual construction or proceedure being illustrated. With a descent subscriber base and good presentation each of our videos will add hundreds to the bottom line.

Excerpt from my video "Crash Course, How to read House plans"

Our youtube videos will start with several showing the property and discussing our plans for its development. From there we will be building our workshop and kilns. The construction will allow us to make several more videos highlighting the techniques needed for its completion. From there videos showing work on the land creating our wood products and more. Because of the location of this property at Lake of the Ozarks we will also be able to construct and run a few vaction rentals. My experience with themed design we should be able to come up with some nice whimsical rentals that should be very popular.

3d Rendering of proposed workshop. Note: plans are drawn ready for plan check and construction.