The functions of a hardwood distributor

By Don F. White, Sr. White Brothers Lumber Co. Oaklutd. Ca.

/-\n any given, average month in lr-rf ttre United States and Canada, over 100 specialists will send out some 350 highly trained salesmen who will sell around l0% million board feet of carefully selected hardwoods to more than 15O00 customers.

This does not include mill shipments from sawmill to large industrials but comprises sales from warehouse to user. The bill will be in the neighborhood of $10 million. An impressive neighbor' hood to be sure.

Who are these people? They are the hardwood distribution yards, spread over every section ofthe United States and the larger cities in Canada.

Some of them maintain stocks of other forest products, but essentially they specialize in hardwoods of all sorts i maintaining adequate inventories, storage facilities, handling equipment, machinery, delivery trucks with office and yard personnel and outside sales' men.

These hardwood men generally buy in large quantities from carefully devel' oped sources, unload railcars, truck and trailers or haul their imported hardwoods from docks to their warehouses where inventories are separated, inspected, tallied, often milled and generally prepared for subsequent resale in various smaller quantities.

The distributor is a specialist in the foibles of handling, grading, storage and preparing his product for its ultimate end use.

Unlike the softwood part of the lumber business, the handling, storage, remanufacture and sale of hardwoods is significantly different in most re' spects: a fact not always fully reilued by even some who handle or use limited hardwoods to supplement their softwood and building material sales.

But to a hardwood man his product is like a living thing. It must be kept in cool sheds protected from sun and hot winds and certain woods like heavy maple are kept in the coolest, calmest spots.

He can advise and recommend to his customers the kind and grades that will be best for a particular job or problem. He will tell you that hardwoods are not cut to a standard thickness but to a thickness that when surfaced will clean up to 13116", l-l116", l-5116", l-314" eta. That widths are cut to fractional inches: whatever the board will produce and that lengths are in odd and even feet. That to figure requirements for a job it is necessary to take the nominal s2es, allow for wane in some species (lack of wood where the bark was), side bend, end checks and other defects depending on specie. He may state that ll4 to ll3 waste is required over nominal sizes. He will advise that wide boards cost more than random widths and lengths because there aren't as many of them in a shipment and that generally they must be dug from the pile.

He normally can supply most do' mestic hardwoods from alder, ash, birch, maple, oak, Philippine, walnut, and teak, etc., as well as exotic woods of wondrous beauty of grain, color and design. Such woods as fantastic Hawaiian Koa: the dazzling Dalbergias: rssewoods from many lands, a wood of breathtaking hues and colors. Ebonies like bible-black gaboon, streaked mac' assar and dense ebano from Brazil. Breadnut with its strarp reddish pigmen' tation or pink peroba rosa, iroko from Africa that looks like teak, juglans tropicana, a true walnut but from Peru, or glittering cana fistula for spectacular kitchen (or other floors) furniture and fixtures whose "other name" of stinking toes belies its marvelous comeliness.

There are many others but the supply of exotics is sporatic and undependable. Thus there are feasts and famines in these inventories.

Your distributor can supply almost unlimited shapes and sizes by glueing and shaping as required by industry or individuals and for almost any end use such as truck beds, furniture, toy making, boat decks and shipbuilding, kitchen cabinets and counters or construction timbers like l2"xl2" and wider x l6'and longer. He can provide Honduras mahogany, birdseye maple or curly birch for musical instrument making.

Almost without exception, these yardsbelong to the National Hardwood Lumber Association, a group headquartered in Chicago, whose membership represents every segment of the hardwood industry.

Story at a Glance

A review of the many products and services of hardwood distribution yards the associations that many of them belong to and an impression of the myriad of hardwoods available from around the world.

There are regional groups, like the prestigious Pacific Coast Wholesale Hardwood Distributors Association. Almost without exception these men are 'hardwood freaks" and justly proud of it. Like many of their customers they are "into hardwoods" and can admire its beauty whether in raw boards or installed in a gorgeous setting. They can chat for hours in reverent tones about radiant color, sensuous figure and surpassing design and still be talking of fine wood.

Of course, every hardwood yard doesn't always handle everything mentioned above. Some have specialized within their own area, some catering only to the boating industry, others to architects, specifications, etc. Some deal mostly in bulk, depending on volume and a quick stock turn. A few devote their energies to only one or two qpecies. Most,however, can supply a great variety of hardwoods and services. They can advise on the best material, size, shape and grade for your own particular end use. They are the experts and ifyou use their talents and resources you can depend on hardwood to be a profitable addition to your line.

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