How to Sell Live Edge Slabs for Profit

Make money from your wood slabs by building a customer base and marketing yourself

Want to know how to convert your solid wood slabs into sales?

There's a heavy demand for live edge slabs, with many woodworkers aiming to do slab tables, charcuterie boards and other finished furniture. It's an incredibly active scene and one with a lot of potential to make money. 

Noah is one such sawyer, and he and his father run Slabba Dabba Doo, a slab business that produces thousands of board feet of wood and turns them into slab sales, where customers take their wood and produce coffee tables, kitchen tables and so much more.

While many sawyers start small, Noah says he and his dad dreamed big fast and skipped the humble beginnings, going immediately into full time business and never stopping. This has led to consistent growth, one slab at a time.

So what are the basics on growing your own live edge slab business and how do you get started? Let's find out.

How to get started milling slabs

For starters you're going to need the equipment and the resources, namely a portable sawmill and trees.

For portable sawmills, while there are many size options available, for the purpose of milling slabs we recommend sizing up to a larger size of mill, to be able to do especially wide slabs if customers require it. This also helps for trees with bends, kinks and weird shapes. Oftentimes these peculiar logs end up making the best tables and slabs, because of their odd angles, so it's best to have a mill that can handle them.

When it comes to trees, having access to your own woodlot or private forest can be a great way to source your own trees. This means you won't have to bother sourcing your lumber from other places and can rely on your own logs to keep your business going.

The downside to this is you are potentially clear cutting your land. If you're already planning a land clearing project and the trees would otherwise go to waste then this can be a great option though.

If you don't want to cut down your own trees, why not cut down others? Run a portable milling service, take your portable sawmill on the go and offer to cut down and mill other peoples' logs. Either accept cash payment or cut a deal to keep a portion of the wood for yourself.

Different species can fetch quite a hefty sum, so if you can mill someone's black walnut and keep some slabs for yourself then you're setting yourself up for a hefty payday once that lumber is ready for sale.

In general, you want trees that have:

• • Unusual shapes, bends or burls

  • Unique color patterns and discolorations

  • Enough width to do tables, desks or other furniture projects

Image courtesy of Chunky Wood Shop from the Woodland Mills Product Owners and Community Facebook Group.

How to finish your slabs

Once you've got your slabs milled are they ready for sale?

Most sawyers will say no, they need to be dried first. Oftentimes you can get a much better price by selling live edge slabs which are ready to be used in woodworking projects. New customers will be glad to purchase wood that's immediately ready to use, as opposed to having to wait a year to use it.

Whether you plan on doing air dried or kiln dried lumber is up to you. Air dried lumber requires less infrastructure, while kiln dried lumber is ready much quicker.

Look at what type of setup you want to do. Do you have a short period of time to turn your slabs into profit? Consider investing the time in building a solar kiln to get your wood dry quicker.

Do you lack space on your property for a dedicated kiln? Set up a shed or covered roof and get your wood air drying immediately.

Image courtesy of Lester from the Woodland Mills Product Owners and Community Facebook Group.

Marketing your slab business

Actually making sales can be the hardest part of the job because it requires a lot of people skills and forming relationships. It can actually be a full time job itself, but thankfully you've set up smart pricing and can ensure than even just one sale nets you the profit you need to make money from your slab business.

Here are some tips for marketing yourself and your slab business.

• • Post online in places like Facebook Marketplace

  • Go to craft shows or other industry events, either as a patron or a vendor

  • Reach out to your local woodworking community and see what the demand for logs and slabs is like

  • Consult your local industry professionals on the best value and price for your lumber

  • Reach out to repeat customers on a regular basis and let them know you got a fresh haul of great slabs

There are a bunch of great ideas for marketing yourself. Once you've built up a name, maybe consider taking out newspaper ads or doing other forms of online advertising to get your slabs in front of the greatest number of people who might be interested.

Image courtesy of Roger from the Woodland Mills Product Owners and Community Facebook Group.

How should you price your slabs?

This is a difficult question to answer because it depends on many factors. Let's go over a few and see how to get the best value for your pieces.

• • Consult with woodworking organizations in your area to check the demand

  • Find exotic species to your locality and sell them there

  • Balance the cost for you to cut, mill and dry the wood and the best price to make a profit

  • Check with different board foot calculators to see the national averages

Remember that when you're selling slabs you're balancing the demand of the market in your area to your costs and projected profits. You may have to reduce your price to compete with other slab vendors, or cut deals to move large amounts of slabs all at once.

Don't get too stuck in your head that every slab sale needs to net you a 50% or 100% profit margin. As long as your sales are profitable then you can continue to generate a market and increase your output to the demand in your area.

Image courtesy of JD Woodworking on Instagram and Youtube.

Producing your own woodworking

Are you a woodworker as well as a sawyer? In that case, why not offer to take the slabs to their final product yourself? On top of selling slabs you can also offer to produce them into end tables, charcuterie boards and much more.

Again, this will be dependent on the market in your area. Smartly check the value of what you can create and come up with strategic pricing to sell it to customers in your vicinity.

In general you can:

• • Do made-to-order products based on what your customers request

  • Build an inventory of charcuterie boards and coffee tables which will be in high demand

  • Set up at crafts markets and meet people who might commission you for future projects

  • Set up your wood slabs at markets and show people your raw materials and what you can make with them

With a good workshop, you have the right equipment to produce fantastic products for people. Even if you're just learning, simple epoxy resin charcuterie boards have a lot of wow factor with most people and can net a very healthy return on investment. A few bucks in material costs can net you $200 for a 4x7" charcuterie board depending on the quality.

See what people want and start selling it.