#balking

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Lumber Prices Post Biggest–Ever Weekly Drop With Buyers Balking

(Bloomberg) — Lumber futures posted their biggest-ever weekly loss, extending a tumble from all-time highs reached last month as sawmills ramp up output and buyers hold off on purchases.

Prices in Chicago fell 18% this week, the biggest decline for most-active futures in records going back to 1986. Lumber has has now dropped almost 40% from the record high reached on May 10.

Sawmills appear to be catching up with the rampant homebuilding demand in North America that fueled a months-long rally, bringing some relief to a market beset by supply shortages and price surges. Buyers are balking at still historically elevated prices and awaiting additional supplies, setting off a cascading sell-off, analysts said.

“Activity yesterday was brisk to start, turned lethargic and ended quite subdued,” William Giguere, who buys and sells eastern spruce with mills for Sherwood Lumber in Massachusetts, said in a note Friday. “There was plenty of lumber available from the mills and enough ambition to sell. Missing was the sense of urgency from buyers.”

Many buyers only purchased if necessary, generally staying on the sidelines, CIBC analyst Hamir Patel said Friday, citing an assessment from Random Lengths. The closely watched trade publication reported further declines in several wood products that trade on the cash market, and pointed to an abundance of mill offerings, Patel said.

U.S. lumber production has responded to the price rally by ramping up output by 5% over the past 12 months with another expected increase of 5%, or roughly 1 billion board feet, according to Domain Timber Advisors LLC, a subsidiary of Domain Capital Group, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Resolute Forest Products Inc. is spending $50 million to increase its lumber production, the company said Thursday. West Fraser Timber Co., the world’s biggest producer, said recently that it’s expanding capacity at five U.S. mills, while rival Canfor Corp. has said it will invest around $160 million in a new sawmill in Louisiana.

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Above-Trend

Still, while lumber prices may finally be pulling back from stratospheric highs, don’t look for a return to pre-pandemic levels any time soon, according to BMO Capital Markets.

“‘Nosebleed’ prices won’t last, but strong demand, a limited supply response and a rising cost curve all point to above-trend prices for at least the next 12-24 months,” BMO analyst Mark Wilde said in a note.

Lumber futures slid 5.6% in Chicago to $1,059.20 per 1,000 board feet on Friday. Prior to the rally that started in mid-2020, lumber futures traded mostly within the range of $200 to $600 since 1992.

With strong U.S. home building expected to last for several years, lumber prices will likely remain above $500 per 1,000 board feet for the next five to eight years, said Scott Reaves, forest operations director at Domain Timber Advisors.

“We’re at a new normal,” Reaves said in a phone interview. “We’re going to see this sustained level of housing demand and a new normal for a pricing floor in lumber.”

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MODEROID Raiking / Great Gaiking

And we finally get to Raiking. While its limbs are a lot more slender than the other two, it matches Gaiking’s appearance a lot more than Balking does, making Balking stand out even more. The wings and scythe are a nice touch, too. And then there’s Great Gaiking, who’s an absolute tank in comparison to its components. It’s a neat set of robots.

The Good: Raiking has a decent set of posability. Nothing really goes beyond 90°, but it’s just far enough to get some really good poses. Despite its small legs and feet, it has decent balance, and comes with a small stand to compensate for the moments where it may falter. That stand also doubles for propping up its flight mode.

Great Gaiking is a lot of fun, and the engineering built into the individual machines to create it is pretty cool. It doesn’t technically require any additional parts to do so apart from the helmet. And since it uses the arm joints from Raiking and the leg joints from Balking it has their posability as well (plus some additional from the added thighs).

The Bad: Raiking requires quite a few parts swaps to go between its normal and flight modes, having a cover for its neck joint and swappable, shorter forearms. And remember when I said technically Great Gaiking didn’t require any part swapping? That’s only if you go from flight mode, as it requires the shorter forearms. You also have to pull a few parts off of Raiking as well. Speaking of additional parts and Great Gaiking...

There’s a lot. Remember, if you bought these as a set, you’re paying around $105 for that Great Gaiking, and that is something I HEAVILY recommend you consider before purchasing. You can hobble together two robots out of those parts, but they’re kind of weird. Also, as a random note I didn’t have any other place to put, Balking’s ankles, even when extended, aren’t as good as Gaikings, so have a stand ready.

The Details: I panel lined the back of Raiking’s knees O_O

And I painted the black in between the horns on Great Gaiking’s helmet. I’ve hinted at this a bit, but you’re not really building model kits, you’re building figures with these three, hence the severe lack of typical model-kitting going on.

MODEROID Balking

Goofy skull-chested robot number two! This might be my favorite design of the three, mostly because of how weird it is. The long face down the front, the noodle arms, the chunky legs, and the cannons turned axes. It does a lot of weird stuff in comparison to the more similar Gaiking and Raiking, but it helps it stand out.

The Good: It knows it’s weird, and has a good number of joints to compensate for those proportions. There’s a ton in the shoulder so there isn’t any collision with the cannons while still maintaining a good range, it has two joints in the noodles for some fairly natural bend, fingers, ankles, etc. It’s a little harder to get into poses than Gaiking, but with some patience you can pull off some nice flow.

As for gimmicks, its cannons can be detached and used as axes, the head units can be swapped between the different Kings, and it has a tank mode. The tank mode comes with added tread and wheel parts to attach to the bottom of it (its only separate accessories) and they can be left on its person without hindering anything if you don’t want to lose them.

The Bad: The legs in this formation lack quite a bit of articulation (no knees). And while its shoulders have a lot of range, those golden stars always get in the way and force you to use the additional joints if its not standing upright and slack-limbed.

And while I feel Balking fills out his price point better than Gaiking did, he still feels like a bit of an oversell. Like, $30 rather than the $25 max I said for Gaiking.

The Details: A few more this time than the last. This is the only release of the three that comes with stickers, which I didn’t use. It comes with four in the same color as its waist piece that are meant to be used on the lower half of the shoulders which I replaced with black paint. It also comes with a few black stickers to fill out the holes in the knees, which I didn’t use because I was worried I’d ruin the existing paint there (which is the same reason I didn’t paint it).

As for new details, I added a bit of black to the backpack, and some red to the shoulders. The Kings are black and lack surface detail to remain accurate to their on-screen appearances, so it’s not surprising there isn’t a ton to be added here.

Balking Everyone talks; except for the man who balks. BJG(Blair Gaulton)April 2019