Trying to understand logging economics

[treefarmer87]

and lets not forget break-down costs and quotas

[madmari]

And rain/weather delays. And contract changes. Mill spec changes. Registrations, permits, road use fees. Chain, cables, filters, lubricants, parts (waiting for parts) workmans comp, tires, safety equipment...... OK, i'm broke.

  Doh! The insurance bill just came, and there's the fuel bill. Here's something from the tax department.....

[SwampDonkey]

Just thank goodness your not working for Irving, because all that equipment would be financed through them to get the job. Irving in NB pays the lowest of any mill on logs and pulp. The pine price wouldn't be too bad, if you didn't have to high grade your woods to death to meet their high end specs.

Open up a Kent Homes flyer.........hmmm.......$129 for a clear 1"x8"x8'. Hmm head bolts - $ 3.75 each.......Lee Valley $0.25 each. Oh well, the flyer makes good fire starter for the stove.

[lumberjack48]

Here i set in this wheelchair, 22 yrs now, and my mind has been kicking around putting a crew together this Fall
        What does it take to open a guys eyes, Its called Logging Fever and once you caught it you got it,, theres no cure.

When i bought a new skidder in 1968, i got $11.00 for pulp loaded on railroad car. I sorted all the saw bolts out, i got $18.00 delivered.
There was a mill paying $9.00 for tree length, i thought that was just a honest way to steal wood.

  I payed 50 cents a cord stumpage, $2.50 a cord for trucking

I can't remember if i was making money, but i can remember i sure thought i was.
       

[SwampDonkey]

My uncle used to get $20 a day yarding with horse and had to walk 8 miles to work with the horse.

Dad loaded rail cars for $20/cord, but it was also peeled.

Grandfather cut and peeled 2 cords a day, no chainsaws then. $2 a cord.  And that wasn't cash, it was store pay only. And fishing rods where expensive tools. I have grandfather's old Orvis bamboo rod that was not cheap in the day and they are expensive now to. It was hardly used, like new. Spare tip to. It's at least 50 years old.

[lumberjack48]

Loaded and wired many rail cars of peeled pulp, we tried to peel a 1000 cords every spring, those were the days the whole family helped peel wood.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, and around here the railroads were often run by timber barons. Irving still owns one, the Southern NB Railway. Old K.C. Irving had purchased it in 1945, which was built for timber extraction (1867) and northern settlement by  Alexander "Boss" Gibson who was also a cotton mill owner before the depression. Died broke because of the depression and also he gave his wealth away to the poor, especially those that worked in his cotton mills. Later years the railroad up the river valley had it's biggest customers from forest and farm products. All closed up now, what remains of it is the southern railroad from Saint John, NB into Maine. The CP leased all it's lines from them, and probably still do because I was fishing on the Miramachi one time and all the sudden new signs where hung, about not trespassing on the NB rail road lands. This was Irving's and I think they were afraid of camp fires. I always used a Coleman, but you could see fire pits around.

[Ed_K]

 I'm still trying to figure a profit.
 Cutting hemlock
 $186. mbf average
 $  22. ton pulp
 $  70. mbf trucking
 $  30. mbf daily-fixed cost
 $    2. mbf stumpage
When I got done I think I make $2.16 an hr
But I wouldn't do anything else.