Short Wood Loggin PNW...lemme here your thoughts

[islandlogger]

So here's the deal. Typically here in the PNW loggin is done tree length as much as possible, the longer the timber on the truck the more $$ it's worth at the mill. Over the past 6 months I've been working hard with multiple private land owners who all combined would come out to between 200 to 300 acres of timber to be cut at 30% harvest. We would be cuttin the worst, leaving the best, basically trying to regain the forests from past hi-grade cuts. We would be cutting across the diameter on mostly Doug Fir and White Fir with a little bit of Hemlock and a few stands of hard wood, and even while taking the worst some of the bigger diameters arnt to shy of over 30 inch at the butt....however there will also be alot that will mainly just be chip-saw etc...
Now here's the catch, the area is on a non ferry served island, shore line restrictions leave the booming option of the old days out of the picture. The current roads are narrow and gravel, kept up by the county but not suitable to hold up to full size log trucks. We looked closely at doing a heli logging op with Columbia Helicoptors and having them fly sticks to a barge sitting a half mile off shore....looked good on paper and penciled out BUT with the low quality dollar value of the timber and the high cost of the heli the margin for error and un-knowns has us scratching our heads again.
Next option: short loggin. The roads will accommodate a self loading short logger or two, it's possible to cold deck the Timber near a barge access beach side and load barges with timber and have them tugged to a near by mainland port....
Problem: buckin short wood on already lower value timber means even lower value at the BIG mills. It could still work BUT does anybody know of "smaller" mills in the PNW area that prefers short wood? 2 to 300 acres is goin to yield alot of sticks at a 30% cut so at least we have volume working for us, but the land owners need stumpage and us poor ol loggers got to put at least a loaf or two of bread on the table after all is said and done. Be nice to find a fair market for short wood, any input is aprecitated as always, mull over it as you chew your way thru a Happy Thanks givin!!

islandlogger

[beenthere]

If non-ferry served island, how are goods and autos and trucks moved onto the island? 

Or does it just mean the tree-length loads are out of the question to ferry them out?

Chance of milling on the island and moving lumber and chips off? 

[islandlogger]

Cars and large items, supplys, fuel etc are shipped out via landing barge, unfortunatly these same barges can only hold one full size logging truck at a time and at the cost per hour by the time the truck gets to a ferry served island and then to the mainland mill the over head surpassed the profit. Thus using a larger deck barge that we can just load strait timber onto in large volume and tug strait to port near the mills is more viable....
Milling on island is always a option and I do as much of it as I can, however, two to three hundred acres of wood is ALOT of wood for a smaller mill to chew thru...and we just dont have a market for that much rough sawn wood

islandlogger

[beenthere]

Eat the elephant one bite at a time.
Is there a rush to complete this by some deadline? Benefit to the landowners? Benefit to the loggers? To whom?

Just curious. But sounds like a bit of a dead end -IF in a big hurry.

[Gary_C]

Can you do tree length on just the high value logs and shortwood on the remainder?

In these markets you just have to "sort till the bark falls off" as they say here to get maximum dollar for your logs. It never seems to work to get the markets to do what you want unless you have a very large and continuing supply of wood.

[SwampDonkey]

Back east here in Canada, the low grade softwood cut into short wood (4' pulp) was always worth more. And hardwood pulp 100" versus tree length was always more. Most everyone went treelength to cut wood procurement costs, not to increase the price of wood.

[thecfarm]

No help,but interesting to hear of cutting on an island and "bargeing" the wood.

[islandlogger]

Thanks for replies to date folks, and to answer a few of the questions:
No there isn't exactly a "hurry" to chew thru all this wood, just need to keep it moving to keep the paycheck's coming as usual.
Pulp wood options have been thought of, dismissed and being thought of again for the really lower value wood.
Cuttin the trees that are higher value tree length would be fine, but again it comes down to the trucks on those roads, we just dont see a way to haul any tree length loads without spending alot of time and money on maintaining the roads which FYI are County maintained gravel roads....
Where there is a will there is a way and I like that sayin "sort till the bark comes off"
I was just hoping that with the newer markets that pop up with the "smaller" or "private" mills that prefer short wood lenghts we could find one we hadnt heard of yet. I had a few leads but they are only interested in small amounts.....

Have a great Turkey Day guys and gals!!

islandlogger

[snowstorm]

there have been a few cutting wood on the offshore islands here in maine.some with ferry service some without. one outfit was putting a boom out from shore to the barge and running the graple skidders out into the salt water crane on the barge loaded it. dont think i would want my equipment in the saltwater. there are serval large landing craft and barges and sea trucks on the coast here. often times when they are paving roads on an island barges are used to get the trucks and mix over there. the ferrys are to busy with the summer folks.

[bond-lumber]

Hi there, we are on Orcas, not a big operation but there has been some talk of how to add value to the 'island' timber...two guys have now got kilns and are trying to do more processing on the island...I don't know the capacity of mills on Waldron, but maybe milling shorts and barging over rough sawn wood, drying it, sending it to be milled into flooring would be a way to sustainably log, mill, dry, sell flooring or equiv...since the island fir seems to be nice, hard stuff, unlike mainland fir!?
Just a thought to be able to use shorts...(these two kilns fit 16 footers niclely)...Johnathan Loop on Orcas is one of the guys that has a kiln and also a contact to a very nice flooring mill in town.  We have an old Newman planer (8-B) that I am trying to set up to make flooring as well...Best, Andrew

[islandlogger]

Hey Andrew
Thanks for the thoughts. Yes we to have been working on added value products, been working with NNRG and researching markets etc. Our extra hard Island Doug Fir has attractions out there for sure and in fact I have been in nagotiations with a flooring company in the Seattle are that want's rough sawn cants that they can re-saw into their product.
Our thought here at the moment is that the timber stands here are SO over stocked that it would be good to go thru and do that initial 30% thin commercially. The total yield is going to be one and a half million board feet or so and to be honest there are a few mills out here but I seem to be the only one that does production and, well, that's a lot of wood to chew thru!! For sure I will be picking some of the timber out for other markets but the main thin in interest of the wood not sitting to long and in interest of the land owners seeing a bit of return etc will have to be a commercial run.
Back to the islands added value hopes, I'm really glad to hear there is more interest on the other islands!! That's encouraging. Things on Waldron move so slowwwwww with such a small community and with all the bad feelings toward poor past high grade operations, but I'm gettin 'em convinced and they have known me long enough to know I wont trash there woods, I'm for bettering the forests and making a living at the same time.
Maybe our paths will cross in all this and again thanks for the info, much appreciated!!
islandlogger

[mad murdock]

Island logger, have you tried to "feel out" other niche markets? One that comes to mind for high grade doug fir and Sitka spruce is aif raft grade structural lumber.  The specs are tight, but a developed market could help balance your equation to help buoy up removal of lower grade stuff. Depending on the wood and the type of mill used you could yield 2-4 aircraft grade boards per log. Companies that retail in this market are Aircraft Sprice and Specialty Co, Wicks Aircraft Supply, and others. There are propeller manufactures who use wood as well, but they use yellow birch and hard maple mostly.  You may find highe value in some specialty marine markets as well, since traditional boat builders want higher grade wood more often than not. 

[islandlogger]

mad murdock
Interesting thought, I googled up them companies you listed but I only see Spruce products, no Doug Fir....and we don't have any Spruce here in the San Juans other then a few that land owners planted and are partial to....
I have looked into marine applications for the high grade Doug Fir and it's for sure a market. I know the niche markets are out there, but the basic deal in this operation I am working on is the land owners want the low grade stuff gone first no ifs ands or buts and THEN they will be happy to start selling low volume harvests of their high grade stuff. So I'm kind of in a pinch before I can get at those other markets, I gotta do step A to get to step B and so on....
Update is I found a few Mills in Port Angeles that are willing to pay for wood strait off the barge (at same price as would be delivered to mill) and I must say that sounds AWFUL attractive, the lower $$ value can be off set with the saved expenses of trucking off the barge etc....
So far so good, we shall find out what does actually happen!!
And again thanks for all your thoughts folks, I'm still open to suggestions, nothing is set in stone yet until the contracts are signed a thats a little bit down the skid road yet...
islandlogger

[mad murdock]

Old growth cedar stumps could be another product. A few weeks back I was in the forks area, they were making shake bolts out of the numerous OG stumps in that area. 

[islandlogger]

Yeah I've heard that those hold good value and lot's of "salvage" operations have been making a good buck or to doing that. Most of the Old Growth Cedar here is still standing, it was the Old Growth Doug Fir that got logged off the most for the Lime Kiln days, Cedar was harvestd in small amounts by the pioneer farmers for housing and fences but of course they burned all the stumps after breaking their backs pullin them buggers out or blowin them up or whatever they did. All them old fields are woods now, still find the old split Cedar fence lines running thru them and the cabins have no roof or floors but those Old Growth Cedar hand hewed walls are good as new and nice relics...
Was it you that posted about them Heli Loggin them stumps round Forks??
islandlogger

[bond-lumber]

Good luck Islandlogger,
That is bigger volume than we are talking...it may be that your second cuts of higher grade, lower volume would work with this 'value added' idea...hopefully we will have some of the bugs ironed out by the time you fill your barge a few times and send that stuff to the mainland!!!  Is this some of the land that has recovered from the CarMac days or is it older reprod than that???  Best wishes, bondlumber

[islandlogger]

CarMac as in.....Carlson....

[mad murdock]

Was it you that posted about them Heli Loggin them stumps round Forks??
islandlogger

n
Aye, that it would.

[bond-lumber]

Yes, as in Carlson...Doesn't he still own a big chunk over there?  I am curious what the mill at Pt. Towsend would pay if you don't mind my aksing?  I just heard that Sierra Pacific will pay only 500/MBF and take 8" tops (up to 33" butts - nothing bigger or you get docked about 200/MBF).

[islandlogger]

Good ol' Billy Carlson, yes most of this harvest will be to "repair" the woods he high graded over the years, most of them got hit at least 3 different times by him but his last run in the 90's was the worst because he got his hands on a cutter buncher...and...well if you know Billy he sure got carried away on that thing and went for it. I think most of the cuts were supposed to be 40% and I think I could safely say they surpassed 60% on most units. I actually worked for him when he started operations in the 90's, he didn't have the cutter buncher yet and needed a faller so I jumped at it. We started on a 40 acre piece on the North side, just me falling, ol Bub skiddin with the cat and a guy working the landing. When we were done I was dead proud of that 40 acres, it looked good!! THEN Billy got that cutter buncher and promptly went in and $&%# it all up  I pretty much lost my job to that machine and he went on to log the rest of his property units with it. Now, I do get along with ol' Billy, but I dont agree with his methods. He just grew up in a different time, very old school. At one point he owned well over half the property on the island, and in fact my folks bought our land from him and in some ways it's Billys fault that I got into loggin. When we moved here he was loggin the land next to ours and I would listen to them cuttin all day long n trees crashing n bashing n them old cats belching, at quittin time I would wander over and explore the skid roads and sit in the cats thinkin it sure looked like fun....I was only 8. At any rate he has sold off 90% of his land now, he only has a few small chunks and his loggin days are long gone. I worked for his son Mike a few times, he has a whole different attitude but he's more into the construction theme now.
The mill in PA will likely pay between$350 to $400 MBF for short wood but like I say they will buy off the barge, we havn't settled anything yet, just gettin into the "negotiations"
I've heard Siearra Pacific can be a bit of a hassle to work with but havn't dealt with them directly, any commercial stuff I ever did went strait to the sort yard in La Connor...

islandlogger