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Timber Harvest Methods & Equipment

Started by Ron Scott, March 24, 2002, 02:14:52 PM

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Norm


LOGDOG

Talk about some beautiful pine forests.  :)

northwoods1

That pile of wood in the last pic has got to be the smallest diameter pile of pine I have ever seen, is that pulp? Looks like its all 3" dia/ or less :o can't kick about utilization of that job, looks like it really did need thinning normal 1st thinning is every other row but that stand couldn't have taken it.

Ron Scott

Yes, we try for maximum utilization depending upon markets. The small topwood will go for pulpwood or sold to the Amish for fence posts and specialty products. I suspect that is where their market is for these wood decks.

The stand was in dier need of thinning and the USFS finally got to it. We usually don't do every every other row here, usually every 3rd row with selection removal between rows. Sometimes we will do two rows and leave too rows. We are concerned about preventing wind throw, retaining moisture content within the stand, moving the stand towards quality poles in the second thinning, etc.
~Ron

northwoods1

That is great if they are able to utilize that small stuff for posts i've never heard of that. All the first thinnings I have ever done in my area have been every other row, 2nd thinnings approx. every other tree all geared toward producing poles. The plantations around here are a lot more mature on the average most were planted by the ccc's and there is a lot of it. The picture  I show of the standing wood is just down the road from my house a couple miles I thinned it about 10 years ago and it was 3rd thinning there was some very nice poles. Back in the early 90s' a big mill opened up in northern wi for tree length wood and we thinned a lot of these stands for the 2nd time shipping it tree length. We lost a big chunk of it in a windstorm june of 2007 that is the other picture I show, just down the road from my home. The f-5 tornado went right through the middle of two very expansive areas of this mature pole timber with a path 1 mile wide+. After all the years of watching this be carefully nurtured and managed now I get to see the whole process start over, they haven't begun planting yet but most sites have been cleaned up and prepped for planting everything that was planted anyway.










Ron Scott

Back to the Hardwoods.

The 4510 Iron Mule Forwarder operator sorts and decks oak pulpwood/firewood and aspen pulpwood at the landing. Schirmer Hardwood Sale, 10/10






~Ron

mad murdock

Nice looking 'Mule Ron,  my brother and I bought a model 4501 (smaller version) from Ison Equip, in Monico Wisc, back in the day, ( I think it was 1982?) we paid about $45K for it back then.  The nice thing about the 'mule, is that they were so easy on fuel, ours had the 3 cyl. Perkins, and they could snake around real well for a forwarder.
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

LOGDOG

Mad Murdock ...how'd you end up out West. I grew up about 25 miles from Monico, WI and knew the Ison family. I ran a Iron Mule 5510 I guess it was back in the day ...and a Tree Farmer, and a Franklin... Great place to log. Loved logging in the winter up there.

Northwoods1 .... that picture you posted of the tornado damage, is that by chance up on Hwy 64 between Hwy 55 and Hwy 32? Just curious.

mad murdock

Logdog, I ended up here via the Great Land (Alaska), after kicking around in the Alaskan Bush a few years(Kotzebue, Nome, Aniak, Bethel), my wife and I moved back to the big village (Fairbanks), where she greew up, and when she heard that I had been offered a job in the stataes, she said" why aren't we on our way yet?"!? So in 1997 we moved to Oregon, for the glory of aviation, and one thing after another, we find ourselves on a 40 acre tree farm in the Oregon Coast range, watching these awesome douglas fir grow to the sky, not to mention, it is a pretty good place to raise some young uns' in the ways of the wood.  My dad's family moved to Forest Co. from Eastern KY back around 1919, and my Grandad owned and operated as a General merchant, and they had a sawmill Near Nashville, on Co Rd. B.  A lot of the folks buried in the old Forest Home cemetary there are my relation.  I did most of my logging in Vilas Co. as we grew up near Eagle River.  My uncle had the sawmill in Eagle River for decades, until it burned down in the 50's, and the old woodland business there on Hwy 45 where the mill yard was, stayed in operation until it my cousin shut the doors on the place maybe 15 years ago.  My Dad had contracts with all of the big timber co's like LP, Thilmany, Champion Intl. Badger Paper, P&G, Mosinee Paper, Menasha Corp, Consolidated etc. etc.  As  kid I knew alot of the people in the timber industry in that region, and my brothers and I cut our teeth logging at an early age.  I guess my dad thought it was a good way to keep 6 boys busy in the summer, peeling popple, and cutting firewood in the late summer, to save on heating bills for the winter.(We used to go throught about a truckload of firewood a season), and we got the express priviledge of cutting, splitting, and stacking it all.  It was great character building time for us, we all stayed out of trouble, and at the urging of my dad, none of us stayed in the woods professionally, at least not for too long.  But once in the woods, it's hard to boil it out of yer blood, I have always kept a foot in the woods, one way or another, even though my day job involves fixing helicopters.  The Northwoods are a great place to be from, my problem is, I have to admit, after chasing the snow from Northern Wisc, and the UP, to Alaska, when we came down to Oregon, and figured out that we didn't have to spend 4 months shoveling it, rather we can watch it run off the front porch most of the time, we kind of got soft, and decided that it is nice to visit the snow, (only an hour away to get to it in the cascades), then when we are done, we can leave it behind, and go home.  How the heck did you get to Lousianna?  I did some work there for a few weeks out of Abbyville, and Pine Island, when we worked doing seismic support for oil exploration in that area several years back. It was neat visiting, but the swamp never grew on me too much.  There is some nice timber in that country though.
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

northwoods1

Quote from: LOGDOG on October 25, 2010, 10:48:23 PM
Mad Murdock ...how'd you end up out West. I grew up about 25 miles from Monico, WI and knew the Ison family. I ran a Iron Mule 5510 I guess it was back in the day ...and a Tree Farmer, and a Franklin... Great place to log. Loved logging in the winter up there.

Northwoods1 .... that picture you posted of the tornado damage, is that by chance up on Hwy 64 between Hwy 55 and Hwy 32? Just curious.

I haven't sat in an iron mule for a long time, but sure have skidded a lot of wood with them over the years, out of all the different makes I've run I liked the franklins best, hard to get by without the roof mount loader after you get used to having it :). Which direction were you from Monico? Yes that is where that picture of the storm damage was taken. This was about mile 20 of the 40 mile long continuous path.  Might be hard for some to make out what there looking at but just in that shot there are tens of thousands of chords of wood down you can see how one big pine area of r.pine plantation is laid down showing the rotation of the tornado. Just a couple miles off the photo to the right there was a large federal sale with a crew working way back off the road cutting the day the tornado went through. It was a 2man/machine mechanized processor crew and they were directly in the middle of the path as the storm went through. The processor operator  told me he was cutting and the wind picked up a little bit. Then it got a little windier, then he said all the windows in the machine fogged up almost instantly and the debris started flying he just put his head down between his knees and waited. It was over in less than a minute but imagine how weird it would be to be in a situation like that, way out in the middle of the woods 1 minute and then literally couple minutes later not be able to see a single tree standing for as far as you could see just all downed trees! Talk about timber harvest methods and equipment :D it was like a logging convention around here after that for a good long while. Just in that pic alone there had to be at least 12 different crew working for close to 2 years just cleaning up tipper over wood no standing trees. I worked for over 1 year on just an 80 acre area of Exc+ red oak and large white pine to the upper left in the photo.

northwoods1

Quote from: mad murdock on October 26, 2010, 02:52:30 AM
, my problem is, I have to admit, after chasing the snow from Northern Wisc, and the UP, to Alaska, when we came down to Oregon, and figured out that we didn't have to spend 4 months shoveling it, rather we can watch it run off the front porch most of the time, we kind of got soft, and decided that it is nice to visit the snow, (only an hour away to get to it in the cascades), then when we are done, we can leave it behind, and go home. 

You didn't get softer you got smarter :D  I just can't hardly take the cold anymore myself. I mean, if it's below zero I ain't going out and cutting wood! Unless its in from a heated cab! Oregon sure sound nice!

LOGDOG

MM & Northwoods1 ... A lot of what you described fits my life growing up right down to cutting and splitting the firewood for the winter. I know right where Cty B is in the town of Nashville. I grew up in Pearson which is about 8 miles Southeast. Do you remember a restaurant called "Hill's Still" ... about a mile up the road from there. My folks still live up that way. I don't get back much. I know what you mean about getting soft once you're out of the snow and the cold. It's a rare thing to see snow in our parts down in LA. What brought me here? ...My wife. She's from here. It looks like we have our property sold though so we're looking at our options. Actually looking hard at the NW. I'll be looking for some land to do a 1031 Exchange into so I don't get killed on taxes.

Yep, my Great Grandpa worked in the logging camps down on the Wolf River. He used to have a cabin on the river down by Cty A near what was Michelor's Bar if that rings a bell. I heard the property that the cabin was on recently sold and was disappointed that none of my family had told me about it or done anything to try and buy it. I think I probably would have bought it just for nostalgia if nothing else. It's a great spot on the Wolf River too. Did a lot of trout fishing there over the years.

NW ... I'm with you, those Franklins are Cadillacs with the roof mount loaders. The one I ran was brand spanking new. You know, in the event of a bad storm, sitting in a processor probably isn't a bad place to be... as solid as they're built with thick plexiglass and steel around you. What a show that would be to watch huh? I heard it was ugly though. Lot of big deer up those woods on Hwy 64.  ;D

northwoods1

Quote from: LOGDOG on October 26, 2010, 08:24:19 AM
MM & Northwoods1 ... A lot of what you described fits my life growing up right down to cutting and splitting the firewood for the winter. I know right where Cty B is in the town of Nashville. I grew up in Pearson which is about 8 miles Southeast. Do you remember a restaurant called "Hill's Still" ... about a mile up the road from there.

Yep, my Great Grandpa worked in the logging camps down on the Wolf River. He used to have a cabin on the river down by Cty A near what was Michelor's Bar if that rings a bell. I heard the property that the cabin was on recently sold and was disappointed that none of my family had told me about it or done anything to try and buy it. I think I probably would have bought it just for nostalgia if nothing else. It's a great spot on the Wolf River too. Did a lot of trout fishing there over the years.


My family/grandfather worked the camps around here also. They floated a lot of timber down that river I have a collection of vintage photos of that era very neat stuff, the wolf was a very fast river I've got one pic of a big jam down by the Dalles. Pics of the drivers taking bateaus through the dales pretty hairy water! Was up canoeing up near where you mentioned just a couple weeks ago. Put in by Lily. We had a lot of rain last few weeks so river was high(real high for this time of year!). Took my girlfriend who I hadn't canoed with before and was hesitant, but I thought she could handle the water it can get pretty fast in places, what a beautiful trip it was :) ... I live just East of Langlade and I also have a small farm a little further east on the South Branch of the Oconto, very good trout fishing there only 1 fish over 20" and the browns can run a fair amount larger than that!

barbender

Hey, this thread is supposed to be timber harvest methods and equipment, not a cheesehead reunion :D
Too many irons in the fire

mad murdock

Well Barbender, bringing it back on topic, I know what you all mean about them Franklins, After we ran the tires off that Iron Mule, My brother got tired of fixing the planetaries (It was from constant overloading the machine) on the 4501, he traded up to a 132 pack a back, with the roof mounted hawk loader.  That was a sweet skidding machine!  Nice cab, tons of power, and a truck loader on top of the cab, a little over 3 skidder loads and you had a truckload out.  Production went from an honest 18-20 cord a day to every day a 30 cord day, and more if you were in good wood.  We had a JD 450C w/ a Morbark shearhead on it, you could lay down usually 4 truckloads of wood a day with that machine as well.  That was about as mechanized as we got.  We could've gotten bigger, but eventually we all went the way of the 4 winds, and the rest as they say is "history".  There sure are some nice machines out there now for woods work, I just wonder how a guy can afford them with wood prices the way they are.  Makes the old iron worth alot more today in my book, you don't have to spend your whole day working for the bank.
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

barbender

I'm just ribbing you guys, I enjoy hearing about your experiences in the north woods.
Too many irons in the fire

mad murdock

i figured as much B B :D  Did have some good times "growing up under a tree", as my wife tells my kids, "your dad was born under a tree"! "and raised by his'self".  As far as timber harvest methods go though, I do like the way they do things in this country, cutting longer lengths, and hauling them that way to the mill.  Makes for better production at the end of the day for sure.
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

LOGDOG

Northwoods ... I'd love to see those river pics with them floating the logs down the river if you ever get the chance to scan them. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong era. Then again, those guys were tough scrappers and I probably couldn't have cut it.
I've caught many a trout out of the Wolf River. Never fished the Oconto, although I've heard it's good.

You guys feel free to stay in touch via PM that way we're not hijacking the thread.  ;D

MM ...did that 450C you ran the shear head on have a front end loader that allowed you to get some lift on it and tilt the sheer head? I remember we used to run a shear head on a Case 1150 with the front end loader. Used the grapple skidder to forward it up to the slasher if we were in pine.

I don't know how they get the numbers to work on the new machines either. Volume is the ticket I guess. So long as you have the contracts and the wood to fill them and can stay working the payments get made. Working in the woods taught me real quick that I needed to get book smart sooner than later and pursue something else for my primary income. That said, my heart's still in the woods. Always will be. 


barbender

Go ahead and hijack, I'm enjoying all this except that I've never got to fish trout over in Wisconsin so I'm getting a little jealous ::) Pics of large trout hooked on beautiful rivers are always welcome, too!
Too many irons in the fire

mad murdock

Quote from: LOGDOG on October 26, 2010, 10:13:42 PM


MM ...did that 450C you ran the shear head on have a front end loader that allowed you to get some lift on it and tilt the sheer head? I remember we used to run a shear head on a Case 1150 with the front end loader. Used the grapple skidder to forward it up to the slasher if we were in pine.

LogDog, that is what it was, had a 4 in 1 bucket that would interchange with the shear head.  It made a pretty stable snipper, though not near as fast as a rubber tire machine (Hydro-Ax), but it was pretty versitile, being able to have the use of the bucket now and again.   There was an old guy in Ashland way back in the day, who had an old WWII sherman tank modified with a shear head that he used in the woods for years.
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

Ron Scott

The 440B John Deere Cable Skidder is used to pull tree lengths off the steep slope areas to be cut into product lenghts for pick up by the Iron Mule forwarder. Schirmer Hardwood sale 10/10.





~Ron

barbender

That looks like a really well maintained 440. Nice machine.
Too many irons in the fire

Ron Scott

Yes, this operator takes excellent care of his equipment. He owns the Iron Mule also. He had two Iron mules, both in great shape, but sold one of them.
~Ron

treefarmer87

i would like to have a 5510 iron mule
1994 Ford L9000
2004 Tigercat 718
1998 Barko 225
1999 John Deere 748G
FEC 1550 slasher
CTR 314 Delimber
Sthil 461
Sthil 250

D Hagens

 85 pages and still going strong! I've been reading and following this thread and I find it very interesting and informative. I'm learning a lot about the machines that are used on a daily bases in the forestry industry.
I would like to say a big thanks to Ron and others for keeping this thread going and posting all the pics.   :) :)

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