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Diameter vs. circumfrence

Started by Frickman, October 21, 2009, 10:04:48 PM

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Frickman

I have posted here on the forum that I purchase all of my timber from private landowners. That entails alot of running around looking at tracts. That's ok, it's part of the game. I actually enjoy it some, I get to walk around different woods.

I went and looked at some timber yesterday that was supposed to be 14" to 30" in diameter. Twenty acres of a larger tract. I drove an hour each way to see post timber 4" to 10" in diameter. I interviewed the landowner on the phone and he assured me that these trees were big, he measured alot of them. Here he measured circumfrence and called it diameter. And next to the ground around the root swell to boot. Don't people know the difference between the two?

Many of the textbooks I had in school, all the way back to grade school, had different information and tables in the back. Things like how to find the area of circle, how big is a cord of wood, how many miles around the earth's equator, things like that. Even some of the notebooks and folders I used had this stuff printed on the back covers. Didn't these people see this stuff? I don't know why they didn't learn it, it was everywhere when I was in school.

This is probably the fifth or sixth time this past summer and fall that this same thing has happened to me. It's always been on a tract that is an hour from home. I try to get a feel for what the landowner has before I make a long trip, but if they give me the wrong information I end up wasting my time.
If you're not broke down once in a while, you're not working hard enough

I'm not a hillbilly. I'm an "Appalachian American"

Retired  Conventional hand-felling logging operation with cable skidder and forwarder, Frick 01 handset sawmill

Pretend farmer when I have the time

chucker

 :D  heard that frickman!! those were real "peachy"-keen days way back then !! a time when time ment something other then just their time... some people just dont get it when a inch is just that and breast height differs only when a chest is less then 4' high...  times have changed ! but our great teaching system these days has gone to the dogs......
respect nature ! and she will produce for you !!  jonsered 625 670  2159 2171/28"  efco 147 husky 390xp/28" .375... 455r/auto tune 18" .58 gauge

tonich

Quote from: Frickman on October 21, 2009, 10:04:48 PM
Here he measured circumfrence and called it diameter. And next to the ground around the root swell to boot.

:D :D :D
Thanks Lord, you do not have to pay the timber on the stump.

Phorester


It is frustrating, especially when a landowner insists he's right.  Had a fellow call me about a 10 foot diameter white oak he had.  Me; "are you sure it's 10 foot diameter?  That's awful big."  Him; "of course it is, I know my math and I measured it myself!"  Me; "do you mean the distance around the outside of the trunk?"  Him;  "of course I do- the distance around the trunk - you know, the diameter!"  ::)  (And he thought I was the dumb one for asking the question ;D )

So now I don't ask them for the diameter or the circumfrence.  I ask them if they mean the measurement around the outside of the trunk or the measurement through the middle.

chucker

 ;D  :-\  "PLEASE STOP " your confuzzeling me !! i kant tink....... :P lol
respect nature ! and she will produce for you !!  jonsered 625 670  2159 2171/28"  efco 147 husky 390xp/28" .375... 455r/auto tune 18" .58 gauge

beenthere

Quote from: Phorester on October 21, 2009, 10:40:20 PM

.........

So now I don't ask them for the diameter or the circumfrence.  I ask them if they mean the measurement around the outside of the trunk or the measurement through the middle.

Then he says "Ya can't measure through the middle 'til after the tree is cut down" !!   

Ya can't win.  :)
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

ErikC

 I am in my thirties and it was easy to find all these types of things when I was in school, as frickman mentioned.
Peterson 8" with 33' tracks, JCB 1550 4x4 loader backhoe, several stihl chainsaws

Ironwood

Even my urban tree trimmers get that one wrong. I now ask them to "hug the tree", if it's BIG then can you touch your hands together? Feel like I am talking to 1st graders sometime. I went to look at a 5' diameter cherry a few years ago, REAL mathmaticians these folks are ::)


       Ironwood
There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love to do, there is only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.- Wayne Dyer

Sawyerfortyish

Come and look at my tree it's just beautiful 50"dia and at least 140' tall and 80' to the first limb. Yea I hear this at least once a week. Like Phorester says I'll ask did you measure around the tree? I already know what the answer is. Yea at ground leval. Daiameter circumferance it's all the same isn't it.
 So a 50" tree ends up being about 16"dbh and maybe 40' all the way up into the tiny brush at the very top.
I actually had a guy show up at the mill with about 15 cedar trees no more than 2"-3" dia tied to the roof of his car and wanted me to make 2x2 and 4x4s outta them. He told me on the phone they were 6-8" dia so I said yea I can do that bring them over and I'll cut them for you. People just don't know or can't picture the differance between diameter and circumferance.

Ron Wenrich

I always ask if they can reach around the trees and if their fingers meet.  For me, that's an 18" dbh tree. 
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

RSteiner

I have had similar experience when custom sawing.  The customer will have a pile of logs and he has measured the butt end diameter and figures the log will produce lumber at least that diameter.  They rarely consider that the small end of the log dictates the size and volume of a log.

Or, some one wants some trees taken down and they will tell me they are at least 20" to 24" in diameter.  Usually there is a trask barrel near by which usually measure some where around 22" in diameter.  I will ask them are the trees as big around as this barrel?  Most of the time the answer is well not quite that big.

Randy
Randy

Cedarman

I have told this story before, but I still love it.  In Oklahoma in the canyons (gulleys) there are some big cedars 24" and up. 

A lady calls the logger (the one who told me this story)  and says she has a patch of cedar she wants to get rid of.  She says they are 2' or more in diameter.  He asks are you taking aroudn the tree or across the tree.  She says across not around.  So he heads out for a look see.  He gets to the place and visits with the lady and asks where the cedars are.  Those over there behind the house.  Sure enough there was this big field of cedar behind the house all about 10 to 12 feet tall and 2 to 3' in diameter if you count to the tips of the limbs.
She thought that is what he meant.  Talk about having your balloon popped.  Actual dbh was 2 to 3". :D :D
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

Jeff

This reminded me of this old thread, where I had become so jaded from hearing and seeing so many over estimations of what a property owner had. I learned to never assume after this one.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,4567.0.html
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

metalspinner

On a much smaller scale than you guys, I talk with lots of foklks about their yard trees.  I have come up with a way to help catagorize their trees that's easy for them to understand.

Me : "Is it fatter than a telephone pole?"

Them : "Yes."

Me: "Is it fatter than your streeing wheel?"

Them : "Yes."

Me : "I'll see you this afternoon."
I do what the little voices in my wife's head tell me to do.

okmulch

Here in Oklahoma when I get a call from landowners telling me how many acres they have of cedar trees I have to be careful. Most landowners tell me how many acres they have total including fields hardwoods etc. I am only interested in how many acres are in cedar trees. I have to ask a lot of questions to make sure it is something I want to further investigate instead of driving all over creation. Most of the time landowners and myself have different ideas of what large number of cedar trees and sizes actually are.
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red oaks lumber

and these people vote!
when customers bring logs to my mill for sawing ,there all 20" and "veneer'' i go outside to see them.small and looking like pulp wood  i always ask them ,you bringing the logs on the next load? they stare at me like deer in the headlights.lol
the experts think i do things wrong
over 18 million b.f. processed and 7341 happy customers i disagree

Phorester

From Ron:  "I always ask if they can reach around the trees and if their fingers meet.  For me, that's an 18" dbh tree." 

Be careful.  We had a fellow say this a few years ago about a 18" diameter black walnut he had, that his neighbor told him could be worth over $1,000.  Un-huh.....  Turns out that he meant when he put his hands around the tree, his fingers met, not his arms.  ::) 

Frickman

Thanks for the link Jeff, I had forgotten about that thread. On it Ron Scott said that you always have to go look at the timber. That's the view I have. It would be nice though to know what you are going to look at, that way I could schedule some of these wild goose chases for rainy days. The other day when I looked at this tract was one of the nicest days we've had in a while. I would have much rather been at the mill working than out driving around.

Buying timber like I do, from private landowners, is a numbers game. I actually purchase and harvest about ten percent of the tracts I look at. Thats's about the industry average around here. I don't especially like wild goose chases, but they're part of the game. I just can't believe how little common knowledge and common sense that some people posess.
If you're not broke down once in a while, you're not working hard enough

I'm not a hillbilly. I'm an "Appalachian American"

Retired  Conventional hand-felling logging operation with cable skidder and forwarder, Frick 01 handset sawmill

Pretend farmer when I have the time

SwampDonkey

About the same as here Frick, only in recent years it was bidding wars like selling realestate. Stumpage being paid for mostly pulp wood got close to $1500/acre on 22-28 cord/acre ground. Lot's of failed loggers when reality set in.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Ron Scott

It's even worse when they don't know the location or legal description of their property so you can find it. ;)
~Ron

Frickman

Ron Scott,

I've had that problem before. I got called to go find a property somewhere in such and such county. The landowners had purchased the property sight unseen at auction five years previous and had no idea where it was. They had paid property taxes on it for five years and had never visited it. They were trying to get me to locate it for free. No thanks. Find it yourself and I'll come look at. They never called back.
If you're not broke down once in a while, you're not working hard enough

I'm not a hillbilly. I'm an "Appalachian American"

Retired  Conventional hand-felling logging operation with cable skidder and forwarder, Frick 01 handset sawmill

Pretend farmer when I have the time

Ron Wenrich

Some of those deeds are to properties that don't exist.  The county has them on the roles, but don't know where they're located.  As long as someone buys it, they'll keep on collecting the taxes.  They go up for tax sale every so often when the owners can't find it, and they stop paying taxes.  I've found some of those properties, but the deed search can be mind boggling.  I often had to go to warrant maps and take the ownership forward.  Good for rainy weather and you have nothing else to do.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Tom

We had a good example happen in our neighborhood.  A fellow had several hundred acres passed to him through family.  He built a private road and sold off lots.  When all the lots were sold, he was left with this long, narrow strip of land that he couldn't use because he had give the right of way to his land customes.  He was paying taxes on something he didn't want and the county wouldn't take it as a road unless he buried all kinds of infrastructure (water lines, etc) on it and paved it.   He just let it go for taxes. The county put it on the courthouse steps  for several years until someone came along and bought it for back taxes.  When he realized what he had, he quit paying taxes on it too.  Now it is "just there", being used for a road and no one adjacent to the property owns it and nobody wants it.   One day, perhaps, someone else will buy it on the courthouse steps.

SwampDonkey

Sounds like a mess. Here, we get a tax bill with the ID number on it. You can go to the Service NB office, get the map of it right then and there with the map coordinates of the corners, area in metric (ha/m2). Only trouble, it's just a map with lines on it, no aerial. You can pull an old orthophoto map at most of the offices with the property lines and old 25 year old photos in the underlying mosaic. They might even have paper copies of the new orthos made up. I know I've seen them at some farmer's offices before. You do have access to up to date photos as well from the web. Trouble is 99 % of the citizenry wouldn't have the programs at home to open the photo up and display it in a GIS in the proper map datum. Many don't even own a computer. If they are lucky they have a cheapo Garmin GPS to find a corner with the given map coordinates. Most older folks don't have one of those either and don't know what one is. Hopefully, the Garmin has the map datum used by your state. ::) :D Good luck with that.  Even then it would be like me tossing an apple in a hay field and say go find it. There is no straight line path to the corner by road. :D

For me it's easy, I have access to those new photos and the property line overlays. I can download the most up to date available off the web. I then can see where the photo is sitting on a GIS and can open my map book and trace the road network to where the property is. Roads I can also get free if I want in digital format for my GIS (shapefiles). One possible thing that might trip someone up that has all these gadgets and software is the property ID might be retired when 2 or 3 farms where combined to make one ID. And even so, I believe the Pan information off the service web site shows that it was retired so it's pretty much idiot proof if you check your ID number. You'd have to check it at the service NB office or an online account you have for $10/month.

It's easy to say you can find any property when you know the system. If you don't know the system then your pretty much relying on someone else. Or as Dirty Harry would say" Your S**T out of luck". :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Ron Wenrich

All the counties have a map system, and most of them have it on photos.  But, there are properties that just aren't mapped.  They give those properties an ID number, but there isn't a map location for it. 

They tax trailers here, even if you don't own the land underneath it.  They have a tax ID number.  You better know that before you go to the tax sale.  You're not buying land.

Then we have those properties that overlap.  They're another joy.  The tax office isn't there to solve problems.  They're there to assess taxes and collect them.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

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