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a few more loads from last week (for the boys who like pics)

Started by MEloggah, March 17, 2013, 06:54:56 PM

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MEloggah

i love what i do! the only one breathing down my neck was a nice bull moose who come out to visit me wed. morning. :)



 

Peter Drouin

A&P saw Mill LLC.
45' of Wood Mizer, cutting since 1987.
License NH softwood grader.

MEloggah


clww

Many Stihl Saws-16"-60"
"Go Ask The Other Master Chief"
18-Wheeler Driver

Ed_K

 Nice wood, wish I could get a lot  :(.Only the big boy's are getting work right now.I finally worked the skidder on fri-sat get some firewood out for a neighbor.Ground is still frozen and 8" of granular snow which made the skidder jump some coming up the 40 deg slope,I have 3 switchbacks to get down to the cut area,so i didn't really want to go down.May wait till spring now.
Ed K

DRB

That is some pretty nice red oak. What is the size on the big ones?  Some nice logs in there some look like veneer candidates. Always loved sawing butt cuts from any tree especially red oak they have such nice clear stuff in the lower 4 or 5 feet. Makes me long for the mill gone 18 years now without one.

MEloggah

Quote from: clww on March 17, 2013, 09:37:36 PM
Nice logs. That should keep you busy awhile.

lol not really. cut about 5000' a day +/- plus the pulp/firewood. be done friday or sat then on to the next one.

MEloggah

Quote from: Ed_K on March 18, 2013, 09:49:02 AM
Nice wood, wish I could get a lot  :(.Only the big boy's are getting work right now.I finally worked the skidder on fri-sat get some firewood out for a neighbor.Ground is still frozen and 8" of granular snow which made the skidder jump some coming up the 40 deg slope,I have 3 switchbacks to get down to the cut area,so i didn't really want to go down.May wait till spring now.

keep diggin'!! we are busy luckily. sometimes on some jobs you wonder why you take the time to do a day or two of clean up and chain saw work but when your workin and no one else is your glad you did it. just keep makin contacts, talk to ppl and the work will come. maybe contact a forester? you wont make as much in your pocket (ill prob get flack for that one lol) but atleast youll have work and a market. i personally wont cut for a forester if i dont hae to but i have had to swallow hard and do it on occasion. good luck friend

MEloggah

Quote from: DRB on March 18, 2013, 01:04:13 PM
That is some pretty nice red oak. What is the size on the big ones?  Some nice logs in there some look like veneer candidates. Always loved sawing butt cuts from any tree especially red oak they have such nice clear stuff in the lower 4 or 5 feet. Makes me long for the mill gone 18 years now without one.

90% of the loads (5000' average) are veneer and select/#1 saw log.about every three loads i end up w/ 4000' or so of pallet  logs which actually are paying decent for pallet in this area. most of the oak is running around 30-40inches at the butt after i cut off the swell, biggest was 45". there is some stuff in the 22" range too.  no complaints though. 2 cord just in leaders on most of these trees.

first time ive sold logs to a mill that requests the hinge wood is cut off????? never heard of such a thing. when i scaled wood for sky burrell nobody cut off the hing and in my entire life we never have. nhot sure what thats about. probably a lazy scaler ;D

thecfarm

When My Father and me was checking on hemlock prices we went to a small mill just about 10 minutes away. He said the same thing about hinge wood. He said if it's left on and ran his cirular saw into it,the rough hinge wood might knock a tooth out of his circular saw.
My Father was from the old school and no way he would of left on the hinge wood. We would trim off any butt swell off the sides and if we felt it went up into the log,from us cutting the stumps low,we might trim off 6 inches a foot for a good log.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

MEloggah

i cut any swell that need be which is on alot of trees cuz we cut our stumps ultra low it seems compared to most out fits.

"an inch on the trunk is a foot at the top"-my grand father

as far as hinbge wood goes down this way you will see it on every truck unless its a mech. out fit. when we scaled wood that was part of it, cutting off the hinge, but we never would haves asked the logger to do so. thats mill prep. from being in logging my entire life and seing guys come and go workin for us the guys who trim their butts and stumps we embarrassed and trying to hide a F up lol a good lookin, even hinge and a nice stump is something to take pride in.

thecfarm

I'm not trying to turn this into a cover up thread,but boy if you told my Father that about trying to cover up a bad hinge cut,he probably would dragged you up into the woods and show you his stumps. Better hope you was in the his landing or it would be a long drag.  ;D Just to let you know how proud he was of his stumps,my brother came and cut some fire wood and cut down the trees himself. My father had a fit about it. He was just about ready to cut each stump off because he did not want someone to think that he did not know how to cut trees down. He was ashamed to see stumps like that on his land and to think that someone would see those stumps and blame him for it. And any of the cutting off of the hinge either was done on the landing or thrown into the bucket for firewood. He was just fussy with what he sold for logs. I have no idea how the bigger mill was for the hinge. Just to add another thought,we marked each and every log with a black lumber crayon with 8,0,2,4,6 also,even though we did not have too,but that's how it was done years ago. As said my father came from the old school,born 1923,I think.Close enough for Old School. :D He was fussy with hooking up the chocker chains too. The hooks all had to face towards the back. The list goes on,but it is a good list.I miss logging with him.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

MEloggah

he right about the hooks! lol i miss loggin with gramp as well. my ol man is only 54 so we still get to work together here and there but its mostly just me these days. my mother made him get a 'real job' with benefits and s.s.  ::)

p.s. your ol man sound alot like mine. pride is about all a logger has cuz it sure as hell aint $$$

PAFaller

All the mills down here expect the hinges cut off after you fall the tree. That rough fiber can hold a lot of dirt, and this time of year is the worst. Skid trails and landings get slimy on the top then that mud freezes up on the butts and in that hinge and its murder on  a bandmill blade. You run a $500 dollar 8 inch band through a bunch of frozen landing mud and rocks and you will have your loggers trimming off hinges in a hurry. And you cant clean up the end with the debarker. And if you pile lumber manually its nice to not have those hinge fibers on the end of the boards. Down here its exactly the opposite, you see a load of logs with all the hinges on and its the sign of a lazy logger.
It ain't easy...

thecfarm

MEloggah,probably your Grandfather was the age of my Father.  ;D Your Father is just about my age.

All limbs had to be trimmed flush with the log and I do mean flush. He rolled many logs with a peavey and did not want any knobs sticking out.
Another story. We had some ugly looking white pine trees right by the landing that we was going to cut. I was standing there talking to our trucker and told him them will be gone next time he shows up,but don't really know what we will do with some of the wood. Bigger than 27 inches,it had to be split for pulp. These trees were ugly and worse than that. The sawmill had a grade they called Pallet pine. The trucker told my Father about the grade,but my Father did not really believe him. We cut it down and cut it up for logs. The whole time my Father telling me there is no way they will take this. The first so called log had 3 leaders growing out of it,was just about 8 feet long and we pushed it off to the side,I think the butt was at least 3 feet across. Trucker loaded up and saw that pushed off to the side and questions us about it. Father said that no good for nothing,trucker said they will take it,my Father said no they won't,remember he's from the old school, trucker says yes they will. About then I got on the tractor while my Father is arguing and I get it back to the landing. It goes on the next load,seem like that was the only 8 footor on that load. We get the scale slip back and there it is. My father told me,they took it and they PAID us for it. He thought they might take it,but not pay us. We start to get all of these ugly logs we can and every time he got the check he was amazed by what they took for that grade.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Ianab

Typical load of logs being hauled though town.



All neatly trimmed at the landing. No point hauling rough ends, that the mill just has to deal with later. Heck trim the rubbish off, and you legally get another log on the truck.  ;)

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

Woodhauler

I grew up cutting and loading 4ft pulp by hand, learned at a very young age to saw my limbs off flush! We called them bag grabbers! You have a knot hook onto you when you are throwing a stick and you know what i,m talking about!
2013 westernstar tri-axle with 2015 rotobec elite 80 loader!Sold 2000 westernstar tractor with stairs air ride trailer and a 1985 huskybrute 175 T/L loader!

MEloggah

Quote from: PAFaller on March 18, 2013, 06:03:29 PM
All the mills down here expect the hinges cut off after you fall the tree. That rough fiber can hold a lot of dirt, and this time of year is the worst. Skid trails and landings get slimy on the top then that mud freezes up on the butts and in that hinge and its murder on  a bandmill blade. You run a $500 dollar 8 inch band through a bunch of frozen landing mud and rocks and you will have your loggers trimming off hinges in a hurry. And you cant clean up the end with the debarker. And if you pile lumber manually its nice to not have those hinge fibers on the end of the boards. Down here its exactly the opposite, you see a load of logs with all the hinges on and its the sign of a lazy logger.

a lazy logger?? lmao

MEloggah

Quote from: thecfarm on March 18, 2013, 06:29:23 PM
MEloggah,probably your Grandfather was the age of my Father.  ;D Your Father is just about my age.

All limbs had to be trimmed flush with the log and I do mean flush. He rolled many logs with a peavey and did not want any knobs sticking out.
Another story. We had some ugly looking white pine trees right by the landing that we was going to cut. I was standing there talking to our trucker and told him them will be gone next time he shows up,but don't really know what we will do with some of the wood. Bigger than 27 inches,it had to be split for pulp. These trees were ugly and worse than that. The sawmill had a grade they called Pallet pine. The trucker told my Father about the grade,but my Father did not really believe him. We cut it down and cut it up for logs. The whole time my Father telling me there is no way they will take this. The first so called log had 3 leaders growing out of it,was just about 8 feet long and we pushed it off to the side,I think the butt was at least 3 feet across. Trucker loaded up and saw that pushed off to the side and questions us about it. Father said that no good for nothing,trucker said they will take it,my Father said no they won't,remember he's from the old school, trucker says yes they will. About then I got on the tractor while my Father is arguing and I get it back to the landing. It goes on the next load,seem like that was the only 8 footor on that load. We get the scale slip back and there it is. My father told me,they took it and they PAID us for it. He thought they might take it,but not pay us. We start to get all of these ugly logs we can and every time he got the check he was amazed by what they took for that grade.

if our wood isnt limbed flush with the bole they wont take it. funny how different parts of the country do things different. we sell to about 6 different pine mills and they all have a guy who preps wood for sawing which includes cutting hinge.

pallet pine isnt even worht it these days, we send it for pulp. its only about 80 per thou.

same here with the pulp, we have to rip/split anything over 28". good times

IAN, if you can fit another whole log on a truck by 'cutting the rubbish off' your amazing lol

PAFaller

Ya I know its kind of a contradiction but you havent seen PA. Its the wild west compared to the northeast, as I said I worked in NH and Maine before I moved down here and we do things a bit different. There is a certification program sort of like the NHTOA program in NH or the CLP program in Maine, but you only need it if you cut on state land. So a lot of guys dont bother. The other thing is there are certainly consulting foresters around, but a small percentage of wood is sold by foresters, much of it is bought by the mills or by independent loggers. Unlike Maine and NH where a majority of the wood is bought from independent loggers, and they work closely with foresters, its a complete 180 here, the mills buy most of the stumpage they need and contract loggers, and only buy gatewood to get them through slow times when they can get it cheap or need it. Problem is there are still a lot of fly by night guys who take advantage of landowners and will swing a 50/50 deal on veneer ash and hard maple, so they cut a load a week and make more than you and me bustin our hump 5, 6 7 days a week. You can make pretty good money if you only pull the gravy out of the woods, it averages 800 per thousand and you take 400 of it. And it happens every day. So ya, I know it sounds like an oxymoron to say that there are loggers that are lazy, but there are plenty of them here that would make you just shake your head.
It ain't easy...

thecfarm

When I said flush and I do mean flush,that was my Father's rule. I have no idea what the sawmill expected.
Pallet grade use to be real good ,more than twice the price of pulp. But it slowly kept creeping down. I like the grade because we had ALOT of pine that was bigger than 28 inches. No way I was going to try to split it with a chainsaw when we could get more in log length. But I see that market went to pieces too. This was back in '93-'96. When my Father saw what kind of junk,as he called it,they was taking, we chased down all those scrub pines. We sold them quite a few crotches too. I can still see my Father looking at the scale slip and shaking his head. There was a few months that's all we was sending them,was that pallet grade. There might be a good log,just by chance,but not many.As my Father told me,We can sell good logs anytime,but we can not sell bad logs anytime. We also had some big white pine,some over the 48 inches that was the max for the sawmill. We sold them alot of ones over that. They had high school kids to peel them by hand. The mill had a way to get around the de barker. Another chase for the biggest ones we had. Which was a good idea. They re did the mill and there was no way to get anything past the debarker bigger than 48 inches. We was told nothing bigger than 48 inches. My Father said,that is fine,we don't have anymore that size.
Oh the memories of my Father and me working in the woods. I only wished he would of done it sooner.   He never did get to see me buy a sawmill,but we did look at the one I brought. ;D 
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

MEloggah

lol there is here too. PAfaller does penn have a timber tax? sounds like the mills have most guys by the bag eh??

i should also clearify that i dont disagree with trimming the hinge wood but like i said before, nobody does it up here cuz there is a man who does that job at the mills. if i trimmed them ide be takin food out of his mouth ;D not a bad habbit to get into probably just never have or asked to untill this job, new mill for me in nh. btw, i wasnt happy with the scale their either.  they were very good with the grade andf fair on deductions but the scale sucked.not sure if they are electronic there or if its penn to paper with a tape.

you talk about guys taking advantage of landowners, there was a few guys around here that would cut a load and pay stumpage to the LO then cut a load and keep it!!! like a '1 for you, 1 for me' type of deal without the LO's knowing it. it did catch up with some of them in a big way lol less and less stories like that now due to the severity of the punishments by law.

also, im not sure i see the harm in a 50/50 deal if the land owner agrees. on hard wood, there are so many grades and species that we have often times done a 55/45% after trucking (thats the contract i have now)  on this oak) with the land owners. not sure how i see that as crooked or shady ???

MEloggah

Quote from: thecfarm on March 18, 2013, 07:40:13 PM
When I said flush and I do mean flush,that was my Father's rule. I have no idea what the sawmill expected.
Pallet grade use to be real good ,more than twice the price of pulp. But it slowly kept creeping down. I like the grade because we had ALOT of pine that was bigger than 28 inches. No way I was going to try to split it with a chainsaw when we could get more in log length. But I see that market went to pieces too. This was back in '93-'96. When my Father saw what kind of junk,as he called it,they was taking, we chased down all those scrub pines. We sold them quite a few crotches too. I can still see my Father looking at the scale slip and shaking his head. There was a few months that's all we was sending them,was that pallet grade. There might be a good log,just by chance,but not many.As my Father told me,We can sell good logs anytime,but we can not sell bad logs anytime. We also had some big white pine,some over the 48 inches that was the max for the sawmill. We sold them alot of ones over that. They had high school kids to peel them by hand. The mill had a way to get around the de barker. Another chase for the biggest ones we had. Which was a good idea. They re did the mill and there was no way to get anything past the debarker bigger than 48 inches. We was told nothing bigger than 48 inches. My Father said,that is fine,we don't have anymore that size.
Oh the memories of my Father and me working in the woods. I only wished he would of done it sooner.   He never did get to see me buy a sawmill,but we did look at the one I brought. ;D

great stories and great memories. listening to you its like hearing my fathers stories over again lol went through all the same stuff as you. lucky for me.....well, maybe not but either way i was born into it and so was he and so was my grandad so we have spent lots of time loggin together....also spent a few months worth of weeks here and there not speaking because of logging too. not sure if you butted heads like we used to but sometime sit wasnt pretty although im glad i was taught the way i was because it made me a better chopper etc. thats why im busy noe and can sell logs when some cant. i do believe now though that i took those days for granted.

i enjoy talkin to the older guys that are in theor 60's now that worked for my grandfather when they were young men and the stories they tell of my dad as a child  workin with them.   

thecfarm

Just like any Father and son trying to make money we butted heads. But no worse than my boss and me at work.  ;D  My father was the boss so it was done his way. Cutting wood with my Father brought me a lot closer to him. He would tell me alot of stories as I was riding the tractor fender. Some I all ready heard many times,but alot of news one too. I still do alot of things the way he showed me,be it right or wrong in someone else's eyes. But I can say one thing,it was the safe way to fall a tree,even though he never wore chaps or a hard hat. Never said a word when I started to wear a hard hat and safety glasses.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

MEloggah

same here lol nobody that worked for them ever wore saftey gear. half of them wore no shirt no chaps no ear muffs and now have no hearing lol in the late 90's we started wearing chaps and helmets no it doesnt feel normal if i DONT have that stuff on.

no to bore ya but one story i like a lot and have heard 100 times from lots of men who worked for gramp was at the end of the day when he would be loading the truck they would put a cold beer on a stump and he would pick it up with the loader and bring it up to himself and take a haul off it, re grab it witht he bucket and pass it around to all of them. that was with sloppy old junk equipment back in the mid 60's

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