How many Eastern Red Cedar fallers do we have ...

CCC4 · January 23, 2015, 06:16:11 PM

I am curious as to how many guys on here have cut ERC on a production level? I am curious because having started my cutting career 21 years ago in ERC and switching to hardwood and pine...then going back to ERC this week some. I always considered ERC falling as a step ladder to bigger things. I never really saw just how crazy falling ERC can get...its all I ever knew. Well...its fricken dangerous! They are hard to turn, hard to wedge, they sit down on ya, gotta burn the hinge or they can bust, they are hard to get to fall through other trees due to being so light, lot more chance to get leg injuries, sharp limbs can cut ya bad....just a whole list of things that I never really even knew I was dealing with.

I would like to hear some opinions and stories. Thanks!

mills · January 23, 2015, 07:52:09 PM

You forgot to add that it takes six weeks and a day to limb, not to mention the !#%$ little needles that get down your shirt...uh, if you wear one.

thecfarm · January 23, 2015, 09:11:26 PM

Sounds just about like the cedar I have here. ;D

CCC4 · January 23, 2015, 09:39:01 PM

Quote from: mills on January 23, 2015, 07:52:09 PM
You forgot to add that it takes six weeks and a day to limb, not to mention the !#%$ little needles that get down your shirt...uh, if you wear one.

Ha! Lmao! Yes Sir!...them needles find there way!

FarmingSawyer · January 24, 2015, 07:46:07 AM

Hinge, you get a hinge dropping cedar? Gosh you're a lucky guy....all I ever find is rotten centers on even the biggest ones.....

Not the best photo of the 24" white cedar butt on the right.....

drobertson · January 24, 2015, 08:02:19 AM

Not a production feller, but do a little tsi work, we got into a cedar thicket yesterday, and you are right, erc can be a pain.

CX3 · January 24, 2015, 12:50:54 PM

Ive cut a few good patches of erc. We started at the bottom of the hill and fell everything on top of the other downhill. then started skidding from the top, dragging the whole tree to a landing, then limbing and bucking. I literally cant stand it. Four days later you have a load that pays half what a few thousand feet of elm would pay. :D

CCC4 · January 24, 2015, 07:01:37 PM

Currently logging a huge (for our area) clearcut down South of me. We are cutting a total of 19,000 ton of pine and 100 ton of ERC. I am limbing and topping the pine behind a hydro ax and falling the ERC by hand. I figured out today that my boss played a trick on me...he sent me in on a strip to remove the ERC out of the pine...I been cussing and bummed out for 2 days now. Telling him that if I got 30 ton on this cut he would be doing great! Well...low and behold...he was keeping me out of the good so I would get all the scattered strip finished clean. I told him today that it was kinda crappy of him...he just laughed and said he got his goal accomplished.

I eased over into the good today and laid down a huge strip! Very minimal loss due to rot...good average size! We will see prolly 150 ton I believe.

treeslayer2003 · January 24, 2015, 09:30:07 PM

cedar? its for brushin duck blinds

RayMO · January 24, 2015, 09:53:32 PM

I cut a lot of good erc over 20 years ago . It wasn't fun but it payed the bills. Cut it into 44" bolts and delivered it by the 2 ton truck load to Blair cedar works . Life was a lot simpler then though .
Cut quite a bit from time to time just to saw on my old LT40HD . A man could make wages cutting decent erc and hauling to the Amish mills at .55 international .

CX3 · January 24, 2015, 10:31:45 PM

Larry Blair in Bradleyville?

CCC4 · January 24, 2015, 10:59:39 PM

Now slayer...thems fightin words! LMAO! ERC is bringing $100 a ton right now!

! Thts nothin to sneeze at!

RayMo, were ya selling closet liner bolts? Ours have to be 53" if ya choose to go that route. I have sold it at that length before, but it is hard to handle. You can tote a 8'4 log easier than trying to get a 53" log on your shoulder.

RayMO · January 25, 2015, 10:00:36 AM

Blair cedar novelties was the company and they made all kinds of trinkets and novelties . Located in Camdenton, MO

okmulch · January 25, 2015, 11:39:23 AM

I have cut a lot of cedar in my lifetime so far and plan on cutting a lot more. Now days I use machines though.

I have cut 30 inch cedars with this shear. Still have to delimb with chainsaw if good saw log but most go through grinder for mulch.

Most Saturdays and when not grinding during the week I cut hundreds of cedar down a day using the shear or we have a high speed saw called a turbo saw.

Cedarman · January 25, 2015, 12:50:21 PM

Most of the cedar we buy now is mechanically harvested. One company uses a shovel logger to cut trees and get them ready for the grapple skidder. The skidder pulls them to the roadside where a knuckleboom and pull through delimber does its job. They can get 60 to 80 ton per day. Glad the cedar patches only have 10 to 20 loads on them and they don't bring them all at once.
I have one logger who is on a 4000 acre property and they are bringing in quite a bit. Today will make 13 20 ton loads in less than 2 weeks.
The most cedar trees I have cut and delimbed in one day is a little over 500.

Of course they were only 1" dbh and I needed to leave the top 2 feet of greenery on 80% of them and they were about 8 to 10'. So was quick. Needed 9000 of them to fill a container about 15 years ago. Last year we only sold 1300, but they pay well.

Aaron, Ian and I cut over 50,000 trees one month at the Chickasaw Nat Rec area in southern Ok. Of course we only had to cut them down at ground level.
We did salvage quite a few big ones for sawing, but most of them went for mulch.

Cedarman · January 25, 2015, 12:52:32 PM

Over the last 5 years while the hardwood and softwood markets crashed, the cedar market just hummed right along. Great to be in a niche industry. After 20 years of price stabilty, cedar logs are up 20 to 25%.

CCC4 · January 25, 2015, 06:07:41 PM

okmulch, you on the Oklahoma cedar eradication program over there in Oklahoma?

Cedarman, you make a very valid point! I was the head sawyer at a cedar mill when all things went to zero in the lumber market. My boss at the time hasd enough pocket money, so we just went to stacking loads of bundles out...pretty soon the export market went to buying, everyone else had not stock piled....we were in excellent shape!

okmulch · January 25, 2015, 06:12:11 PM

Quote from: CCC4 on January 25, 2015, 06:07:41 PM
okmulch, you on the Oklahoma cedar eradication program over there in Oklahoma?

Yes we have been at it for over 10 years and not gaining.

I try to look at it as I am on the cedar utilization program cause I hate to see it go up in smoke.

CCC4 · January 25, 2015, 06:37:13 PM

My former sawmill boss is a big mulch producer, trucks from Miami, Ok would haul 6 loads a day, that program came about full swing..I wonder if his numbers dropped!?

! They bag all that mulch in Ok, I'd say it is a mulchers paradise over there.

We bought a few semi loads of ERC that had been cut with a shear...that is a big no no on a saw set!

! The butt end micro fracture, I have been sawing before and get half way down the log and the slab just fall off!

! We lost a large export order once due to the micro fractures. We had to quit buying logs cut with a shear. It doesn't matter for stuff going in a mulcher though.

Ken · January 25, 2015, 07:54:33 PM

Although we don't have eastern red cedar our eastern white cedar is actually a good market most years for saw material. We are cutting on company land at present and they sell their cedar treelength merchandised to a 4" top. This is a picture from last winter but we are working on the same block cutting a fair bit of cedar again this winter

.

mesquite buckeye · January 27, 2015, 11:49:05 AM

If you prune them when they are growing the felling and trim up are easier. ;D 8) 8) 8)

Just sayin'.

kderby · January 27, 2015, 12:21:57 PM

Keep talking about aromatic cedar.

I am working with juniper (Juniperous occidentalis). There is growing opportunity in juniper. Juniper is a sister tree to ERC. It is a real benefit to hear what Y'all eastern folk are into.

Tip O the Hat.

Kderby

shortlogger · January 27, 2015, 10:32:07 PM

I cut eastern red cedar off and on for years , just me and a 2071 Johnsered and my old one ton Ford with a cable loader spooled with 120' of 5/16 cable and occasionally a 46hp tractor . Sold the saw logs by the inch and the pulp by the cord . If I could find enough good timber I would probably do it agin, I love the smell but hate the needles in my crack and seems like green briars love to climb up cedars and they always try and grab me on the way down when I fall a tree . Cedar is one of the few niche markets left where a little guy with a small overhead can log around here anymore .