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couple pics... post what your currently cutting

Started by RunningRoot, January 27, 2015, 08:41:27 PM

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barbender

Yep, Gearbox, we had it all on the landing Friday night around midnight. I haven't talked to any of the trucks but I'm sure they've got it all hauled out of there.

Corley, yeah our trucks are a bit meek compared to those Michigan haulers ;) This wood was pretty exceptional, no doubt about it. I was actually in hardwood most of the winter before this job- I was starting to think I was in Michigan ;D
Too many irons in the fire

barbender

Tarm, we have railroads, but the only occasion when we load wood on them is for pine pulp that goes to...Wisconsin :D

Gearbox mentioned Jack Rajala in an earlier post. The Rajala family had a number of sawmills that were really thriving up to about 30 years I suppose. They've fallen upon hard times with a lot of their operations shutting down, but they still operate 2 mills in Itasca county. They also still own pretty vast amounts of timberland. I didn't know Jack Rajala very well, but he was very passionate about managing our forests for White Pine- he even wrote a book about it! I believe the title of it is "Bringing Back the White Pine". So we lost Jack this summer, his brother Dean just a few months before that (Dean was a next door neighbor of ours, I got to know him pretty well over the years. One of many interesting things about Dean, he volunteered for the Vietnam war when he was 27 years old. The army didn't want him because they thought he was too old, so he kept harassing the recruiter until he finally relented and signed him up. Dean just really felt that be should be over there helping the effort), and also Jack's son, Nik a few years back. Nik died in a plane crash up in Canada with his wife and a friend of their's.They were fishing fly in lakes up there, not sure what happened but they hit the shoreline in their float plane, a truly tragic situation. Nik was a good friend, my best buddy worked for him for many years and I worked for him for a winter driving truck. He was an innovator who had one of the first CTL teams in MN when he was probably not even 30 years old. I can honestly say I'm doing what I am today directly because of the influence of Nik Rajala, and him letting me come hang out and ride around with him in that amazing Ponsse processor. I was blown away ;) Nik was, like his dad, college educated and very well read, "not your average logger", and they both had a real passion for our forests. I'm still reminded of Nik on a nearly daily basis, one if not two of the trucks that drove by in that video used to be his, as well as the dozer I was running the other night to keep the trucks rolling. Rest in peace, friend.
Too many irons in the fire

1270d

I believe the scorpion I have is the one your friend Nik ordered. 

barbender

Yessir, he had one on order, coming back out of a green machine like you guys when the accident happended. It was actually the weekend that they had the Scorpion debut over in Wisconsin that they had the plane crash, that news hit everyone over there pretty hard. I'm sure he'd be happy to see the good work you guys are doing with it over there. I remember when he first started out, Ponsse told him that the processors couldn't cut hardwood. Well he did, he had two of the family hardwood mills to supply. They thought he was nuts, I think you can thank Nik for some of the reinforcement and durability upgrades these machines have gained :D He started out in an S16 Cobra if I remember right, and they came from Finland equipped for their very manicured softwood forests. Not what you find in North America at all.

I heard more than one forester say "who are we going to have thin our bardwood now?" Nik had became the go to guy for thinning in quality hardwoods in our area (as most of us, as illustrated by the job we just came off of, are pulp hacks). His passing left a pretty good hole in our area.
Too many irons in the fire

Gearbox

Barbender my nephew is running his forwarder .That thing is an animal .
A bunch of chainsaws a BT6870 processer , TC 5 International track skidder and not near enough time

barbender

Too many irons in the fire

Gearbox

A bunch of chainsaws a BT6870 processer , TC 5 International track skidder and not near enough time

barbender

Did that machine even have a thousand hours on it? Is that a six wheel or eight? I saw Jason riding in the lowboy with a six wheel 1270 in tow a few Sundays back. Here's another video of that last job-
https://youtu.be/4KtxPtIaI28
Too many irons in the fire

Gearbox

He was taking the borrowed one back to Nor trax . His had a pump seal bad yes 8 wheel. Did they just thin that to a basil # . Cool I don't think I have ever seen a Aspen thin outside of 2 inch with a brush saw .
A bunch of chainsaws a BT6870 processer , TC 5 International track skidder and not near enough time

barbender

Gotcha, I always wanted to try a 6 wheel. I know 6 wheel processors ride WAY smoother than the 8 wheel forwarders, these things knock your guts out. People say "those bogeys level things out and make things ride smooth" >:( Yeah, come for a ride- you get to feel evey bump twice, every stump is a sharp blast to the kidneys. A big tire rolls up and over, these low pro tires just fall off of everything. Rant over  ;) Here's the last video from my "Great Talmoon Aspen Thin" series :D
This is a pretty good center mount operator doing his thing, a faster operator can swing a load of aspen like this on in 20-25 minutes if they're in a rush, which they were on this job ;)
https://youtu.be/cZ3DpOercn4

Compare the truck in the foreground to the one loading in the back, he is often throwing on 2 to 1 or more, and no wasted motion. Also notice how as he is finishing the load how he takes time to organize the sticks on top of the load- he's "rounding it off" so that when he runs his chains over the load, they touch as much wood as possible with no bridging or large gaps. MN DOT regs require every stick in the top row to touch your chains or straps, which isn't really possible, but as long as you make an honest effort they're usually pretty good about it.
Too many irons in the fire

barbender

And yes Gearbox, they thinned it down to a basal of 60. Aspen thins were more common probably 15 years ago, the county and UPM were both trying it but have both moved away from it. I don't know what the USFS objective is with this one. There is scattered spruce and balsam throughout, perhaps it will reseed the understory. I do know I've read somewhere that the Chippewa wants to move away from managing for aspen, probably one way to accomplish that is this thinning. It won't regenerate in it's own shade, so maybe the conifers and some shade tolerant hardwoods will come up.
Too many irons in the fire

Gearbox

It's the forest service they have a plan . It just may not be a good plan but we will stick with it . Like the big pine blow down that took them a year to let it be cleaned up .
A bunch of chainsaws a BT6870 processer , TC 5 International track skidder and not near enough time

newoodguy78

Again Barbender great videos and thank you for sharing. I'm not sure what boggles my mind more the sheer volume of wood you guys are moving or the logistics of keeping everything moving so efficiently. Either way that is one impressive operation to be a part of.

barbender

Thanks Newoodguy, it is more along the lines of "organized chaos" at times, but it is an impressive operation and I'm proud to be a part of it.
Gearbox, the amount of pine the USFS allowed to lay on the ground and go bad should have been criminal. I had a large area right behind our house that is on the East side of Big Ball Club lake, that was one of the hardest hit areas in that July of 2012 windstorm. Beautiful Red and White pine, and it was absolutely flattened. We had that really dry fall and I was getting pretty concerned with all that tinder right behind my house. They finally came in and chipped it all a year and a half ago. If I owned large tracts of forest land, and paid someone to manage it and they did a job like the USFS I'd be firing them. To be fair, I don't know if the USFS knows who they work for, or what they want.
Too many irons in the fire

BargeMonkey

Hitting it like a savage on a sunday. 😂 I've got an expensive final drive to order this week and close to getting this job done. The snow is miserable but no one said logging was easy. 🤘 

  

 
Waddle thru the snow with my 395. 😂 I can remember being a kid shoveling around big oak for my dad one yr cutting wood on christmas break. 

 
I can't keep that one front chain straight. I was just about to put new ring chain on this week and put those double diamonds on the back, the back chains are tired. That 460 never fails to impress me, as much as I love a cable skidder that dual arch is so smooth and handy. You don't get the volume sometimes a big cable will but the speed and not beating yourself to death is so nice.

coxy

barge count the links on each side of the side chain some chains have 3 links in between the cross links and some have 4 I had the same trouble till I figured that out I always went by the number of left over links from the side chain but that don't work on some of them cause of the odd links some my go 3-3-4 or 4-3-4 some how you always have 1 extra link on the side chain  it maybe on the inside or the out side  hope you under stand what I'm trying to say  if not give me a call  my # is in your PM

g_man

enjoyed videos barbender - Thanks

Aspen thin interesting. Nice job you guys do

gg

ehp

Barbender, nice video , I know one thing for sure you donot want me running your processor if you want your piles to look like you got them LOL , Im cutting junk right now , got a couple clear cuts to do . not worth much but it still pays ok.  Barge nothing wrong with the timber your cutting and what it feel like to have to fall with a saw in snow LOL

Ed_K

 Coxy is right on. When mine go 3 3 4 I put a clevise in the 4 to pull it tight. Some of my side chains have 3 5 clevices on them.
Ed K

BargeMonkey

Quote from: ehp on March 20, 2017, 08:24:33 AM
Barge nothing wrong with the timber your cutting and what it feel like to have to fall with a saw in snow LOL
Cutting the big stuff isn't bad, I got greedy and decided to start cutting some of the firewood and with the wind blowing it I almost got a powerhead 😂 I don't cut the big stuff with the timbco anyway, you risk ripping a good log and it doesn't do as nice of a job. Anything 24-26" and down you wouldn't catch me with 3 guys handcutting. 👍 I'm headed to this white oak - hemlock job once I put a new final drive in, the landowner thinks this is going to be WEEKS 😂, I'm breaking the logger I bought some equipment from out of retirement to come run delimber for me, he just turned 80 and is foaming at the mouth to go cut some wood, have a real operation going.

BargeMonkey

Quote from: coxy on March 20, 2017, 07:17:20 AM
barge count the links on each side of the side chain some chains have 3 links in between the cross links and some have 4 I had the same trouble till I figured that out I always went by the number of left over links from the side chain but that don't work on some of them cause of the odd links some my go 3-3-4 or 4-3-4 some how you always have 1 extra link on the side chain  it maybe on the inside or the out side  hope you under stand what I'm trying to say  if not give me a call  my # is in your PM
I appreciate it and I will give you a call one night to shoot the bull. 👍  I've got to get a warm day and adjust it, those front chains are headed to the back and new 3/4 rings for the front as soon as I make some money again, 😂

coxy


BargeMonkey

Quote from: coxy on March 21, 2017, 06:40:32 AM
just wondering why are you going rings
I prefer the ring chains, they don't ride as nice but they are really nice in this rocky stuff I work in. I've been buying alot of our chain thru TCR in ME and they have been real good, still expensive but you don't do them the often.

BargeMonkey

 I've been sick the last couple days because I've always tried to not beat on that Timbco. Unfortunately our repair bills are pretty nuts sometimes when stuff goes down, I'm actually going to luck out on this one with only a few shafts and bearings. When I popped that cover I expected to see a grenade. 😂didn't know how many of you guys have ever broken tracks before, if you've got the proper tools it's not bad. 

  

  

  

 

GRANITEstateMP

Barge,

At least you got the right tools to do the job.  That sure does help.
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