Logging pics

[dstimber]

We mostly saw 4/4 and 5/4 lumber our sticks are 3/4"thick by 1 1/2" wide. I've never messed with anything thicker than about 2" lumber. I would think you'd want a little thinner sticks for the thicker material to reduce airflow so the outer part of the board/ beams or whatever wouldn't over dry. I'll have to get my kiln operators manual out and read up on the thicker stuff.

The grooved sticks help out on white woods. Hickory, ash, poplar, maple. They have to be dried soon after they are cut and dried fast. If not they have some sort of reaction as they dry and the sticks will actually stain the lumber where they are laid. We call it sticker shadow. It isn't as bad in the winter as the summer.

 

[squisher]

I worked in a sawmill locally for a short stint. It had a bin stacker for the green chain. It was amazing. So all the boards automatically sorted. To their proper bins. Once a bin was full it would be 'opened' and stacked. So one guy could run the whole green chain. Auto stacker so the one guy just had to dump the full bin, auto stack it it and kick it out the back of the green line where forklifts would whisk them away to the kilns. I mostly handstacked on the planer chain. I lasted about six months before I'd had enough of going to the exact same spot everyday.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Yea that shit gets old quick!

 

[cory]

Great post imo, Squish

 

[dstimber]

Squish I feel your pain. Even tho I'm the boss I still have to stack that $-:t to catch the guys up and remind them about keeping their crap straight out there. Hopefully this machine will end that bs. I got enough of that crap every summer when I was a kid. dad and grandad tried to kill me and run me off. I wasn't bright enough to take the hint lol

 

[SeanKroll]

With that much machinery, why aren't the stickers mechanized?

 

[squisher]

I would hazard a guess that it would take a lot more automation to do a relatively easy talk.

 

[dstimber]

They have several fully automated stackers and stick layers. You still have to have 1-2 guys want watching over it. I priced one last year for the heck of it. 1.5mil setup and ready to go. In our situation it would take 15 years for it to pay for itself.

 

[SeanKroll]

Calculated at today's labor rates, right. 15 years ago, $6.72 minimum wage, now $11.

Is it 1.5M for the full machine, or the sticker laying machine?


Do you have product-loss from uneven sticking?

 

[dstimber]

Whole machine. We have some loss. Not exactly sure how much. Although never a total loss. The lumber just simply degrades. Which is still a loss . To be honest I don't think it's worth the cost. There are a lot of $10-20K parts that tend to break a lot as well in those machines.

Our mill is sitting on a fence and either in need of going much bigger or cutting back and down sizing.

The company we got our used stacker from just finished an install a year or so ago of a full on sorter, grading, stacking line. 3million I believe is what was spent. They went from 15 on the green chain line to 4. And those 4 run the stacker.
Their manager told me they would have undoubtedly gone out of business without it.

We saw around be 125K bdft a week they saw 150K bdft a day.

 

[Buddy]

Waiting for daylight so I can start falling and the thing I look forward to the least when I get home in the afternoon, grinding chains.

 

[pantheraba]

Have fun logging...keep taking pictures! Good grind picture.

 

[cory]

What time does it get light there? Are you cutting the stuff the FB can't handle or get to? How many chains do you go thru in a typical day? Are you cutting frozen wood and if so is it problematic? I've only cut frozen trees logging 1x back in the day and I couldnt get any chain or filing combo to work. Just when I got to wit's end about it, the weather warmed up

 

[Buddy]

It gets light about 8ish. If I don't get into any dirt I will run one chain a day but I will probably touch it up with a chisel bit file at least once in 7 hrs. Yes the wood is frozen but not frozen really really hard yet and it is problematic. With my normal k&h wedges the tree tries to spit them right back out of the kerf. You can't wind up and smack them real hard or they will fly out like a missile and they can hurt you, more than one man has had stitches due to flying wedges. Besides not being able to wedge them very well the hinge tends to break rather than flex. The wedges themselves get brittle too and will break in half if you don't hit them with a straight on blow. You have to watch for flying limbs more when they are frozen to because they tend to break rather then flex as well. It's not unusual for a drag of trees to get to the landing with very few limbs left on them because they have broken off in the skidding process.

Thanks Gary

 

[cory]

Good stuff. I had forgotten about all the wedging issues, for sure.

If you generally go thru the day with just one chain, I'm surprised you grind at nite, I thought grinders were more for a heavy filing and for a light touch up, a hand file is best. I've never used a grinder though.

Btw, is it all hand falling there or is there a FB at work? Thanks.

 

[Buddy]

Yes the company bought a new Timber Pro this year. That means the sawyers get all the steep ground and oversized trees, typically 28” plus. I’ve seen him cut 48” trees but once they hit the ground he can’t move them.

The grinder is nice for heavy work but it’s generally just a touchup at night. I always pack one spare chain with me and a couple extra in the pickup. In the past when I’m really moving I would use about 3 chains a day, no filing all grinding.

 

[cory]

Do you do piece work or hourly? Just curious. If that's too nosy, no problem, I fully understand.

 

[Buddy]

Hourly, which I like because I can pace myself and still make about $365 a day.

 

[BlackSmith]

Pertaining to the wedges popping back out. I have found that using a thin cutoff wheel grinding slight grooves perpendicular to the length of the wedge on the part of the wedge (face?) that contacts the wood helps “stop the pop”.

 

[Buddy]

I might have to try that, thanks

 

[treebilly]

I hate wedges popping. Doesn’t happen much but if I try to stack them it’s a guarantee. I plunge my second or third wedge prior to the back cut because of this. I offered a fix in my mind to someone but apparently I’m the only one with this problem. I just use shims for the extra height now

 

[Buddy]

I might have to try that, thanks

 

[Tree09]

Thx Bob, gonna try that too

 

[Mick!]

Good info Shawn, thanks.

 

[Buddy]

I cut a lot of wooden wedges when I need them. They aren’t hard enough to actually wedge with but you can drive them in far enough to prevent a tree from setting back or you can use them to stack a regular wedge on top of. To make them I just cut vertically down through a fresh stump in the wedge shape and split it out with my axe, one hit and it pops right out.