The Logging Thread

[HolmenTree]

It's all good brother. I get heated around logging. I feel robbed of my chance to have been a real highball handfaller. The industry has changed so much here in just one generation I can't even begin to explain it. Big machines, big production. Lever pulling jobs where one man can do the work of many has replaced a lot of what I always loved about the bush. The governments and greedy asses of the world have screwed it right up, I'm sure it's happening everywhere. BC is big logging country, but it's not the same as it was.

Justin well said,
I didn't miss out on it seeing I started falling for Manfor at 16 in 1974. Even operated a tracked Drott 50 feller buncher in 1975 for 6 months cutting 1000 trees a day before I went back to the chainsaw. That buncher job was way too boring,
I loved hand falling on a 2 man cut and skid crew ,we couldn't wait to pace out our pile at the landing at the end of the day. We were unionized with the I.W.A. the same union all you guys on the west coast of B.C had.
I even had a job offer in 1988 to fall timber up at Sayward north of Campbell River for Mac Blo with full I.W.A benefits.
But I stayed at home and put my 30 years in with the company and got my IWA gold ring. Was a great life and will finish the rest semi retired doing arborist work which I love even more.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Over here the logs get sorted out at the auction yard. If you have registered with them, you write the name of your outfit on the end of each log, then after it gets hauled to the yard, it's their job to sort it out for what market will want it. The quality of log and time of year are the main deciding factors. I suspect that surpluses or not enter into it as well. At the very least, it will be wanted for pulp, I guess. After the stuff gets sold, they make a deposit into your account that they have on file from when you registered. Occasionally there can be a contract that deals with logs otherwise, but most everything in these parts moves through the auction yard. Huge numbers of logs there now, mostly Pine. Cool to wander around there and often see some interesting wood. I've bought a few logs there myself for woodwork, or I was outbid.

 

[Tucker943]

Anyone here ever work around or with a Bell saw? I chased a Bell Super T around the woods for awhile with a cable skidder, then chased it with a grapple skidder. That little Bell saw made cable skidding a lot easier. he would cut the trees then leave a hitch fanned out for me. If he couldn't get them fanned out nicely for me to top and choke, he could get them close. Butts facing the same way really helped me.

 

[cory]

I could go hand falling tomorrow if I was willing to live away from home. I'll stick with arb work.

Yup, that is generally the tradeoff between logging and arb work, as I've experienced it. If not living away, then looong commutes.

 

[Tucker943]

Loooong commutes.... You hit the nail on the head there.

 

[cory]

Those Bells are badass little machines. I never worked with one on a regular basis, but I find them cool.

 

[HolmenTree]

By the late '80s all of our camps but one shut down . I was one of the commuters, but our company supplied a bus and picked us up at our front step at home and brought us back again also paying us travel time.
I remember a Bell at our camp in the early '80s but couldn't compete with our cut and skid crews seeing we only produced softwood. I heard the Bell worked good in hardwood.
The Drotts in the '70s were shutdown by '76 because of environmental regs. 3 of them with 6 Clarke 668 grapple skidders and 3 flail delimbers working two shifts a day sure produced though.

 

[SouthSoundTree]

What is that, a trike skidder with no blade?

 

[squisher]

Justin well said,
I didn't miss out on it seeing I started falling for Manfor at 16 in 1974. Even operated a tracked Drott 50 feller buncher in 1975 for 6 months cutting 1000 trees a day before I went back to the chainsaw. That buncher job was way too boring,
I loved hand falling on a 2 man cut and skid crew ,we couldn't wait to pace out our pile at the landing at the end of the day. We were unionized with the I.W.A. the same union all you guys on the west coast of B.C had.
I even had a job offer in 1988 to fall timber up at Sayward north of Campbell River for Mac Blo with full I.W.A benefits.
But I stayed at home and put my 30 years in with the company and got my IWA gold ring. Was a great life and will finish the rest semi retired doing arborist work which I love even more.

That's really cool Willard.

 

[Tucker943]

What is that, a trike skidder with no blade?

No, its a mechanical cutter. You sort of lay back in it facing up the tree. You sit between the two big tires with the small tire behind you. It had a dangle head grapple with a bar saw in it on the front. You come up to the tree, grab the tree, cut, and sort of lay the tree in the direction you want, but LET GO once its committed the right or wrong way. Its not like a big harvester that can be in charge of the tree. Once the tree is in motion, you let go, or you go with it. The flip very easy but in hardwoods can produce very well considering their cost and size.

 

[Tucker943]

Embedding was acting up so here is a link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1k0M70juHk

 

[woodworkingboy]

Mad machine!

 

[cory]

Exactly, it reminds me of a Mad Max style tree cutting machine.

 

[treebogan]

Those Bell Machines are a Trip to drive.You Steer them with foot peddles and operate the Boom and Grapple with levers.They were mainly used for fleeting cut logs into piles to be loaded into stacks when I worked in the bush.They were powered by a Deutz air cooled Diesel that used to run just about red hot in the summer.They were notorious for tipping over forwards or having the rear wheel break off.
They ended up being banned for use off a skid site because they were too unstable in rough terrain.

Having said all that,a good operator in one of those could clear a skid as fast as a knuckle boom in a machine that cost a fraction of the price.

 

[old irish]

Yes things have certainly changed. I love falling timber and have done about every kind of tree you could imagine from 6' bars on down. But now, with all the fuels reduction work we do it would be very difficult to get much done without our Timbco. All those little trees drive me NUTS! Getting old I guess. The same goes with the processor. You can't limb all those thick trees by hand and get much done. On the other hand it is all relative to cost. The easier it is, the more fuel and oil that you use. We go through a 55 gallon drum of hydraulic oil every month! Wheras a guy with a chainsaw and a little skidder can keep his costs down and get a load every once in a while and keep most of what he earns, but you have to be young and inspired.

 

[HolmenTree]

old irish, your right there young and inspired.
A well oiled team of a handfaller and skidder operator can produce amazing results and their very fit and healthy to boot.
Smallest timber my partner and I put in the landing was tree length spruce with 25 ft average length on the scale. We put up 150cords of that on a 5 day scale, 30 cord a day. But luckily we didn't have to do that week on week out.

My partner and I had a good system. I'd fall every tree perfectly straight off the face up to a half tree length deep. He'd be back blading the butts into bunches and back blade the limbs off at the same time. No limbing with the saw in the winter when frozen limbs snap off, only had to top.
I would always be there to help him pull out the mainline and help choke up half his chokers. Best production in 55 ft spruce topped at 3 1/2" was 305 cords on a 40 hr scale.

When the transition to mechanical harvesting came with bunchers and processors, the veteran crews had the first chance to get contracts with the new equipment. The big companies who owned the mills wanted logging production to operate 24 hrs.
But after a few years most of those veteran loggers wished they could go back to the old 2 man cut and skid line skidder crews again.

 

[old irish]

Yes Holmen, I know of a number of guys that have sold their mechanical sides and just kept a skidder and hand fall. One of the reasons for that though I suspect is that the payments got to be too much for them. The way I have done this business is save until I could make the next step up in equipment instead of going to the bank and borrowing.

 

[HolmenTree]

Yes Holmen, I know of a number of guys that have sold their mechanical sides and just kept a skidder and hand fall. One of the reasons for that though I suspect is that the payments got to be too much for them. The way I have done this business is save until I could make the next step up in equipment instead of going to the bank and borrowing.

I hear a lot of guys couldn't keep employees to run their equipment because they were lured off to the booming oil patch and mining.
One logging contractor I know no longer works for the forestry companies but has found lots of work with the mining sector cutting and building roads and mine sites.

 

[old irish]

You are definitely right on that score. We also have a heck of a time getting trucks, as we only have one log truck. All the big rigs went to North Dakota.

 

[Tucker943]

Those Bell Machines are a Trip to drive.You Steer them with foot peddles and operate the Boom and Grapple with levers.They were mainly used for fleeting cut logs into piles to be loaded into stacks when I worked in the bush.They were powered by a Deutz air cooled Diesel that used to run just about red hot in the summer.They were notorious for tipping over forwards or having the rear wheel break off.
They ended up being banned for use off a skid site because they were too unstable in rough terrain.

Having said all that,a good operator in one of those could clear a skid as fast as a knuckle boom in a machine that cost a fraction of the price.

They still are used here. Not on landings either. If its not too steep they cut timber with them all day long. Hot in the cock pit during them summer. And loud.

 

[HolmenTree]

You are definitely right on that score. We also have a heck of a time getting trucks, as we only have one log truck. All the big rigs went to North Dakota.

Last summer on the way back from holidays up in the Black Hills of S.D. we passed through a few towns in the N.West corner of North Dakota and talk about booming with oil contractors.

 

[Tucker943]

You should see the natural gas industry where I am...... It would blow your mind.

 

[HolmenTree]

we had a natural gas pipeline explosion in southern Manitoba last winter. Thousands of homes were without heat for days and it was 40 below windchill .

 

[Altissimus]

...selling logs, probably another thread really. Big Mill will buy more species more often but will not scale for Veneer, though it does get re sold to the Veneer mill ... the smaller mill will will give a better price but tend to be rutheless on grade when scaling... though they will buy odd lengths and give a better deal on Veneer grade which they will truck free but they will never take softwood...if you are a big producer probably go with the big mill but Veneer can add up...hmmmm

 

[Dave Shepard]

If they don't pay for veneer, but are sorting it out themselves, they won't see me in their yard.