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Started by nativewolf, April 29, 2019, 08:58:55 AM

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Skeans1

@kiko
Didn't know if the guys had adopted them for loading use since you can travel between decks without having to hook up to the trailer. 

mike_belben

NC109 thru uwharrie national forest from troy, to mt gilead to wadesboro is a plantation pine economy.  Jordan lumber is an impressive mill.  I stopped counting at 20 trucks, ill bet 40 passed by headed to jordan.  Right next door is the mohawk plywood plant.  Down the street is mcrae treating and megawood.  Other direction is troy lumber company.  These are THE employers.  The rest service them. If they die the region will too.  

The whole area is planted pine, every acre that isnt a house, cornfield or cottonfield which are all in the minority to pine crop. 


Every truck was tree length.  Jordan picks them from a cantilever mega crane whole truckload and places in the sprinkler circle.  James river equipment is the machinery dealer in mt gilead on 109.  Their small lot is jam packed with knucklebooms, grapple skidders and bunchers.  I have seen zero evidence of CTL in practice, and no indication that there is any reason whatsoever to change what seems to be functioning like a rolex.  Nobody was standing around looking for a pill or bumming smokes.  Theyre all pretty busy being employed and the entire area i think is just fantastic.  It spits out pine like a vending machine. 

Im mostly just ribbing skeans  ;D
Praise The Lord

nativewolf

It's me you're poking fun at :).  Not our man @Skeans1 -he is a healthy skeptic, wish he was closer!

When I see those operations I see a bunch of mills making some $ and loggers and landowners getting shafted.  All I want is 4 loads of logs a day at $2k a day in profit per truck.  That's all.  Not asking much.  

But you be sure to plan some trip so you have a rest break in Winchester or Toms Brook.  I'll show you some trees, none of that whole tree junk :).
Liking Walnut

Riwaka

That north carolina operation looks like bean poles.
Probably reduce the number of trucks if the truck weight could be doubled/ tripled etc with big trailers. Lots of trucks just = low load weights. 

They do 'cut to length' but inside the mill. A bit quicker than a processing head.

Cut to length inside the mill
Price LogPro 3rd Generation Log Trimmer at Jordan Lumber Company - YouTube

Jordan mill drone overflight
Jordan Lumber - YouTube

There is another vid of the debarker, laser and previous? gen gang saw setup.  

I read that a fair area of crop pine on the flat ground nearer the Eastern part of NC is being converted  back to farm land again due to low returns.

nativewolf

Wouldn't surprise me at all if they converted back to cukes or other truck farming, lots of stuff in fact now that Charlotte has sprawled, RDU has sprawled, etc.  More demand for good local food and with the hits the coast takes from hurricanes row crops offer some protection , at least you are in your second crop by Hurricane season.  I think the counter to that from Foresters perspective would be to plant LL Pine as far north as you can, rake, and send to DC for mulch.  You could get top $$$$ for good pine straw in DC area.  
Liking Walnut

Southside

At least with tree length you can ship pine like that pulp and all in one shot (chip n saw). Guy I buy grade pine from was here yesterday when his phone got a text. Basically said the mill will only take pulp next Monday starting at midnight for one day. Have to factor that into the equation too. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

nativewolf

Wow, 24 hours to ship pulp.  They are pitting all the poor loggers and landowners against each other.  I bet they are not getting much for the pulp either.  
Liking Walnut

Southside

I didn't ask, but I am sure it's nothing. Same thing with chips, so why bother to own a chipper? 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

nativewolf

Quote from: Southside on July 24, 2019, 08:28:13 PM
I didn't ask, but I am sure it's nothing. Same thing with chips, so why bother to own a chipper?
I hear you!
Liking Walnut

mike_belben

Quote from: nativewolf on July 24, 2019, 04:31:02 PM
When I see those operations I see a bunch of mills making some $ and loggers and landowners getting shafted.  
I guess i see it different.  
Old bell, hydroax or barko feller, $30-60k
Simple old skidder $30k
Simple old knuckleboom $20k
Backroads daycab tractor $12k
Pitts trailer $12k
I see all this stuff for sale here all the time.  A CTL processor and a forwarder.. Cant even price em.  Never ever see them hit the paper or on the lot at ANY equipment place i pass.  Im guessing a $100k CTL rig is pretty clapped out but i dont know.  That still leaves a forwarder.. 50k?  Still need truck and trailer.   
I guess i think the conventional logger on 109 is making more than the CTL one because, well.. I do a lot of observing and thinking to pass the miles, and they all appear to have stayed conventional wherever i pass by.   ???
What does @kiko think?   Is there much CTL gear available in GA?  I see so much logging from kentucky to carolina and no CTL.  
Praise The Lord

kiko

Basically non excistant here, a small percentage of stationery processing. Either is a race to the bottom.  Not my words but, it takes more courage to shut it down than it does to continue to operate at a loss.  The wood is not worth or uniform enough in single tracts for CTL/processing to be productive or feasible.  If I had a cool million to blow I could find much better and funner ways to dispose of that knot.  "I spend most of my money on whisky and women and wasted the rest if it." ...  

kiko

And another I can claim,  The wood does not give a DanG what the grapple looks like. 

nativewolf

Oh well, I am in agreement as far as pine goes.  I am no fan of industrial pine plantations- economic returns for landowner or logger are slim to none.   This is in the SE, Coastal OR and WA may be a a different story.

I'm interested in CTL to replicate handfelling in hardwood stands.  Long story...we'll see.

Liking Walnut

quilbilly

I think the reason you don't see ctl is because of the way Mills are set up. As a logger, you're pretty much at the mercy of what the mill wants.
a man is strongest on his knees

mike_belben

I suppose thats true but i never met a logger who said i wish i had a much much more expensive operation with electronic equipment that i dont know how to repair.  


Didnt yellowhammer or wdh do quite well on his pine plantation?  I remember asking if it was profitable.   This stretch of 109 i am describing on purpose because it is a real place rather than a myth, you can all look at the same area or someone on here may know the details to say its good or bad over there.   if conventional is so terrible it sure has me fooled.   If pine is paying bad for the loggers and landowners, why so many log crews and happy drivers on the CB with me all day?  Why so many pine crops and not a big ol south PA looking cornfield?    I know disgruntled drivers and i know when im seeing another round of pine being planted where the last cut was done.  It cant be that bad or economics would change it.  Id see root rakes and land conversions. 


  I suspect a pine crop pays a lot better for actual farmers than absentee owners who pay a premium to avoid the labor.  Speaking of labor, ive never seen a crew racing to beat the rain all summer with their equipment at a pine plantation, like with hay or food production. It looks like less intense work to me.
Praise The Lord

WDH

Cut to length in the woods is more expensive to operate than conventional Southern tree length logging in this area.  Unless the mills are set up for it or require it down here, CTL loggers would be at a disadvantage.  What we do see is cut to multiples where the logs are felled with a fellerbuncher and bunched, skiddded to the landing with grapple skidders, cut to multiple pre-set lengths on the log deck, and loaded and hauled mostly in long log form.  The largest lumber producer in Georgia with close to 1 billion bf of annual production requires that all logs be pre-cut to specified lengths, i.e. 25', 33' 41',49', 57' etc.  It is all about economics.
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

nativewolf

The uwarahie national forest area exists because during the depression it was virtually abandoned, miles and miles of super eroded farmland.  I, and many other NC State foresters, did our student projects there.  In the 30's many areas around there looked like the moon.  It's not very productive cropland, labor is tight (right in between Raleigh and Charlotte), and the alternative in that area is often chicken farming.  It's not the place you would want to plant corn (site index is often around 50-80 for pine- which is not so great),we grow 80' Black Cherry in 25 years in the right conditions here in N VA.   The state and feds subsidized a lot of pine planting in that area, it was a great decision and even a libertarian fiscal tightwad like me thinks that's the sort of place you want to have in trees and not crops and that it was money well spent and not wasted.  So, there are lots of trees and there are a handful of producers and a train to ship chips and a State govt very much at the forefront of Industrial Pine production (google up Bruce Zoebel -I was lucky enough to have had time with him).  Just don't do an economic analysis of owning that land because it would tell you to sell ASAP and buy on the next dip in the stock market.  Pine in this area are probably growing 25% as fast as those on Danny's site (old memory here and I may be far underestimating how much better he is), this isn't even taking into account soils.  

WDH did post his numbers on there, he is in a thriving pine production area.  Essentially if you are going to make a go of it in pine you want to be in GA between Macon and Athens or in a belt from MS over to GA.  You want to be where you have the most diverse group of buyers, the lowest logging costs (sucks to be us), and the most sunlight and consistent temps.  GA is such a place.  The further you get from middle GA/middle AL the slower the pines grow, the fewer buyers, and the lower the returns for landowners.   If you are a landowner that really believes in pine you'd sell the VA/NC sites and buy middle GA.

Of course this is a discussion on Pine, not CTL.  I'm not a fan of industrial pine production- I believe it is far over planted, profits accumulate with a few big mill owners, disease and pest will develop endangering all southern yellow pines, and that in a rapidly evolving market you are locking yourself into a fixed product with little thought for global trends (in particular the harvest of Russian forest-which are vast vast areas and simply lawless right now, cut and ship as much as you can grab).  

CTL interest me because it is as close as I can get to replicating a person and a mule as I can get but be mechanical.  I want it to be computerized because I am interested in fine precision.  I want to know exactly where that 12" cut off is and I want to know how much we cut and all the stats on it.    I want to know how many logs are on the landing, I want to know the species, ideally I want to know that while the processor is cutting.  I have to have a good clean site and I have big oak and hickory tops, they have to be processed down to 4' pieces.  Finally I want to be able to afford to pay a good good wage.  I would like my employees to be middle class and happy, not desperate.  Some of that is on me but I'll not get there with hotsaws or hand cutting.  
Liking Walnut

Southside

A customer was here a couple weeks ago telling me about a timber sale he had done to clear some land. He was very happy with the $1500 ish / acre he got from his clear-cut. In my mind that is a pathetic return, on 30 years it's only $50 gross / year. Take out capitalization, taxes, interest, replanting and or grubbing costs and what did he really make? 

l love buying pine logs, selling them, not so much. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

nativewolf

Quote from: Southside on July 25, 2019, 08:58:00 AM
A customer was here a couple weeks ago telling me about a timber sale he had done to clear some land. He was very happy with the $1500 ish / acre he got from his clear-cut. In my mind that is a pathetic return, on 30 years it's only $50 gross / year. Take out capitalization, taxes, interest, replanting and or grubbing costs and what did he really make?

l love buying pine logs, selling them, not so much.
Exactly, just comparing holding it vs the stock market at a 6.6% vanguard mutual fund return and he'd have had $3400 today if he sold the land 30 years ago and put in the mutual funds.  Today he has 1500 and maybe 1000 in land if it is cutover.  He's paid tax's on it, maybe he paid planting costs, etc and where is he today?  By comparison he's in the hole big time.  If he's smart he'd take that 1500/acre and put into stocks on the next good dip.  Sell the land, put that into stocks the next big dip.  
Danny is in the only area in the US where it can even look close to a good investment but that is because he's growing nearly twice as fast as we are here in VA.  
Liking Walnut

mike_belben

much food for thought guys, thanks.  
Praise The Lord

Skeans1

Quote from: nativewolf on July 24, 2019, 10:29:05 PM
Oh well, I am in agreement as far as pine goes.  I am no fan of industrial pine plantations- economic returns for landowner or logger are slim to none.   This is in the SE, Coastal OR and WA may be a a different story.

I'm interested in CTL to replicate handfelling in hardwood stands.  Long story...we'll see.
Anything and everything for CTL is expensive the logging to the cheap wood you'll end up in, unless you step machine size with a track carrier with a big head. CTL is a great way to thin and honestly everyone of these European machines are made for softwoods which they really should be just for most of the time. Having done both long, short, as well as tree length with a fixed and a dangle head in the brush thinning if I had my choice I'd be back in a fixed head machine just because of the control with less damage potential. I know up in BC they do a waratah 623 or even a 624 fixed head that's a larger butt cut size then what you've been looking into, cut it tree length as much as possible out then process on the landing.
https://youtu.be/8GbReWU4a3Y

mike_belben

just making conversation here.. Drove by another logging specific iron dealer today, tidewater equipment company rt 74 in anson NC.. Think it looked like tigercat mostly.  All conventional stuff, didnt see any CTL.  I guess having to special order the machine in and pay upwards of $8-12/ mile for permitted and maybe piloted delivery is a pretty big hurdle to jump for anyone.  
Praise The Lord

Riwaka

Looks like BC every crew choses their own way with a combo of machinery brands.
Be interesting to see the weighbridge comparisons at the end of the day. 
BC disc saw, skid, stack, process, load
Mitch Logging Video Teaser - YouTube

TC with danglehead Southstar at stump
Tigercat 855E with Southstar 600 - YouTube

makeri_drvr

Most of the mills are set up for treelength wood around me. Way back when I tried CTL we were doing first thinnings cutting 8ft 4in post. The plant separated the pulpwood. Does anyone remember the company logging outfit Rocky Creek in Alabama? They used traditional wheeled shears or sawheads to thin with and processors followed the cut down material and hauled out with fowarders. They ran a bunch of Iron Mules back then.I actually bought one of their old ones!  Fighting the tough underbrush did the most hose damage to me running a processor that cut down too. Its hard to beat a wheeled sawhead in most terrain in the South East. They are just built tougher than any Scandinavian style machine.  Tracks machines will still be needed in wet or steep ground. I wonder how this 3 machine combo would work? 

barbender

The brush down there is definitely a killer on hoses.
Too many irons in the fire

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