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best/worst logging jobs you have ever done?

Started by northwoods1, September 16, 2010, 02:29:09 PM

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northwoods1

I thought it might be interesting to hear some about the jobs the rest of you folks have done over the years. Like what are some of the most memorable jobs for you both good and bad? Big wood, small wood, weather, making good money (or not!), equipment problems, etc.
Some of my best years where spent working Federal sales just minutes from my home. Steep terrain and hard work to be sure but beautiful country and close to home. Cutting logs down in S.W. WI I really enjoyed also.
Worst jobs had to be tornado salvage which I did for close to two years. Spent most of the time cutting ground to steep for processor crews and oversized wood. Really tough going I remember when that tornado first came through here I spent two solid weeks just cruising around and estimating damage in my immediate area. I shook my head wondering how we would ever get it all cleaned up, and HOW... it was such a disaster area. Made it through that but I spent most of the time thinking I was to old for this kind of stuff! ha ha Didn't get seriously injured though and I often thought it was a miracle when a person had to spend day after day doing seriously dangerous things. Some of my toughest jobs had to be when it was severely cold too. I can remember an honest 53 below F. and trying to go out and get equipment running. Just get slapped in the face by a branch when its that cold it sure will wake you up ha ha. Or dusty dry jobs in the dead of summer. Getting out there at day light just so you could be out of there at mid day, maybe go out again in the evening when it got cooler that is what I liked to do.

Mark K

I think the best job I've had was working south of here on Skyline about 6 years ago. Made alot of money along with very short skid's. Good size timber too. Worst job is probably the one I'm on now. It's a wind shear/micro burst site on state land, wood is all tangled and big. Blew down in the beginning of July. Can't complain though, I'm still working.
Husky 372's-385's,576, 2100
Treefarmer C7D
Franklin 405
Belsaw m-14 sawmill

northwoods1

Quote from: Mark K on September 16, 2010, 03:07:08 PM
I think the best job I've had was working south of here on Skyline about 46 years ago. Made alot of money along with very short skid's. Good size timber too. Worst job is probably the one I'm on now. It's a wind shear/micro burst site on state land, wood is all tangled and big. Blew down in the beginning of July. Can't complain though, I'm still working.

Yes skid length sure can make or break a guy can't it? Be careful with that down wood, took me awhile to get adjusted to cutting that stuff like for instance not being able to do anything unless you had two saws handy at all times. And going through so much saw chain and files ha ha!

Mark K

I am taking 2 saws in the woods now. Never did, just carried my falling saw and left the other on the landing. Most tree's are connected to the root ball and straw stacked. Had to stop around 1:30 because of rain, don't need ruts on state land. Wood is averaging good though which makes it worth it.
Husky 372's-385's,576, 2100
Treefarmer C7D
Franklin 405
Belsaw m-14 sawmill

CX3

My worst logging job would have been about two years ago.  I bought a big patch of walnut, and they really looked good standing there.  I really thought there was around 25 thousand dollars worth on the job.  Well we started cutting them and every stinking tree on the place had a huge hole or rotten spot in the butt.  I first started bucking them off a little to slick them up, but the holes just got bigger and worse.  I mean north slope, south slope it didnt matter they were just rotten.  All I could think about was the check that had already been cashed to the landowner.  Well come sell time we had 76 trees on the deck and I was really nervous.  The end result was they still brought 15K.  I remember this one tree that was around 30dbh, we cut it and there might have been six inches of meat on the outside, the rest was slick hollow all the way up.  I will never forget what that whole tree brought, 208 bucks!!  I figured it in when I bid at over a thousand.   I almost left it lay in the woods because it was so bad . Im glad I didnt now. 

The best job was just north of my house ten miles.  A guy had 80 acres that was a quarter wide, so it was skinny and long property.  The whole hillside of this property was a north slope and had some dandy red oaks.  I only cut 2 trees that were not red oak.  The total job cut around 270mbf.  It was really impressive timber.  They ran good and were tall and straight.   Just the right kind. 

John 3:16
You Better Believe It!

plasticweld

I did a job about 20 years ago that was steep and had what I thought was some of the best hemlock I had ever seen, tall straight as gun barrels and big. I paid cash for the wood lot sure that I was going to make out really well, I was coming of a dry spell of  no wood lots and spring thaw along with a couple of break downs and really needed something to get me back on my feet money wise. What I learned the hard way is never buy any stand of timber next to any old rail road beds, the timber had all been burned many years ago and I did not see any evidence of it when looking at the trees, they were all rotted or full of shake and I lost the first log off of every tree.  To say it was heart breaking would be an understatement.

I figured out any good job is where the ground is hard, the forester easy. The road is not shut down and the highway super is not trying to figure out how to close down the road. The trees are good the ground not steep. The equipment stays together and the weather is decent.

timbuck2

Best jobs were White Mt. National Forest.   Skidder and chainsaws.   Doesn't happen any more.  Every job put up by USFS is challenged in court by up to 10 different non-profits.   If they do get a sale through the 5+ year process it gets bought up by a "broker"  who contracts out the logging at "keep from starving" rates.   Great country we live in eh.

Autocar

One of the best that comes to mind was three walnuts in a little woods along a creek I bid with three other companys and bought them for $3500.00. I pulled up a few weeks later at eight or so unloaded the skidder drove across the feild cut them pulled the skidder back on the trailer at ten and make ten thousand I was pretty tickled that day. The worst day, I was buying timber for another company and had a job road side. Its around 0 degrees and the wind was blowing out of the northwest with ground blizzards. I had told the boys to park the skidder on the south side of the woods the night before so the wind wasn't hitting so bad. But it wouldn't turn over fast enough to fire so I told one fellow to get the pickup and we would jump it. I turn around and here he drives the truck across a mud hole that is frozzen over,but he breaks though and the truck is stuck. Frezzen butt cold, now we are in a pickle, we start the 210 prentice and the boom is twenty feet short of reaching the pickup so we unroll the four inch straps and use them as a log chain to get the truck out. We did get the skidder started but as I look back we should stayed near the wood stove that day.  :D
Bill

northwoods1

Good to hear all these replies really brings back some memories for me both good and bad... Autocar you talk about getting stuck? One of my favorite "stuck" stories is about one of my neighbors trying to cross a blueberry bog with a timbco. Sure it was winter, but well those bogs never freeze to well. Long story short... one timbco sunk to above the roof. This happened to be the very first timbco ever produced. Pat Crawford who designed and built it was from near here and started out working the federal sales here. It took two 300 ton cranes to get that machine out and they had to inject air while doing the pulling. Machine still is serviceable though another neighbor now owns it. Timbuck2 the Federal sales aren't like they used to be. So much has changed since I started logging but I have just learned to accept it as the forest service to be honest kind of goes along with a lot of the bulls*t or so it seems to me. Plasticweld that makes me recall a red pine job I did once that had been burned previously. I was cutting it for a guy so it wasn't my loss, but the mill wouldn't take any of the pulp the absolutely could not use it. He sure wasn't happy. CX3 so sorry but I actually had to laugh about your bad experience when reading it ha ha! No, it was because I know what its like let me tell you. I've cut some nice walnut but have always just done it by the thousand board feet. And it was good money too some of the wood was selling for 7-8k per thousand board feet. But talk about estimating a tree at 1k and then having it hollow? Yes that is a tough lesson! tc

Chuck White

My best saw-job was summer of '08.
I went in with the mill looking at cutting around 2,500 board feet of W/Pine.
The first day there went fine, then the next day we had a funeral to go to, so no sawing.
During the funeral, a windstorm, microburst, tornado or what have you happened.
All I could think of was "I know one of those big pines fell on my mill", so, after the service I went down and checked the mill.
There was a small tree, about 1½" dbh :D laying across the tail of the mill, but there were big pines down all over the place.
Well, we ended up sawing 12,500+ board feet.
It went really well, of course we just sawed, the other guys did the cutting, skidding and staging the logs in front of the mills loader!
Nice Job.  :)
~Chuck~  Cooks Cat Claw sharpener and single tooth setter.  2018 Chevy Silverado and 2021 Subaru Ascent.
With basic mechanical skills and the ability to read you can maintain a Woodmizer  LT40!

northwoods1

Chuck I ended up buying my LT40 because of a tornado that passed close to my home in June of 2007. They sure are nice to have in that kind of a situation aren't they??

Chuck White

The features I like best are:
Ease of operation
Ease of maintenance
Ease of portability
~Chuck~  Cooks Cat Claw sharpener and single tooth setter.  2018 Chevy Silverado and 2021 Subaru Ascent.
With basic mechanical skills and the ability to read you can maintain a Woodmizer  LT40!

madmari

Best is deep winter cutting white pine that looks like a howitzer barrel with no branches for 40 ft.
Worst day logging was looking at my severed index finger on a hospital table 6" from my nose while the doctor told me it couldn't be sewed back on.  :( It still had color.
  After leaving a good paying job to log, I lost 30 pounds, colesterol down 100 pts, blood pressure is normal, heart rate down 10 beats/min and feel better than ever. Had I had an equipment breakdown in my old job, I'd have a meltdown , feel half dead and be grumpy for weeks. Now I fix the breakdown and take pride in the resourcefullness I have gained.
  Logging, although dangerous, is very good for a person. ;D
I know why dogs stick thier head out the car window.

Randy88

The best it ever gets for me is when I'm doing my own for myself, the worst I've ever done was after a tornado came through and demolished about 10 acres of timber pasture about 10 years ago, it was too dangerous for anybody else to even think about doing so we ended up doing it ourselves, after that I learned to love big equipment, it keeps you safer and safer means living to an older age so you have more time to make even more mistakes in life but at least your around to make them.    Thats the first time in my life where I spent more time "thinking" about how to do things without getting killed than I ever did actually doing them and I never reallly forgot the lessons I learned there either, I use them every day and I also learned there are jobs not worth doing, the risks are too high.

axe woman

 8) THE WORST LOGGING ACCDENT THAT HAPPENED TO ME WAS LAST YEAR WHEN I WAS CUTTIN A WALNUT ,ALL I REMBER WAS THE TREE SPLIT POPED AND KNOCKED ME BACKWARDS BOUT 20 FEET.THE GUYS ON THE CREW WOKE ME UP,MINOR SCRAPS SCARED TO DEATH.DONE THE BEST THING GOT UP SHOOK OFF THE DUST PICKED UP MY SAW AND FINSHED.THEY TELL ME I HAVE BALLS OF STEEL ,THEY JUST CANT BELIEVE THAT A WOMAN DOES LOGGING 

mad murdock

We did a job back in the early '80's near Eagle River, only about 11/2 miles from town. It was almost 300 acres of mixed timber, about 80 acres of HUGE Norway spruce, 100 acres or so of pine plantation, and the rest was a mix of balsam/tamarack low area, and mixed hardwood. The best job and worst job on the same job, so to speak.  That Norway Spruce was awesome, some days a guy could cut 10-12 mbf in one day and have it decked up for the truck to pick up.  The worst, thinning the plantation that someone when they planted it had the infinite wisdom to mix in some scotch pine with the red pine.  We thinned every other row, except the scotch pine, all had to come down.  The bad thing about it was that you were lucky to get 2 pulp stick out of a tree, that when you cut it off the stump would kind of fall, had so many nasty limbs, that it would just kind of tip a bit, and hang there, as you would have to limb what seemed at time a half a tank of gas to get 2 miserable pulp sticks out of a tree!  The good wood and the close proximity to town made the job a good one overall though.  Cleaning up storm damage has to be the absolute worst! slow going, and danger lurking behind each saw cut.  I have had my share of close calls with unseen widow-makers that is for sure.
Fondest times probably when I was just starting out, peeling popple as a young-un', the smell of that sap, I can still smell it!  I loved that smell.  I would get home after a early 4:30AM start in the woods, and my clothes would be sopping wet with sap.
Good times for sure!
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

SwampDonkey

Quote from: CX3 on September 16, 2010, 05:45:00 PM
My worst logging job would have been about two years ago.  I bought a big patch of walnut, and they really looked good standing there.  I really thought there was around 25 thousand dollars worth on the job.  Well we started cutting them and every stinking tree on the place had a huge hole or rotten spot in the butt.

One of the reasons why nobody buys wood that way up here unless it's pulp price. And the better loggers that take the time to get the logs and veneer separate will pay 50/50 on them to the owner, but not standing there swaying in the wind. Only if they intend to go broke quick. ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

SwampDonkey

Quote from: timbuck2 on September 16, 2010, 07:56:36 PM
Best jobs were White Mt. National Forest.   Skidder and chainsaws.   Doesn't happen any more.  Every job put up by USFS is challenged in court by up to 10 different non-profits.   If they do get a sale through the 5+ year process it gets bought up by a "broker"  who contracts out the logging at "keep from starving" rates.   Great country we live in eh.

People around here don't invest in saving trees, they invest in harvesting them. ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

northwoods1

Quote from: mad murdock on December 02, 2010, 01:15:22 PM
We did a job back in the early '80's near Eagle River, only about 11/2 miles from town. It was almost 300 acres of mixed timber, about 80 acres of HUGE Norway spruce, 100 acres or so of pine plantation, and the rest was a mix of balsam/tamarack low area, and mixed hardwood. The best job and worst job on the same job, so to speak.  That Norway Spruce was awesome, some days a guy could cut 10-12 mbf in one day and have it decked up for the truck to pick up.  The worst, thinning the plantation that someone when they planted it had the infinite wisdom to mix in some scotch pine with the red pine.  We thinned every other row, except the scotch pine, all had to come down.  The bad thing about it was that you were lucky to get 2 pulp stick out of a tree, that when you cut it off the stump would kind of fall, had so many nasty limbs, that it would just kind of tip a bit, and hang there, as you would have to limb what seemed at time a half a tank of gas to get 2 miserable pulp sticks out of a tree!  The good wood and the close proximity to town made the job a good one overall though.  Cleaning up storm damage has to be the absolute worst! slow going, and danger lurking behind each saw cut.  I have had my share of close calls with unseen widow-makers that is for sure.
Fondest times probably when I was just starting out, peeling popple as a young-un', the smell of that sap, I can still smell it!  I loved that smell.  I would get home after a early 4:30AM start in the woods, and my clothes would be sopping wet with sap.
Good times for sure!

Murdock I think its funny when you talk about the best & worst being on the same job :D a lot of times that is true if the sale is large enough. When you talk about big spruce the things that come to mind is limbs how did you handle that? I can remember cutting some nice spruce when it was really cold as in well below zero, the limbs are like glass and just break off when it was pulled out tree length they would just all break off. No need to touch a chainsaw at all, it corded up fast. Spruce pulp was the highest priced pulp back then around here. I wish I could find some nice spruce now at least a few good trees I had a guy call and wants 18' long clear white spruce to be used for gunnels of canoes. Not easy to find but he only needs 1" x 1"s. I built my house from a lot of white spruce I got from one job, that stuff was big and clear you just don't see that much though anymore.
I often wonder why they ever planted scotch pine! What is up with that stuff, and why it doesn't grow normally like any other pine I don't know I don't think I have ever seen a straight one. Which direction from town was that job you did?

SwampDonkey

The Scots pine is like any other tree. You have to plant it in the same environment/climate/latitude from which it originated. Some of the first stock they used was from very poor formed trees, genetically, to begin with. And that's a double whammy from the get go. Since then, more attention has been given to seed sources. These are strict rules they live by here in NB and most of Canada. The exception to that is these seasonal nurseries that spring up in May around here selling stock that has no chance to survive. If I'm going to plant any trees around here, they come from approved nurseries or I dig them up locally and my survival rate is over 95%. If I get less than that it's a wildlife issue, darn moose and hares.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

jimparamedic

Not the worst but funny. When I first started cutting I took the day off from work to go look at 5 + acres of yellow pine that the guy wanted cleared  he said they were straght as an arrow and no limbs for 30' also had a county road on 2 sides and I could have it all for cutting it. I was chopping at the bit to go and see how hard it was going to be to get out. Well when I got there it was all he said it was and they were all nice trees too. Just not going to be used for lumber for another 10 to 20 years every tree at chest high was 6" or under. Now I ask size before I get worked up because it's as they say if it sounds to good it probly is. Oh and it was 100 miles from home to. live and learn

mad murdock

QuoteWhich direction from town was that job you did?

It was South of Town on Loon Lake Rd.  My dad's co. bought it and we were contracted to manage the stands.  My dad told me once that the reason that they planted so much scotch pine back in the day was that it was supposed to be as good as red pine, but they didn't pay attention to where they got the seed stock from, all of the scraggly junky trees that had cones easy to pick.  Don't know if that is the reason or not, I think that the price of seed may have been a factor as well, all I know is that scotch pine is nasty stuff to have to content with.  We cut most of that spruce in the cold part of winter.  There were not alot of limbs except up high, we didn/t have a pole skidder yet at that time.  We skidded all that stuff with an old case 350 cat we had, with a Gafner loader mounted on back and a dray dressed with old airplane balloon tires on it.  Somewhere in my stuff I had a bunch of old photos of that and we had a dray load that had like 2 or 3 logs on it, as it was full (about 2 cords).  It was nice clear spruce. That was good money wood.  We did have alot of nice redpine we thinned out of that plantation as well, cut a couple orders of house logs, and some pilings for a dredge and dock company.  That was good pay, 2-3 bucks per linear foot.
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

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