a trick to straighten logs

[curved-wood]

 The trick to straighten logs comes from an old experience logger that told me one day:
-''I know how to straighten a log''
-' Very anxiously, I ask : what it is machine?''.
'You just have to cut it shorter !!''
Made me laugh . :D Got me there !

[CX3]

The sad part is some people wouldn't understand that !

[curved-wood]

So simple, but I think sawmills understand it more than logger. When it is on the saw the so call ''little curve'' becomes a source of lost in quantity ans quality

[petefrom bearswamp]

It always amazes me that a tree that looks so darned straight makes such sweepy logs.

[mike_belben]

Yeah i agree.  On the stump a tree looks like a jackpot.  On the ground i measure 5 times trying to buck the thing so i dont lose $70 on it.

[Skeans1]

I take it your guys mills don't like the over run like out here, to us a short like is 16' with a foot of trim. When we get to longer logs the price break can make enough difference we can leave the sweep in the log and still come out on top of a short log.

[mike_belben]

The only long wood youre gonna see going down the road on the cumberland plateau is pulp.  

10'6 and 12'6 is the bulk of your hardwood product here.  Keeping it longer just gives them additional free side wood off the butt taper and more knots to knock you down a grade.  Youre screwing yourself to go longer on most clean buttlogs, most of the time.  If its a really clean, straight, non-tapered log .. Which is honestly quite rare.. 1 in a 50 maybe.. Honestly a specialty log almost. Then you keep it long and flat out demand a premium.  "Dont even unload that if you aint givin me ___ cents a foot because thats what im gonna get for it at my next stop."   When they know youre green they walk all over you for a while until you get nasty about it. The demand is there so it isnt a bluff.  Give me my rate or the other mill gets it.   

 Only stuff i try to keep long is tie logs.  Knots are of no consequence on a tie.  at 16'6 youre a switch tie at .40/bf.  If i bring it in at 18'6 theyll call it doubles, thats 2 single ties at .30/bf.  You see the trap right?  If i cut it 16'6 and they say no, too much crook or its a little doady at this end.. Then theyll "pull it back" to a 14' tie at .030cents or so.  So i lost a $2 chunk of firewood by going shorter.  much less risk than losing maybe $10 or 15 on going longer. I know its small potatoes to you big guys but if you do it wrong on 20 logs a day.. How much fuel is that? 


So when new guys say "what do i need to know?"  This is the stuff im talkin about.  Will the scaler ever educate you?  No.  Its his trick and you gotta catch on yourself.  And i dont see getting a job with a pro logger as a guarantee either.  When theyre skidding to a slasher and wacking every single thing at 10'6 from a prentice cab.. I mean .. Theyre takin what its giving.  Yeah they work fast and move more board feet.  I move slow and get more dollars per acre.  

More dollars per acre means less moving to the next job, less road building, less landowners to please. It takes less land to support your family if youre more precise at it. I think if you wanna be a profitable small timer its in your best interest to become an obsessively precise one.  Especially if backyard logging is your niche.  Thats a lot of shuffling equipment and making culverts and landing room.  None of which pays. 

[luvmexfood]

Yeah i agree.  On the stump a tree looks like a jackpot.  On the ground i measure 5 times trying to buck the thing so i dont lose $70 on it.

Ain't that the truth. I think they crook when they hit the ground.

[2308500]

i have been hauling logs with our familys fleet of trucks for over 30 years. they all looked straight,  thousands of truckloads of em.

I never realized how "not straight"  logs were until i started sawing some logs on my new bandmill.     

[Peter Drouin]

Around here all the big mills want 12', 14', 16' maybe 2 10' on a load, So the loggers cut that way. 
I come along [ I'm a small mill ] Last year I sold/cut a little over 220,000 BF. W Pine and Hemlock.
So I want 8' to 20'+. I had some loggers say they lose on the longer stuff. So I scale ½ way on the logs over 16'. Some loggers tell me even if the 8' Pine is a good grade they get pallet/ boxwood $$ for it from the big mills.
I sell a lot of 8' and 10' lumber. so I pay the same $$ for an 8' or a 16'+ as long as the grade is there.

But I have to watch out I get a load of logs with no butt logs in it, They went to the big mill. And I get the rest.  
Well, that won't work for me, I want the whole tree. It can be hard for the logger. He sells to the big mills, and they all ways take logs. When my yard is full or I run out of $$$. I stop buying. Right now I have 60,000 BF more or less and I don't sell a lot of lumber in the winter.
I'm good until after mud season. 

So what has happened is I now have some loggers call and we agree on how many loads I will buy, then he asks what I need.
 I look at my piles of logs and say make one load 8' Truckers like that with 24' beds. then the rest whatever, mix it up,

[Just bring me Straight logs.] so with me giving the same $$ straight through I get straight logs. The only time the price drops is when the knots get to 4"+ and I really don't want them, But I get them and get what I can from them.

Just a sawmill side of looking at it all. ;D ;) 

[thecfarm]

The mill I use to sell to,white pine,if there is a 8 foot log,it's pallet grade. :  As Peter said,10,12,14,16 foot here.
I have heard of loggers selling all the butt logs to other places,than selling the rest to another mill. They was asked not to come back where they was selling the rest too. :(  Sad as in taken advantage. Yes,we all need to make money,but can't be taken advantage of others while doing it.
But the mill that has the 8 foot rule,we sold a lot of what my Father said, wood that is no good. White pine with lots of BIG knots. The most ugly piece of wood,I would not call it a log,that you can imagine. ;D They would dovetail the clear wood for doors and windows. We chased down every ugly tree that we could find. Never forgot my Father's words,You can sell good logs anytime,but bad logs you cannot.
But this was back in '93-'96. We made good money on those ugly ones. Now it's only pulp prices.
When we was selling logs to them,a 8 foot log was graded,as 1-2 or a 3. Now it's an automatic pallet log.

[mike_belben]

I do understand that everyone involved needs to make a profit to operate and that the govt is always finding new holes to poke in every employers margins.  I dont begrudge the mill, we are partners.  But i dont tolerate my wife or pals taking advantage of me either so there has to be a line in there somewhere.  

[ilog4u2]

"the scaler ever educate you?  No.  Its his trick and you gotta catch on yourself.  And i dont see getting a job with a pro logger as a guarantee either.  When theyre skidding to a slasher and wacking every single thing at 10'6 from a prentice cab.. I mean .. Theyre takin what its giving.  Yeah they work fast and move more board feet.  I move slow and get more dollars per acre.  

More dollars per acre means less moving to the next job, less road building, less landowners to please. It takes less land to support your family if youre more precise at it. I think if you wanna be a profitable small timer its in your best interest to become an obsessively precise one.  Especially if backyard logging is your niche.  Thats a lot of shuffling equipment and making culverts and landing room.  None of which pays. "

This young fella is wise beyond his years.

[Skeans1]

Here's the best way I know to explain it we are paid on a tier system as well as have to keep an average length when scaled. Our average length for export is 34' with a price break from 34-40', normally a decent drop of a few hundreds enough you try not to cut plus a shorter log will get scaled harder. The domestic side same thing 34' average but the price breaks will be different so say you're at 36-40's could be 700 then drop to a 26-34 could be 450 then 16-24 could be down in the 3's with the scalers knocking a load super hard.

[curved-wood]

I agree with 2308500 about putting a log on the mill amplified the curves. I logger that sells me logs bought himself a portable mill, boy that he learned what a little curve means. A very good experience for him. Now he does see a scale with a different look. Although I agree that a lot of mills are not transparent about what they want and how they scale. Quite often it is a guessing game that the mill's rules change according to their inventories and their needs.  And the logger are playing the same guessing game with the mills. If i say to a logger that the last load was top top for me, next one will not as nice ( I dont know if he figures that he has a little bit of play and that he could put a little more low grade logs ) I found difficult to have a straight clear and honest business with the loggers, quite often they are trying to stretch the lastic. I am lucky right now I deal with mainly only 2 loggers and business is straight. They know that I wont cut the scale or the grade. And I know when they are calling a top grade load that is what I will get, and sometimes that is not what I am looking for so they sell it to somebody else and everybody is happy. 

[mike_belben]

The best possible scenario is when all parties win.  The landowner, logger, sawmill, lumberyard and end consumer all get what they want without getting it at another party's expense.  Thats good capitalism.  

[Firewoodjoe]

A lot of 6 foot pine and 7 foot aspen and hardwood is cut around here. Pallet stock. That straightens a crook out.

[Firewoodjoe]

I'd like to add on the slasher remarks. I've worked on both sides of the fence. The last 7 years for a slasher crew. I understand there are guys cutting high grade with slashers or whatever high production mechanization they are useing. But around here 90% of the high grade still gets cut but a saw hand. There has been high grading for decades and now there is a lot of low grade. Low grade has a set price. And it's 6,7,8 some 9s and some 10s then there's the tie logs or crane matt logs. They are mostly 12,14 and 16s oak. These prices are low compared to the high grade and if you have employees and late model equipment high production is needed. And you can't screw up a low grade log unless u cut it short. Slashers have there place and a picky saw hand does also. The market is there it will get filled weather one producer fills it or 10 do.

[mike_belben]

Good points

[starmac]

We do not have any high grade hardwoods here, but most mechanized crews here (there are not that many) also hire hands, and workmans comp pretty much dictates that there will not be any hand cutting.

[BargeMonkey]

 We don't have a fancy high production mill but it does have the hydraulic risers for log taper, save alot of side lumber which would normally go to the slab pile with those. 

 I recently changed log buyers, Wagner has been mostly 8-9-10s with the occasional 12, no veneer on 12 but you could get prime + so you could gain sometimes with footage on a lower grade log that had a few bumps keeping it long. This new buyer wants the RO long, 17-19-21', especially if the butt log is veneer. Can't feed the mills White Ash fast enough right now around here. 

 The market on Hemlock, Redpine and White pine is 13-6 and 19-6 here right now, all being debarked and loaded in containers for China. 

 Maybe it just me 😂 but it's got to be a NICE stick of wood which makes up less than 1% of what I cut to really start bucking up with a saw again, I can roll the whole tree in that slasher saw 6x and measure as I go, determine how many sticks I've got long before I cut it, the only real downside I see going to CTL because I haven't been around it enough yet with a big dangle head. 

[mike_belben]

Well, thats another good point.  Who is behind the controls has a lot of impact on dollars per acre.  

I guess the rule is that there are no rules.  Whatever works best in each unique situation, and within our means, is what we all have to do.  

[Skeans1]

Yes it does, I can cut a short log in the brush or a long log doing CTL pay wise a long will out pay a short long as it should. Doing CTL is a huge advantage seeing the exact measurements well having a bucking priority based on prices.