A walk through of my forest land

[Okrafarmer]

Well, plant some cedar anyhow, it will help balance out your land. 

[SwampDonkey]

I know one thing that estimate is way high. We framed a potato shed with spruce off the farm from one straight truck load of logs. The building is 70 feet long, 50 wide and 25 feet at the peek. We had an engineer approve the lumber as we used his building plans. Dad said "It's all #1" Good enough by me. :D
Judging by what people call furniture these days, you can just haul back the sawdust from the mill for that. Waste not want not. :D :D

[OneWithWood]

Do you have building plans?  If so you can figure out the board footage you will need.  Add 10-15%.  If you know the average size of the trees you wish to cut you can determine the potential board feet in each tree using the calculators found in the forestry forum tool box on the left. 

[thecfarm]

I have no idea about how many trees you need,but do know cutting the trees,sawing the lumber,building the house will take alot of time. Than cleaning the tops up and cleaning the woods up will take time too. I only built a few out buildings,but it sure does take alot of time to do all of the above. But I sure do enjoy it.

[Ruffneck]

I calculated 1500 board feet in the pine I need to cut because it's in the way of my outbuilding. I'm thinking that alone will give me a good start on the 24x48 foot pole barn.
Sounds like I'll have plenty of trees to accomplish my goals without having to cut down all of my nice trees SwampDonkey... I want it all: nice trees, a park like setting, animal habitat and all my lumber needs met ;D ;D ;D
No plans yet OneWith Wood, just in my head... I can tell you I will never build without written plans after throwing my cabin together without them.
Stay safe!

[SwampDonkey]

Hey now, It's nice to cut good ones to. Back east here, a balsam fir that looks perfect at aged 60 is dead and rotten by 90 years. So you gotta think of that to. Just don't high grade the woods and you'll have a healthy woodlot. ;)

[terry f]

   Insence cedar is one of my favorites, I have one that I transplanted 30 years ago, thats about 30 feet now. It was about six foot after 12 years, but really took off. I've been transplanting cedar and sugar pine from my sisters yard in Northern California for years, with few success stories, but the last few years I've been buying cedars and western white pine from the state with better results. Makeing it through that month of 90 degree heat and no rain for two months is tough. Love your videos

[Ruffneck]

Hey now, It's nice to cut good ones to. Back east here, a balsam fir that looks perfect at aged 60 is dead and rotten by 90 years. So you gotta think of that to. Just don't high grade the woods and you'll have a healthy woodlot. ;)

I have heard about trees becoming over-mature and that does concern me. When I made the purchase there were a bunch of big pines that were dead...
The Forester that walked the woods with me said thinning the smaller trees would help the bigger trees...
I counted the rings on a couple of 6" DBH pine and they are 45 years old. I'm curious to see how they respond to some aggressive thinning. Can't thinning to much to fast be a harmful to the tree?
Yes, that lack of rain and the high temperatures of summer amaze me. The fact that trees are growing at all is unbelievable. It turns to some barren landscape in a short distance from my place.
Thanks for bringing up transplanting Terry f. The Forester also told me to transplant my younger Fir trees. They are pretty thick below the older Firs. They are great seed trees. I just don't know the right way to go about transplanting them. I do know a lot of digging is involved.  :)I'm really afraid to thin to much around them. I don't want the Sun to burn them... And transplanting from such a distance seems risky, but what do I know about any of it :D
Does anyone know how many board feet of lumber come on a standard size log truck?
Thanks for all the great input!
Stay Safe!

[Okrafarmer]

 ;D First we would have to define what a standard size log truck is. Around here, a standard size log truck is an 18-wheeler with double bunks.

[Clean Image]

I had this load dropped off last time I was on the property...


 


  
I was told about 7,000bf...I measured this load at about 6,000 but its all WRC and I probably screwed up on what scale I should have used. I hope I can stretch those numbers when I get cutting next week.

[Okrafarmer]

If you're careful you should get 7,000 bf out of it with a band mill. 

[SwampDonkey]

Can't see why not. We got around 8000 bf scaled veneer onto a tandem truck with pup trailer behind.

[WDH]

A 25 ton net weight tractor trailer load of SYP logs will saw out a little better than 5000 BF, maybe a little more if the logs are real big.

[terry f]

     I don't know what it will saw out, but its my understanding a normal truck around here, west, is beyween 3500 to 5000 feet, but thats small end on a 40 foot log. Clean Image, I didnt know you could use a drop axle in California, the trucks we send there are 80,000 no matter how many axles they have.

[SwampDonkey]

On the west coast islands in Northern BC (Haida Gwaii) we were hauling loads like this.



The tires are probably 5.5' high. The logs were 40 feet long for sure, could be some longer. You didn't want to meet on a turn (we had radios) or you might get brushed off the logging road. ;D We called them sweepers. :D You can't see them in the picture there, but the spruce along that road was along a steam valley and were over 200 feet tall. No touchy. ;)

Cedar, spruce and hemlock on this load probably. Cedar the bigger logs. No fir on the those Islands. Way more than 5000 feet on that truck.

I removed the tonnage in this post because we are talking softwoods.

[mad murdock]

If you have average DBH of 20-22" and 90' of merch log, you should be at about 400-500 bd ft per tree, (mill scale), which would put you at about 3 trees for 1,500 bd ft.  If you are milling it up yourself, you should be able to recover at least 20% over mill scale.  I would say you should get 2,000 bd ft milling those same 3 trees on your WM. FWIW.

[Ruffneck]

;D First we would have to define what a standard size log truck is. Around here, a standard size log truck is an 18-wheeler with double bunks.

That is a good point Okrafarmer, I was picturing the size that Clean Image posted. I sure would like that load of trees on the "sweeper" delivered to my place  ;D

I'm looking at my Biltmore stick, it goes up to 20" DBH and a log length of 40 feet. That shows 700 BF Scribner. Using that figure, that 90' tree would have at least 1400 BF. When I look at my Wood-Mizer log rule a 21" DBH 16 foot log is 256 BF, five logs would be 1280 BF. What is this greenhorn missing? :

Thanks for all the feedback! I am learning tons ;D

Stay Safe!

[Okrafarmer]

I think your first problem is that you're using Scribner. If you are milling with a portable bandmill, use the International scale. (also printed on your Woodmizer panel). It will be more accurate. Also try out the board foot calculator in the Extras section of the FF, under Toolbox.

The International scale makes allowances for the taper of a long log, whereas Scribner assumes you will only make boards that will fit into the small end of your log. The Scribner and Doyle are not very useful in determining how many board feet you are able to get from a log, especially using a thin-kerf mill, and especially for long logs where you have some taper.

Even with International Rule, I still usually get a significant over-run on most of my logs. 20% tends to be typical for most people, but depending on the size and shape of the logs, and my applications for the lumber, I sometimes get a 50% or higher over-run.

[Ruffneck]

Thank Okrafarmer,  I found the international rule in the woodmizer chart. Didn't think to flip the chart over : I can't wait to cut the tree into lumber and find out what I end up with!
Before milling any lumber, I need to continue the thinning campaign. I talked with the forester from DNR the other day, he's saying I may be eligible for a cost share program for fuel reduction. Cost share or not, I need to reduce the fuel load. It was a big wake up call seeing a wildfire burning out my back door. By all rights, my property should have burned.
Anyway, gonna be a lot it manual labor ahead of me...
At least I'll be able to enjoy a camp fire and sleep in a warm cabin.
Stay safe!

[Ruffneck]

Hey now, It's nice to cut good ones to. Back east here, a balsam fir that looks perfect at aged 60 is dead and rotten by 90 years. So you gotta think of that to. Just don't high grade the woods and you'll have a healthy woodlot. ;)

I had a discussion with the DNR Forester the other day and asked about the life expectancy of my Pine. He's say upwards of 150+ years... What does "high grade the woods" mean SwampDonkey. I think that may be what I'm doing :

I'll be meeting with the Forester on Monday I hope. Our last discussion didn't sound very promising. There is commercial land across the highway to the west, that has the beetle in it and the Monastery Complex fire under a quarter mile to the East of me that he's expecting the beetle to go after because of the stress.

My woods have come a long way, this is what everything looked like when I purchased it.

 

I used over 1,000 feet of blue ribbon marking my leave trees today... That really puts this job into perspective. I didn't come close to doing five acres :D  :D :D

[240b]

Hi-grade... cut the best leave the rest.  the opposite of good silviculture.

[Ruffneck]

Thanks 240b! Glad I've been marking them right 8)

[SwampDonkey]

Used to mark 10 acres a day on snow shoes along with trail ribbons. Better to mark above the snow than to mark and have the snow cover them up. ;D One winter, we had a stand of softwoods down in a depression that accumulated 6 feet of the stuff. I don't think the sun ever hit it all winter. It was N slope. That was slow sledding the wood out. ;)

[WDH]

Be diligent about inspecting for signs of the beetles so that they do not surprise you. 

[Ruffneck]

Used to mark 10 acres a day on snow shoes along with trail ribbons. Better to mark above the snow than to mark and have the snow cover them up. ;D One winter, we had a stand of softwoods down in a depression that accumulated 6 feet of the stuff. I don't think the sun ever hit it all winter. It was N slope. That was slow sledding the wood out. ;)

I'm looking at snow shoes now SwampDonkey. I'll be investing in a few more rolls of blue marking tape too. If I hurry, I may beat the snow for the marking project. Using blue for leave trees, yellow for potential beetle infected trees, green for wildlife trees and red for the boundaries.

How is it falling the trees in the deep snow? I can imagine it slows operations down a bit. I have come up with a plan to just get thing on the ground so it can start drying. As I've read on another thread, leave the limbs on to assist with drying.  ;D ;D ;D

Be diligent about inspecting for signs of the beetles so that they do not surprise you. 

I am going to do my best with that WDH. The amount of damage an insect the size of a grain of rice can do... I think they are going to choose my saw logs for me :D

Stay safe and warm!