European machine.

[longtime lurker]

It's a problem for every small operator.

I am trying to grow the sawmill - I may still do a bit of outside logging when things are dead slow but I'm there to kill trees for someone else rather than my own mill... and thats nearly always just swinging a chainsaw.
With regard supply to my own mill - I'd prefer to use a contractor. The price tag of decent equipment today makes it difficult to justify good equipment unless it works continuously - you can't go and spend a whole heap of $ on machines that sit around five days a week to work two. And when you factor in the whole range of issues.... time /staffing/maintenance/capital costs... the reality is that even with a well maintained older machine like my little old 666 cable skidder: it's actually cheaper to buy in logs a lot of the time than cut my own.
Best place for me to spend money is in the sawmill on the things that make me the money because I get paid to sell wood not logs. 
And the best place for me to spend time is in the sawmill driving saws because thats where I make money.
And man with chainsaw and cable skidder won't be able to do the job as cheap as man with harvester and grapple skidder. There are exceptions to that but... not many.

By rights to keep cutting my own logs I need to buy another loader. We do full stem/trailer length rather than CTL so it has to be able to lift 4 ton logs or its pretty much useless. We're talking CAT 950 class straight away, with forks and grab... few dollars in a decent one of them. Then how did I get to work and how will I get home and.... might as well drive a truck and bring it home loaded. I have a 12 ton (capacity) truck with a 28' tray.... by rights I need to turn that into a prime mover and folding skel or jinker because as it stands I cart the short stuff and I'm hiring in trucks for the long ones. Then really I need to upgrade the 666 to a 667/ 548 class grapple because rolling around under logs setting chokes doesnt pay anymore. (The oddball idea is to get maybe a Cat 953 class drott and fit a grapple to the back of it ... but slow and only effective on a short skid.)
Soooo... buying decent secondhand how much $ have I just spent?

So my current  business plan is to keep my old equipment in good working order and... dont work it a lot. I've just cut and snigged 200 odd ton of log for myself but.... I did it myself because none of my contractors felt like shifting for that job/ didnt want to get their boots muddy. Way I see it I own my own logging plant while not really cost effective can do a small job like that if I need to. It also means I negotiate rates with my contractors from a better position: I do not screw my contractors.... I need them financially viable and making a good living because I want them there next year and next decade. But I don't want to get screwed because they have me over a barrel either so my own gear.... they know if the rate is stupid I'll do it myself. And they also know that.... in the event of breakdown my gear is available at a really good discount hire rate because.... I'm all about long term business relationships, and my skidder is their skidder to get them out of a jamb.

It's reaching a point where - ticket price to enter the game - you just can't be small. That doesn't mean you have to be a big business with 20 guys in a couple crews... but the guys seem to be doing okay here are not working by themselves... its the 2/3 man operation with decent equipment and steady work that seem to be doing okay.

[teakwood]

Cord king UK use a 60 inch saw blade on one of their firewood processors. There are some german firewood processors too with blade saws.
CS27-40 (Model 60) - Cord King Europe

Alps might have too many rocks and stone fragments for toothed saw blades.
Might use something like a woodcracker splitter, so you can use a less expensive shorter bar and chain (or smaller diameter saw blade)  to cut firewood with.

Woodcracker splitters
YouTube

Teakwood - could put a fixed head rotator grapple on the big excavator for yard sort and container work.(still allow the excavator to swap to bucket digging mode)
Ensign - Engineering Services (Rotorua) Ltd

Brazil just use John Deere210 with a shallow dangle grapple  rotobec.
YouTube

For loading trucks in the teak plantation, if no trucks with cranes. Convert an older excavator to a log loader with different geometry boom/ arm set. Uses the original rams. (something like ZX 180 or larger, cat 318, volvo etc)
Boom And Arm Sets | SATCO Logging Attachments  

Could use a bluetooth headset on protos helmet rather than remote skidder winches.
PROTOS Integral | Protos Integral

Thanks Riwaka for your thoughts, my priorities have changed, i'm no longer that needy of a grapple for the excavator as i have stopped selling to the hindus, they pay half of what they paid in 2018, international market is bad for teak now and will not recover in the near future. i don't want to gift my wood away at these prices so i started sawing everything and try to sell in the national market. As i make a good quality product i have found a market, it's not a get rich market but my prices are way way better than roundwood and i can't complain. so my plans are more towards a sawmill shed, log deck and the whole process of sawing and drying.
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=80957.msg1735150#msg1735150

[mike_belben]

I dont care what business you are in, the "economics" are always better when you arent buried in debt. 

[Ed_K]

 L.L. look at Golden Rule Equipment, their offering a totally rebuilt 548 g w/ 6mo warranty for $125.k . They have an ad in the Lumbermens Equipment Digest.
 As far as logger's surviving if they would get together and work with a few small mills and the small mills get together to make enough product to sell to a buyer. Wouldn't that get more business's making money enough to more than survive?

[mike_belben]

Globally, the middle class has been living on easy credit and an over ripe economic boom that is peaking out and collapsing as covid strangles the economy.  Its hard to sell wood when all anyone wants is toilet paper. 

Survival money is a pretty good goal as we convert from capitalism to socialism. Theres gonna be a lot of fire sales so in my opinion,  it'd be wise to cling to your cash. 

[dgdrls]

I'm a great admirer of European equipment.  With the terrain and forest practices in many regions
smaller yarders and skyline rigs with skid mounted drum winches are the rule. 
Wyssens and Koller appear to be top notch suppliers,  very informative websites.

D

[mike_belben]

That would be neat and I think we have enough room in/under the center beam to support a winch.  The issue we have is that we get trees that are just too big to load more than a 8' log with the forwarder grapple.  In those cases we'd really like to have a skidder to yank 21' sections back to the landing.  Then we need a more powerful loader on the landing that can lift a 21' section of oak with a small end of 36" or so.  We don't have that right now but are looking.  Looking ....but newish ones $ say  :'(.  

Get a hydro ax, switch the buncher over to quick pins,  and have someone fabricate a fixed fork rack with a grapple top clamp and a 5ton military winch behind the headache rack.  The hydraulics will already be plumbed to the front for the buncher and itll have forestry rubber on it.  

You can stab the forks into the dirt and winch the big logs to the trail to load the forwarder, or skid them out in reverse to the landing.  Driving backwards the weight balance will be just like a skidder.  With the boom up you could reel up some ugly hillsides without snagging the butt. It'll lift a house.  And then youd have a buncher to make quick work of any stands needing a fast heavy haircut.  Could be dynamite in front of your forwarder.  They can be had cheap too since everyone looks down on tire bunchers these days.  
Hydro axe - ,000 in Rock Island TN - LSN

[Riwaka]

For using a rubber tire buncher like a skidder,, how much pull in reverse do they have? Would you need to swap the axles so the bevel gears are not overloaded (pulling in reverse)?
The Olympic truck cranes seem to be able to self load a fairly large log. Pick up one end at a time and slide between the bolsters. For your Great Lakes type log trailers with the end racks might need some remove-able bolsters. (crane trucks seem more flexible than a knuckleboom loader truck dedicated to loading logs)
Self-Loaders & Marine Cranes - Capital Industrial  (Olympic log loaders)
The 'traditional' one man logging crew machine was the traxcavator. Fork log grapple on front, front engine, 3 speed powershift and rear winch.
Cat 983B  (winch and bucket loader - traxcavator)
YouTube
Euros having some fun in the snow/ ice. NH 7040 with T16 winch
YouTube
Holzspalter- wood splitter.
YouTube
Probably possible to move a fairly large log with a forwarder converted for the purpose. Winch up near the forwarder crane,  Shiftable rear bunk, blade shift the large log on other logs to reduce the lifting height, set up a mid bunk fairlead to get the large log aboard.
Kombiforwarder - forwarder bunk rear bolsters used as clambunk.
YouTube

I remember back in the day some oversize logs were bought into the mill. There was a Vee blade for a rubber tire loader to split them up. They might have chipped the split logs and burnt them in the co-gen plant.  Alaskan mill or chainsaw and long bar can be less expensive than buying big machinery to handle the occasional big logs if there is little to no benefit to the logger to do so.

[Riwaka]

T-Skidder from Ecoforst

Un-personed clambunk. Short video.

https://youtu.be/UaA2p-A8F0Q?si=_qYRLJuoCHIM0a89

[Riwaka]

Clark Tracks to relocate to Finland from Scotland.

media announcement "Nordic Traction Group Announces Its Proposal and Intention for Strategic Relocation of Track Manufacturing Operations from Scotland to Finland
The Nordic Traction Group, the owner of Clark Tracks Ltd, has announced its proposal and intention, subject to consultation, to close the production facilities in Dumfries and transfer production to Finland. Nordic Traction Group is planning to develop further the centralised production facilities in Loimaa, Finland."