tough portable job

[paul case]

was the pile of nails bigger than the sawdust pile? 6 hours is a lotta time pullin nails.pc

[Qweaver]

Yep Bugdust, it's that job.  I don't mind the job.  It's just hard to give the customer value for the dollars spent when working with dirty, hard to get and low quality logs.  I guess he contacted you first and when you did not take the job, a past customer of mine gave him my phone number.
Quinton

[terrifictimbersllc]

PC, very funny, but close, metal pile was a baggie full.  One of them was about 1/2" diameter and 7" long. 

[Slingshot]

I try to always remember the "NO" word when the subject of Hickory comes up.   :-\

Magicman,
                  Is cutting hickory rather difficult?  I have a request to cut some  and wonder
              what to look for. Only 2 or 3 logs but I haven't cut any hickory or had any
              requests for it.


______________________
Charles

[northwoods1]

I try to always remember the "NO" word when the subject of Hickory comes up.   :-\

Magicman,
                  Is cutting hickory rather difficult?  I have a request to cut some  and wonder
              what to look for. Only 2 or 3 logs but I haven't cut any hickory or had any
              requests for it.


______________________
Charles


Yes I am wondering too, what is the deal with hickory? I know it isn't fun cutting hickory in the woods that stuff will split like nothing else I have ever seen can be real dangerous. tc

[paul case]

i cut some hickory now and then. i think our types are bitternut and mockernut. they dont have the long hairy stringy bark. the insides are a lot of sapwood and a very hard heart.  most of mine ends up as pallet material. the hickory we have is a shot in the dark. some good some not so good. they will have ingrown bark and doty spots on some logs that look good. the sap on the hickory we have is the worst trouble for me. it wants to stick to the blade.
i dont get to cut much pine so i guess our hickories feel the need to make up for the lack of pine sap troubles.pc

[ljmathias]

Hickory is hard as a rock, and if it's already pretty dry, than it's hard as diamond, which makes for slow careful cutting.  I've tried making beams from hickory- both boxed heart and not: they split so bad drying, all I ended up with was firewood.  I've cut lumber also, mostly 4-4: splits so bad wide that I should have just cut it into narrower boards to begin with, plus it wiggles and squiggles and what-not pretty good.  Now for the good news: if you ever do get some decent, dry lumber, it makes beautiful furniture and cabinets...

Pecan on the other hand (although I've only cut a half dozen logs, mostly pretty good size in the 30+" range) make great lumber and it doesn't check too badly drying.  I've made a few things with this wood and the products are great (for me, given my skill level) but very hard to work: tried belt sanding some slabs that wouldn't fit in my 13" planer, and wore myself out before I got half finished- that project is still sitting in my barn waiting...

BTW, it's been said on the forum that pecan is very much like hickory, but that's not been my experience.  Anyone offers me pecan, I'll take it; hickory makes good firewood if you can keep the powder post beetles out of it (I couldn't)....

Lj

[Magicman]

My bad experiences came from sawing Hickory that had been down for several months.  How many?  I really don't know.  I do know that the logs  were dry.  Virtually no moisture.  Maybe if I had been using 4° blades it would have gone better.   This was my first experience and it was miserable.  That customer and I talked about it a few months ago.  He finally burned the lumber in his fireplace.

I sawed another job that I know the tree had been down less than 6 months.  It was easier, but still bad.  This was an 18" tree which turned out some beautiful lumber.  I saw pictures of the table that was built out of it.  Really nice.

I suspect that fresh sawn Hickory wouldn't be so bad.  It's just easier to say no, and then negotiate.   ;D ;D

[WDH]

There are two types of hickories.  There the true hickories like mockernut and pignut and shagbark, then there are the pecan hickories like pecan, bitternut, and water hickory.  They are all hard as hades and attract PPB like a moth to a flame.  They are all pretty bad to warp, twist, split throw off sparks, and frustrate wood workers.  If you can sand hickory or pecan, you can sand anything.

[Qweaver]

We are now working on our third stack of logs and this one is much better.  Mainly straight logs and in a fairly neat and easy to access area.  But they are still very dirty with no easy way to clean them.  I hate not being able to mount a debarker on the LT28 as this might be a solution to the dirt problem.  But the blades have been lasting OK.  Not as good as clean logs but better than I expected.

There are a lot of wells being drilled in WV and saw jobs like this one are common.  It turns out that two other mill owners had turned down this job before the owner called me.   I expect that the same conditions that I'm facing on this job would be the norm.  The site prep crews are not thinking of ease of sawing when they stack the logs.  That's too bad for the land owner.  I'm getting less than half of the production than I would get in my saw yard.  I considered sorting the logs and hauling them to my yard but then the lumber would have to be hauled back and stacked...so probably not any better for the customer.  It has taken us five days to saw about 3500 BdFt.  This last stack will go much faster tho'.

[woodhick]

Hey that guy in Clarksburg e-mailed me also.   I passed his information to another guy but he is to far for either one of us to go to.  Glad you got the job.  I honestly did not think of you but hopefully will remember next time someone form up there asks.   good luck. 

[Qweaver]

We finally go into some good size, straight logs yesterday and we made as much lumber in two days as we had made in the previous four.  Nice clear boards too.  Just one more day of sawing but we are going to the Forest Festival tomorrow and we'll finish Monday.  This kind of work is just too hard for two old farts like us. 

[Qweaver]

We left a lot of logs on the ground that were just not worth the work required to get them on the mill to saw.  Dirty, twisted, and small diameter.  But there is a lot of oak, cherry and ash that would make good firewood.   I told the owner that I might come back with my log splitter and make firewood.  I would have to pay him something but it would be a small amount.  I might offer a price per load that we haul out.  I've never sold firewood so I don't have a clue about the market.  I do know a guy that's in the tree removal business and he sells out of firewood every year.  I've got a feeling that it would be a lot of work for very little profit.  But I hate to see these logs go to waste. 

[Okrafarmer]

I would have to pay him something but it would be a small amount. 

I've never sold firewood so I don't have a clue about the market. 

I've got a feeling that it would be a lot of work for very little profit. 

Don't pay for firewood. Unless you have a big firewood processing machine (and you would know if you did)  ;D there is a very low margin on firewood. Key is to find a strong, dependable person who is out of work and will work for cheap to cut and split for you (on a per cord basis, not hourly), get your wood for free or as a byproduct of your other endeavors, and you may make a profit if you don't have to spend much of your own "premium" time on it yourself. That's my experience, that's what we currently do, just to process the inevitable wood we have to carry away from take-downs and prunings. It can be a profitable enterprise in conjunction with a sawmill as you sell slabwood-- you don't have to split most of it, saving you processing buck$.

The farther north you live, the more potential there "may" be for profitability of firewood, as people need more wood to stay warm. Then again, it takes a lot of wood down south as houses are less likely to be well insulated, at least older houses.