couple pics... post what your currently cutting

[DMcCoy]

A couple more...my wife caught some Barred owls sitting around.  Guess that loader is now owl habitat.


 


 

[doc henderson]

work has been so busy, I have barely got stuff done for months.  here is an ugly maple log.  over 4 feet across in some dimensions.  need to split the long way to fit on the mill.  should have some nice character with all the branch points, and will be used for coaster material.  still trying to find a good way to cut and dry this thin (for more yield) and be able to make coaster stock for the engraver..  



 

 

 

 

 

should fit now.  that is the 880 with the 5 foot bar and skip chain.
getting ready to make coasters and gifts for a friends son's wedding.  hoping to get stock for years from this stick.  I hate to make 1/2 or 3/4 inch boards and then plane to 1/4 inch or less.

[doc henderson]

in the first two pics, you can see the tip of the bar poking out 5 feet from the saw head.  Todd and Jim were spotting so we could keep out of the dirt.  I have never had to sharpen a chain for that bar, but would have to raise the sharpener if I wanted to keep it off the floor.  

[doc henderson]

Jim is the buddy that may or may not have distilled something that I am bringing to the pig roast.
Todd is his lifelong friend and a computer engineer, and his son (getting married) is an architect.

[BargeMonkey]

 I see a couple guys on FB ask "should I get into logging" and when 90% of the reply are RUN 😄. I run some older stuff and the idea of big payments seems like the smarter thing to do sometimes, every night till 9-10 turning wrenches lately. 


 

 Ship 3-4ld the end of this week and just get caught up to chase it again 😄. 
I wondered if it would work... it did not... 🤦‍♂️ 


 Want to get my trailer blasted and painted in a few months, didn't want to put an oak deck on to rip it off, sawed 2.25 x 8" GOOD hemlock... 80' boom lift WALKED threw that trailer deck... 

[barbender]

Ugh!

[nativewolf]

WO trailer decking $3/bdft down here in VA, bring a flat bed and load up  ;D

[ehp]

Or you could be like me Barge and drive by the skidder thats sitting on the landing and wave at it from the road cause of all the water , 7 more inches of rain and counting 

[mike_belben]

That sucks barge.  How do you feel about laying some well oiled 1/4" plate strip under the lumber and drilling/bolting through that?  Maybe act as a support hammock beneath the wood? The bolts will be required to tension the plate between bolts.  Just laying it loose wont help, the plate will sag right in first use.  


My other thought.. between every crossmember put some 6" I beam stubs to halve the unsupported spans.  Not pierced construction but sitting bolted ontop angle iron perches welded to the main rails.  3/4" holes with 1/2" bolts to allow the extra supports to float as the trailer bends and racks.  Im pretty sure welding them straight in will just crack welds off.

Probably cost 500 pounds tare.  Sullivan steel in holyoke mass stocks precut steel plate in narrow strips up to 24" i think.  Easier than cutting down full sheets. 

[donbj]

I see a couple guys on FB ask "should I get into logging" and when 90% of the reply are RUN 😄. I run some older stuff and the idea of big payments seems like the smarter thing to do sometimes, every night till 9-10 turning wrenches lately.


 

 Ship 3-4ld the end of this week and just get caught up to chase it again 😄.
I wondered if it would work... it did not... 🤦‍♂️


 Want to get my trailer blasted and painted in a few months, didn't want to put an oak deck on to rip it off, sawed 2.25 x 8" GOOD hemlock... 80' boom lift WALKED threw that trailer deck...

Whatever you do don't take this wrong, but if you love the challenge, run with it. If it is taking your life away, re-assess.

[Firewoodjoe]

Barge I think it can all be a pain. After looking and talking machines and papers and banks and insurance I'm starting to think my old junk isn't so bad. Pick your poison I guess. 

[BargeMonkey]

Barge I think it can all be a pain. After looking and talking machines and papers and banks and insurance I'm starting to think my old junk isn't so bad. Pick your poison I guess.

Honestly, there's 2 choices, go balls deep or stay super small, no in between. I keep fighting off the CTL monster but the 10k+ payment doesn't seem bad sometimes. 

[BargeMonkey]

I see a couple guys on FB ask "should I get into logging" and when 90% of the reply are RUN 😄. I run some older stuff and the idea of big payments seems like the smarter thing to do sometimes, every night till 9-10 turning wrenches lately.


 

 Ship 3-4ld the end of this week and just get caught up to chase it again 😄.
I wondered if it would work... it did not... 🤦‍♂️


 Want to get my trailer blasted and painted in a few months, didn't want to put an oak deck on to rip it off, sawed 2.25 x 8" GOOD hemlock... 80' boom lift WALKED threw that trailer deck...

Whatever you do don't take this wrong, but if you love the challenge, run with it. If it is taking your life away, re-assess.

For the average person who doesn't want to WORK, thinks they can put in 30-50hrs a week and make a good living they need to stay away, and I see alot of people think this is how it works, especially the firewood guys. I grew up in this, at 12 literally running a cable skidder, knowing what the insurance is, trucks, repairs, my guys leave at 330 and I get another 7-8hrs in AFTER that, most people don't want it bad enough. 

[BargeMonkey]

 

 
 Hammering pigs. 


  I'm cutting some real decent wood, and it's big, never enough of it but it's there. Averaged 1.00 straight thru today, that's BANGING money on RO. 


 
 New deckboards ☝😄🤦‍♂️. Shameful to saw that up into planks but is what it is 


 
 For a little guy like me a propac is the game changer. Put 2 more bearings in tonight. 


   Send it... 🤷‍♂️ 

[Old Greenhorn]

Barge, those landing pics aren't on Hubbard are they? (How is Hubbard coming along?) Are they at Matt's? Banging wood. I should take a drive up before I head to MI maybe. By the way, my last trip I tried to buy a t-shirt at the store so I had something formal to wear at the pig roast, but they had nothing in large. Anything in the backroom?

[BargeMonkey]

I will ask one of the girls tomorrow. Yeah finally drying up enough to hammer on the job you worked at, still wet down below but it's going to happen. Finish this and go cut Matt's job, then either Milford or Altamont, don't know. 

[Skeans1]

The before treatment

  The after

[Old Greenhorn]

I will ask one of the girls tomorrow. Yeah finally drying up enough to hammer on the job you worked at, still wet down below but it's going to happen. Finish this and go cut Matt's job, then either Milford or Altamont, don't know.

Well, we are leaving for MI on Wednesday, but I sure would like to take a run up and see wat you've got done on the Hubbard job. I guess you are making headway on all the iron too? Geez, when I think of some of those pieces that I would love to have time to work on......

[barbender]

Skeans, do you guys cut to a basal area prescription, trees per acre, or?

[barbender]

I think Barge is right, all in or nothing on CTL. If you have markets for the wood and you bust your butt, you'll do fine at it with low hour equipment, IMO. Here's a good example- a few years back, a local fellow I know had a nice set up. He had some decent logging equipment- a pull thru limber and slasher, a couple skidders. He still hand felled everything, he could lay quite a bit of wood down in a day. He also did a lot of haying in the summer, and he had a little sawmill and planer operation. Doing a little bit of everything, and he did really well at it. Well, one summer he was badly injured in a farming accident. He bounced back from it quickly, but it damaged one eye and messed up his depth perception. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to hand fall timber anymore. Next thing I know he's asking me about Ponsse machines. I told him what I thought- as long as you can sell all the wood you cut you'll do just fine, but you're going to live in them. And that's pretty much the way it's went. When you go to a CTL team, you have to keep in mind that you will have a steady stream of 250+ cords of wood on the landing every week. Even if you are sitting good enough financially that you don't need to run hard, things come up with your wood stream like trucking. Around here a lot of smaller outfits use private truckers. Well if a trucker (or truckers) gets geared up to move your 250 a week, and you decide that 80 a week is enough output for a month they are going to tell you bye-bye because they are sitting home, or trying to scrape up work elsewhere. Those are the kinds of things that need to be thought through.

[HemlockKing]

 

 

[HemlockKing]

 

 
 The cleanup of the future hay field begins. This is probably a 5 year process, I don't have the time or money to track how stumps, not too many massive ones anyway, cutting most just below ground level, will bush hog twice a year for a few years to let the stumps
Rot good then maybe pull em
 

[thecfarm]

If you can keep the suckers off the maple stumps, them stumps will be gone in about 5 years. Those big white pines will hang on for years. I still have some, as hard as they was when I first cut them 15 years ago. Grass will start to come back, if you keep it mowed. Bush hogging twice a year?? I don't know about that. I work on a very small scale, so I can take the weedwhacker to it. But found out a lawn mower works best. I call them my mini bush hog.  :D If I get a year out of one I am doing good. Than I try to level the land out. That takes time. Won't even mention digging rocks out of those grown up pastures either.  ;D
On my land the bush hog is digging in on one side, than the other side is up in the air a foot.
I have one area a 5 foot foot bush hog won't fit through the rocks.    :(

[HemlockKing]

Would you recommend less? This is a pretty big area the picture doesn’t do much justice, and it’s about to get much larger, I don’t think a lawn tractor will suffice. I already have the tractor, I just need a bush hog attachment. The land is already level enough for grass, it’s slightly sloped and wavey/rippley(new word lol ) but nothing too drnamatic that I can’t drive equipment on it no problem. No big rocks in this area. All the trees were 70-80’years old, even the 2.5 foot pines. Might have been open field already, perfect for it, no obstruction boulders either like on most of my land.

[thecfarm]

Less? As in bush hogging? The more the better, I found out. Keep the bushes out of there. ;) I am talking a push lawn mower. Much cheaper to destroy from hitting stumps. And this is cutting the stumps very low too. After a year the stumps will seem to grow.  ;D Not really, but what was there will start to rot down and the stump will get higher. Than I go back and cut the stumps down again. Hard on a chain and bar, but even harder on equipment too.
I only maybe clear about 500 feet a year. But the more I clear, the more I have to keep clear. :  I found out, the more I mow, the quicker the grass will come back and the bushes will die. My father use to say, We grow them to death. ;D  Now I just trim around the rocks and trees and bush hog the rest. It's just about all grass. One area I got slack on keeping mowed and the bushes started right back again. Keep at it and you will be surprised how quick it will come back to a field. If you don't keep at it, you will be surprised how fast the bushes will grow back.  ;)
All the fields around here had and still have big rocks in it.

This was a field at one time.


 



 This is of the same area, note the pile of dirt.  All this looked like the woods in the back ground. I had some good size brush piles from all this. Take note of all the rocks sticking up. Some stick up 3 feet some, 6 inches. Those are all red oak trees. Red oak stumps will last forever too.