What are you cutting 2024? - pics welcome

[SwampDonkey]

I'm at the edge of that older thinning where I'm running the saw, a trail runs over behind me a few feet away and there is a spot there that is terrible thick and skinny. I'll probably have to cut it quite heavy and leave what I can with good crown and stems, but it will need a lot of cut'n. Even in that old thinning some grew a little close and have hardly any crown left and have to go. There is one big old bruiser to the left with lots of stout limbs on it. A woodpecker hit the but about 20 years ago and I looked at it back then and I never saw a bug or any galleries. I bet they are in there now. It had nice growth and no suppression. Sometimes the wildlife do lots of harm. But there are lots of 16-20" fir around there, most are 6-10". It was kinda big when it got thinned so some stuff was left a bit close and could not be cut with the clearing saw. The stuff I drove through on that long straight stretch is younger and has spruce all through it, a little aspen scattered. Spruce is smaller, but some are quite a bit bigger than the average. 30, maybe 40 acres of that size wood. Only 24-30 years old. 40 year old stuff I'm cutting now, cut in '84 and pretty sure it was mostly aspen overstory because 300 cord came out of that area. A large part of it never had fir undergrowth, was mountain maples and ash because it was wetter off to the right after about 30 yards. Lots of ash whips coming back after Arthur knocked the aspen down. The wildlife seem to strip the tips of the little fir in there, especially moose and rabbits.

[BargeMonkey]

I have been through several sets of skidsteer forks. Get the ones that exceed the lift capacity of your skidsteer.

There's so much garbage out there for attachments, alot of places are rating the forks higher but the frames look light, trying to stay with decent US made attachments.

[Wlmedley]

Needing a few 8' poplar logs to finish a small lumber order. This was the easiest and safest tree to cut. I've got three really nice ones between the house and the barn but I've seemed to have lost my nerve.Ten years ago I wouldn't have hesitated to cut them but maybe I've gotten older and wiser. The tree I cut today is anything but straight but I can get some straight 8 footers between the crooks hopefully.

[David B]

Went a bit north to cut in a burn. Expected to waltz around and cut a mess of trees. Brush and brambles over my head, only got a few. 

That oak is probably 4' DBH, wonder if it's worth getting to a mill 

[caveman]

Went down and hung that winch on for a guy on Friday Tom. Again I just laugh because people think NY is blacktop, NOTHING out there. I didn't see 4 cars all afternoon.

If you like it like it is, don't advertise it.  It used to be like that here.  Now, it's apartments, subdivisions, trailer parks, storage buildings, warehouses and ridiculous traffic.

[SwampDonkey]

Never much traffic here year around. I can go 3 miles to the woodlot many times and never see a car. Right now a few deer hunters looking for a buck, but not even many of either, deer or hunters. I've seen 6 different does all fall, but no bucks. Deer season is only a week old up here.

[mudfarmer]

Went down and hung that winch on for a guy on Friday Tom. Again I just laugh because people think NY is blacktop, NOTHING out there. I didn't see 4 cars all afternoon.

If you like it like it is, don't advertise it.  It used to be like that here.  Now, it's apartments, subdivisions, trailer parks, storage buildings, warehouses and ridiculous traffic.

"Do not come" 

There are no trees, just concrete and blacktop.

There are more laws than people and you have no freedom.

The streets are full of gangs of blue haired soros funded antifa supersoldiers or gun toting red hats depending on which is scarier to whoever is reading this.

The taxes are so high you can't afford to live 

Hopefully that covers it 

[BargeMonkey]

☝️ About sums it up. I'm 10 miles from the ski slope on the "poorer" side but there isn't any cheap housing here so we don't have much of the crime or drug problems, real estate market isn't cooling off here, my father's got 3-5 machines in Windham just slamming in houses. My towns pushing an 18.6% tax increase and huge cut in services. I hope the immigrant family I'm supporting at least sends me a Christmas card this year.

Like anything else, the better you do the job, you get to do someone else's job. Get 5 days off, repeat. The iron addiction hasn't been cheap lately 🤦.

[BargeMonkey]

I have been through several sets of skidsteer forks. Get the ones that exceed the lift capacity of your skidsteer. It's  not to hard to bend the tips of the lighter weight ones like you mentioned. I bent every set I have owned. They aren't to hard to straiten when you have other equipment to push them back. Or a press. I have a 10000 LBS set on my JD now that has a little bend towards the tip of the right fork.

The problem I'm seeing, even on the higher rated ones isn't the forks, the frames don't look any heavier unless you get into a stupid wicked heavy set. Hunted marketplace and grabbing a low hr set of Blue Diamond hydraulic 6ks on my way home, I'm hoping they hold up. 

[customsawyer]

The set I have now, is Blue Diamond 10,000# set. They aren't hyd. as I don't have much use for that part, and switch from forks to bucket a few times a day. I did weld a step on the entrance side of the forks to help my old bones climbing in the machine.

[BargeMonkey]

They don't give anything Blue Diamond away but I think it's worth it. Viewed the hydraulics as something just to go wrong, Captain I work with here has a set on his 906 Cat and loves them. I think New Holland is trying to sell yellow or white skidsteers now, got a brand new 320NH a few months ago and it's garbage. Been wanting something bigger and hunted down a super low hr clean 190.B, so 4k or even 5500 won't work.


🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸..... everyone can hang up their welding leads, put your acog / eotech back in the safe, the madness is over for now.

[customsawyer]

I bought a 2012 NH 230L new and have had very little trouble out of it. Keep in mind it only has a little over 1000 hours on it. I do find that NH seems to have a poorer electrical system in them.

[GRANITEstateMP]

skis steers of all flavors are awesome....until they break!  Then they are as evil as a grease gun that won't prime with a new tube in it

[barbender]

 I have a bad bearing on a cluster sprocket that I've been ignoring for a year now on my Case 1845c. I've made lots of excuses why I haven't done it yet (I have the parts) but mostly I think it is because I fear I'll be doing a headstand to perform the work😁

[aigheadish]

@barbender it may be worth reading my post in the Shade tree mechanic thread about how I've spent 3/4 of this year not having a running backhoe because I was worried about maybe 5 hours of miserable work... It was still miserable but not as back as I expected and I was mad that I didn't just dive in, when it was done. Not sure where the cluster sprocket is but... Just another perspective from a professional procrastinator.

[GRANITEstateMP]

As big as Burt, if he's doing a handstand working on something, his feet may be up in the dang jet stream!

[jb616]

@barbender it may be worth reading my post in the Shade tree mechanic thread about how I've spent 3/4 of this year not having a running backhoe because I was worried about maybe 5 hours of miserable work... It was still miserable but not as back as I expected and I was mad that I didn't just dive in, when it was done. Not sure where the cluster sprocket is but... Just another perspective from a professional procrastinator.

Lol I had a hydraulic leak on my JD steering column for 2 years because I didn't want to tear into it...then i tightened the line fitting at the bottom and it stopped

[barbender]

Yeah if I do a headstand it may affect the jet stream and then all of you guys in New England will be upset that I did something to screw up the weather😂

My old cable skidder had the transfer case to transmission bolts rattle out. I started to take it apart, it was looking like I was going to need some special tools to even get back on the bolts to tighten them. I walked away from it. I don't remember if it was a year, or two later that I went back after it because I needed it for something. 

Now, I'm never a mechanic by choice (I'm sure I've made that clear on here before) but I'm not a novice by any means. Any problems like this on my Ponsse forwarder at work, I would be dropping the belly pan for access. Too bad my skidder doesn't have belly pans under the tranny...oh wait, what are those bolts for? Yeah there were nice access panels held on with 4 bolts. I could've fixed it in less than an hour if I would've seen those in the first place. 

Some other time I can tell you guys how I am the Northern Minnesota brake rotor wear test champion.

[Resonator]

Sometimes the best way to fix a machine, is to use a little plastic card with numbers stamped into it that makes a computer reader go beep.

[NewYankeeSawmill]

Some jobs start out better than others...



First day (yesterday) was 7 hrs, customer wanted mostly posts, max length (and fought it all day).



I had done a meet-n-greet Monday and advised the customer some of the logs were too crooked and/or damaged, but he persisted, we agreed to take the good stuff first, make a game-time decision. End of day yesterday we had 1-good log left, do you want to push and finish, or come back tomorrow, I really don't think those ones are worth... No, come back tomorrow we'll do the good log and try the others. OK Mr. Customer, Sir.

Literally biggest log this mill can cut, we had to shave it w/ the chainsaw repeatedly to make an opening pass. Thank goodness for the brother-in-laws bobcat!



Today billed 4.5 hrs. We struggled through knots, cracks, crotches, ANTS!!!! he got 4- 4x4's and 2- 2x4's out of it. Cost him about 50-bucks a stick for the 4x's. Twice today I suggested we cut bait after struggling through some junk that ended up on the waste pile.

Final Haul:


I got a text message later "thanks for working with me on those bad logs, I really appreciate it." He had mentioned nobody else he talked to wanted to touch the job (way to make me feel like the prettiest girl at closing time!) I billed him for $575 plus tax for about a day and a half.

[g_man]

I started my annual TSI project which usually involves Fir (Balsam). There is a section of S/P/F with a little hardwood mixed in but mostly Fir. They are bigger trees, at least compared to other fir in my woodlot here in the NE. They are recently dead or dying and many are misshapen. I want to cut the fir before the increased light from dead trees encourages regen so it won't blow down on new growth later.

Since it was a new project I brought my camera. Heading down to the work site there was a blowdown across a fork in the trail.





I took care of that with the grapple. Then as I continued down I saw a partridge giving me the evil eye as I drove past.






At the work site the first tree was about 2' at the butt and dead. It also had a serious case of butt rot so using a wedge seemed a bad option. But there was an opening with just one small maple branch across it that I thought I could drop the tree through.





Of course it hung up on that little branch.





I had to work harder than you would think to get it down and finally reverted to the winch.





The butt was totally rotted and there was a weevil crook up 12'.







Even with that I got a 40' log out of it. I cut a cookie and cut that into a block just to ensure myself that there was solid wood in that rotten tree.






Here is a video I made for fun showing the above story in case you are in the mood to watch an old guy enjoying his  woods.

gg

[Magicman]

in case you are in the mood to watch an old guy enjoying his  woods.

Yes, I am always in the mood to watch you enjoying your woods. 

[SwampDonkey]

Yup, those old fir lived as full a life as they could hope for. I cut one down like that, the bend was down low, a harvest scar from decades ago. Wood pecker hit it about 20 years ago, I remember seeing the fresh pecks by a pileated. It's next to an old trail that perimeters the tree plantation. There was about 3 feet of rot on the but end, then cleaned up. Only difference was a full green crown with rather stout branches. In the firewood pile now.  Keep on keep'n on. 

[cutterboy]

g-man, I enjoyed the pictures and the story and the video very much. Thank you. It is surprising to me how a few small branches can hang up a big tree. Very frustrating! I never thought of using a cant hook the way you did. I'll have to remember that for next time.

[David B]

https://youtu.be/Hpx_Wa_ZL-M?si=mKYflfAIaKRbIm-F

https://youtube.com/shorts/ZxCeYfSl6zk?si=fJFIlaBdj8eEco_6

https://youtu.be/kJdGLlNupTw?si=AYLkpe4-y2QqzxmN

https://youtube.com/shorts/brSuBxDRxXg?si=rWpQ0j9BKIuh4haL