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Started by nativewolf, April 29, 2019, 08:58:55 AM

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Skeans1

Just curious what's the difference between the south and the NW?

WDH

Mainly terrain.  Most of the South is relatively flat where 99% of the time wood can be skidded tree length with grapple skidders to a landing.  A good bit of the Pacific NW has much steeper ground. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Skeans1

@WDH
The terrain is different yes but almost all of it is done mechanical tree length to a landing on clear cuts. We have quotas, there's no guarantees and we have the labor issues as well I guess what I'm getting at is what is the big difference we all have the same issues to deal with but the big difference I see from the outside looking in is they're unwilling to learn a new kind of logging.

Southside

Quote from: nativewolf on July 02, 2019, 07:52:43 AMThey need to wise up and unionize


That was sorta tried in far northern Maine, late '90's maybe it was early 2000's.  Never got off the ground and it didn't look like it would have been a solution anyway.  There is a new push to try that again, but it's mostly politically driven, and knowing who is doing the driving it won't benefit those who would need it the most.  
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

mike_belben

Quote from: Skeans1 on July 02, 2019, 08:21:40 AM
Just curious what's the difference between the south and the NW?
Culture and cost. 
Exactly what kiko said. Going CTL to please a mill is just like lease purchase on a tractor.  JB Hunt or swift or whoever can buy the trucks by the dozen and write them off, but theyd rather trick you into buying it and running it exclusively for them so that they can move their lowest freight on forced dispatch schedules, keeping the shipper happy... And also relieve themselves of the risk of machinery trouble, labor trouble, market trouble, whatever.  You sign the equipment purchase, youre doing whatever the finance man says until the repo man takes the burden off your shoulders or you pay it off.  Whether there is any spread left for you is irrelevant to the bosses. And it aint you when youre buried in debt. 
Praise The Lord

mike_belben

Quote from: Southside on July 02, 2019, 09:11:40 AM
Quote from: nativewolf on July 02, 2019, 07:52:43 AMThey need to wise up and unionize


That was sorta tried in far northern Maine, late '90's maybe it was early 2000's.  Never got off the ground and it didn't look like it would have been a solution anyway.  There is a new push to try that again, but it's mostly politically driven, and knowing who is doing the driving it won't benefit those who would need it the most.  
I am proud of chattanooga for refusing the UAW into volkswagen.  One detroit is enough.  They did a bangup job over there. 
Praise The Lord

nativewolf

Yeah overall I'm not a big fan of unions though in germanay they have done wonders for the workers, of course workers control 40% of many company board seats.  Basically VW is a german employment scheme, I guarantee you the german workers won't loose a job if Chatanooga has issues.  Any good engineering job will also go right back to germany as fast as they can move it.  In my previous life Continental AG was my largest client and I watched them move every good white collar job they could move back to germany.  Buy motorolla, move jobs, tire plants- all engineering back to germany.  To VW and the other german companies US is just a location for place to source low skilled grunt labor behind a paywall or to source extracted resources.  In sum, they are treating us like they treat Brazil or Nigeria or Thailand.  It's not a compliment.  In some things, especially rapidly moving fields like software or genetics the germans lag terribly and actually try to buy US talent but that usually fails because they are too proscriptive.  

Liking Walnut

nativewolf

Quote from: WDH on July 02, 2019, 08:39:05 AM
Mainly terrain.  Most of the South is relatively flat where 99% of the time wood can be skidded tree length with grapple skidders to a landing.  A good bit of the Pacific NW has much steeper ground.
The other difference, and this is huge, is the landownership base.  In the south 60%+ of timber is owned by non commercial, non public landowners.  Mostly less than 1000 acres.  Most tracts are under 100 acres.  You don't move and sit on a job for a year, you move every other week often.  If you sit for a couple of months that is big.  Mill density used to be really high, but is now consolidating tremendously.  Combine bad education, few professional foresters, short term decision making, poverty and you have conditions that supported a lot of small family owned logging companies.  Company with a skidder and a feller buncher and 2 trucks, 2 brothers and maybe a cousin or son.  That is the quintessential southern logging company.  There are hundreds and they all compete viciously.   If they can rip off a landowner many do so, it is the rare opportunity for profit.  If they go to work for a mill the mills guarantee the cash flow to grow and upgrade but never enough margin to create a profit and enable the loggers to escape the mills chokehold.   
Liking Walnut

nativewolf

Quote from: mike_belben on July 02, 2019, 09:15:08 AM
Quote from: Skeans1 on July 02, 2019, 08:21:40 AM
Just curious what's the difference between the south and the NW?
Culture and cost.
Exactly what kiko said. Going CTL to please a mill is just like lease purchase on a tractor.  JB Hunt or swift or whoever can buy the trucks by the dozen and write them off, but theyd rather trick you into buying it and running it exclusively for them so that they can move their lowest freight on forced dispatch schedules, keeping the shipper happy... And also relieve themselves of the risk of machinery trouble, labor trouble, market trouble, whatever.  You sign the equipment purchase, youre doing whatever the finance man says until the repo man takes the burden off your shoulders or you pay it off.  Whether there is any spread left for you is irrelevant to the bosses. And it aint you when youre buried in debt.
Great analogy Mike.  Exactly like this.  They hook these poor loggers, most of whom are ..not smart nor well educated.  
Liking Walnut

kiko

Skeans, would you fell, skid, buck and load $10/ton? Some around here do.

Southside

Quote from: Skeans1 on July 02, 2019, 08:21:40 AM
Just curious what's the difference between the south and the NW?
Another difference is the size of the timber. We are growing more and more designer pulp in this area, so the quality saw logs that would pay more is less and less. I shake my head at some of the clear cuts I have seen, there can't be anything left for the landowner. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

barbender

It seems unsustainable, low harvesting rates are a common problem in the entire US. I've never been able to figure how a raw material we produce, has enough value in it to provide mill employees, foresters, basically everyone else up the chain, with decent wages, health insurance, pension etc. but not for logging companies and their employees. At some point, something will have to give. Basically, there's too many loggers. No matter the region, if the mill has plenty of supply at $x/ton, they're not going to volunteer more. There is value in the raw material, but we're willing/forced to produce it too cheaply because we're competing with each other. 
Too many irons in the fire

nativewolf

Yep too many loggers and entry costs is low and for some reason you get poorly educated guys trying to be loggers that would make more $ as plumbers.  Honestly the free market needs to get going here and clean it up.  Actually in my area the recent pulp mill closing is forcing lots of guys to leave market or discuss leaving.
Liking Walnut

Maine logger88

Quote from: kiko on July 02, 2019, 01:45:51 PM
Skeans, would you fell, skid, buck and load $10/ton? Some around here do.
so that's why the southern equipment I looked at when I was in the market was beat to death then. Have to run the wheels off it to make payments and no money to maintain it then. I always figured southern machines would be better shape that northern machines where they didn't get beat to death on rocks and rough terrain till I looked at a couple lol
79 TJ 225 81 JD 540B Husky and Jonsered saws

quilbilly

Quote from: kiko on July 02, 2019, 01:45:51 PM
Skeans, would you fell, skid, buck and load $10/ton? Some around here do.

People in the northwest clear cut for around that rate all the time. I think we are a touch higher than that but just barely. Maybe 11-13 would be the norm but $10 isn't crazy. Also most guys up here don't sit on a job for a year. 2-3 months is more common for a bigger outfit. Small guys like my pops and I are in the 2-4 week range.
Southern outfits sound like what PNW was about 30 years ago. Used to be lots of 3 man crews. 4 man crews are the most common here, and many of them are still family owned. They just have 500k in equipment or more.
a man is strongest on his knees

Peter Drouin

nativewolf, I know some loggers up here you would not want to call to there face. [not smart or well educated.]  ::) 80% of the truckers and loggers here do well.
I know one guy 24 years old has a logging truck making big $$$. 
You just have to get off your butt and work. ::)
A&P saw Mill LLC.
45' of Wood Mizer, cutting since 1987.
License NH softwood grader.

Peter Drouin

And yes I do know of what group you speak of.
A&P saw Mill LLC.
45' of Wood Mizer, cutting since 1987.
License NH softwood grader.

kiko

I was always told the reason CTL works up north is because they get paid more .  Go figure. The market seems to be cornered all around.  I just have trouble making the numbers work.  5 loads at 10/ton.  $1400 a day gross ?    I am not a logger, and don't want to pry about personal finances, but is my math right?

nativewolf

Quote from: Peter Drouin on July 02, 2019, 08:28:01 PM
nativewolf, I know some loggers up here you would not want to call to there face. [not smart or well educated.]  ::) 80% of the truckers and loggers here do well.
I know one guy 24 years old has a logging truck making big $$$.
You just have to get off your butt and work. ::)
Oh I have had plenty of issues, once you've been in some places I've been they don't look look so scary.  One area I worked in was tough zone.  If you *pithed your neighbor off they would settle matters by puttling an ap landmine in the path from the house to the outhouse.  Boom, loose a leg or the kid or the wife.  That was for a neighbor...
But here...truckers are doing well.  Very well.  Luke Mill closed and most of the hundreds of truck loads a day and associated driving is already absorbed into Northern VA/Eastern WV/W MD economy and hardly missed a boat (obviously not the case of the mill workers).  Loggers..not so much prime RO logs going for just above tie log pricing, several going under, 2 quit and sold equipment and turned to truck driving.  
Liking Walnut

Skeans1

Quote from: kiko on July 02, 2019, 01:45:51 PM
Skeans, would you fell, skid, buck and load $10/ton? Some around here do.
Kiko I don't hardly ever clear cut so I can't say what the rates are right now, to the size of the tract last clear cut we did outside of our own was a 10 acre block it didn't take much more then a week cut, yarded, bucked/sorted. Just going off of what that job was we weren't too much more on just the logging rate what helps is production a two man brush side in that stand was able to do 8-10 loads a day with 4 sorts. Do the rates need to come up? Yes, here's the big question how much of the wood is just pulp they're producing is the rate for pulp lower then the log rate? Innovation in the industry is needed as the work force ages and the younger generations are harder to get into the industry one of the innovations is processing equipment that can Merchandise plus load as needed.

kiko

To clear things up, I am not against CTL / Processing.  I spent some time years ago as Ponsse mechanic and enjoyed the machines and certainly saw the astectic valve of a CTL logging job.  I also have some amount of processor repair experience , but on Waratah only. Many have tried the CTL here and could not make it pay.  Processing has been seeming successful for a hand full and ended in bankruptcy for most.  So I guess it all about the logging rate. The John Deere dealer does have a brand new processor with a Waratah on the yard .

kiko

I should say I did a lot of work for a man that owned Ponsse machines. I was not a Ponsse technician.

Skeans1

Quote from: kiko on July 02, 2019, 10:25:14 PM
To clear things up, I am not against CTL / Processing.  I spent some time years ago as Ponsse mechanic and enjoyed the machines and certainly saw the astectic valve of a CTL logging job.  I also have some amount of processor repair experience , but on Waratah only. Many have tried the CTL here and could not make it pay.  Processing has been seeming successful for a hand full and ended in bankruptcy for most.  So I guess it all about the logging rate. The John Deere dealer does have a brand new processor with a Waratah on the yard .
I think we need to clear up the difference between CTL Cut To Length is a harvesting system that is full processing at the stump which is much more expensive to do as well as not always more environmentally friendly. Processing road side or cold deck side is with tree length wood where the processor is limbing/bucking(processing) well sorting, this kind of style of work can be very productive and accurate if done correctly. Pull thru a simple pretty bullet proof system accuracy is pretty poor unless you're hand bucking especially for multiple lengths, landing sizes are much larger not a huge deal with a clear cut, slash build up requires the shovel to stop processing to clear the shoot vs just moving down to the next deck.
Kiko are you starting to see the shovels down there?

Ianab

The processing at the landing is the norm here. Pine logs are sold depending on size and grade, so you will see a truck heading down the road with a full load of similar logs. (length / dia / grade)

One landing might be sending logs to 4 or 5 different destinations, depending on who is paying best for each grade. Even export logs will go into different grades. They are sold per ton, so they want a load of "x' grade going over the weighbridge at the port. 

How the logs get "made" may vary, but it's all processed on site. Smaller operators will use a "shovel" for sorting  / stacking / loading trucks because it's such a multifunction machine. It can build trails and handle hazard trees etc . And a skidder for actually dragging logs any rela distance. 
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

kiko

Skeans,. I have only experienced one highland job that shoveled. He had a Barko 595 Track machine and I was trying to fix the skidder. Most of the swamp loggers shovel, but they are mainly pulling up the end of the mat and bunching it for the skidder.

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