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Attn: Pacific Northwest loggers: whats your daily line of work like?

Started by author stefan magi fionn, August 27, 2014, 02:20:08 AM

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author stefan magi fionn

Hello forum, I just wanted to introduce myself since I am new. My name is Stefan Magi Fionn (pen name), I am an author and I am currently writing a fictional book where the main characters are loggers in washington state/ oregon state (havent made up mind yet to what state). I have been trying to do research on what gear, tools etc, method of operation, jargon of logging crews in the pacific northwest. It is difficult for me to pin point that area with regards especially to jargon on the web. For instance, loggers in the south may have a different way of going about there business or the jargon they use opposed to that of the pacific northwest.

Another question: When Loggers go into a forest to harvest timber, do they do so by the plot (taking everything)? Or do they go in and mark certain trees and leave others behind? What trees are most sought after?

Thanks in advance for any help you will be able to provide, I'm having alot of difficulty finding the accurate details that I need.

thenorthman

I guess to start, there are several types of sales, but basically they are thinning or clear cuts. Thinning's being only taking selected timber usually for stand improvement, many reasons for a thinning. Clear cuts are done to harvest everything, usually all one species of timber since most forests around here have been planted, although you still get volunteers of different species of timber, clear cuts are done for several reasons as well, mostly as a way of replanting a whole new crop, some timber grows better with no competition.

As far as marking timber, that is usually left up to the foresters and sale managers, if loggers where to be left to mark their own timber, all sales would be clear cuts...

As far as jargon goes... there is a list somewhere... much of it crosses over east to west, north to south...

Landing, area where the logs are stacked and processed waiting for transport to the mill.

Yarder, machine with multiple winches and usually a tower to drag logs of the side of a mountain

Yard, dragging logs in to the landing

choker, cables used to hook logs to be yarder, consists of to bullets/ferrules, a length of cable, and a bell that the ferules fit into to create a snare, hence choke the logs, like they could breath right...

chaser, person responsible for unhooking chokers at the landing, usually a newbie in the woods

brush apes, persons responsible for setting chokers in bushes

rigging slinger, lead of the brush apes

choker man, minion of the rigging slinger

yarder engineer, person that controls the yarder

Talkie Tooter, way of communicating between landing and brush apes, system of radios attached to a whistle on the yarder, a series of beeps like morse code is used.

Hook Tender, person responsible for the rigging on the yarder, also responsible for picking the next setting of the rigging and

Rigging, miles of cable, mountains of snatch blocks, and heaps of shackles required to keep a yarder crew working.

Side Rod, boss of a side

Side, any unit being logged

Show, see side

Shovel, log loader, usually a converted excavator, with log grapples and a healing rack.

There are many more but I have to go now...
well that didn't work

Jeff

This is a project I started some time ago that might help a little, but it still a project.  www.lumberjacklingo.com

It probably makes significant difference in what era your story is set.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

beenthere

Welcome to the Forestry Forum

Where are you located? And are you writing just from what you can read about the topic? Or better, writing from being around PNW loggers?

south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

DMcCoy

Double check with TNM above on these-
Straw line - lighter cable used to pull the mainline out to a tail hold.
Road - the area below the mainline, logs are pulled from either side and then up.
Cat skinner - bulldozer operator/road builder.  Also the phrase- 'punch a road in'  ->build a road.
Powder monkey - person who removes stumps with dynamite (the old way)
 
If you want some drama for your book-
Tree hugger - person who attaches them selves to a tree in order to prevent it being cut.  They can also attach themselves to buildings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tre_Arrow
...and lived on a nine-inch ledge for eleven days...

Must have got confused and thought he was a flying squirrel...
In October 2001, he suffered a broken pelvis, broken ribs and a concussion when he fell 60 feet from a hemlock tree where he had perched to protest a logging sale in Tillamook County.

author stefan magi fionn

Thanks to everyone who responded, much appreciated.

@thenorthman: Thank you so much that was very helpful! I copied it onto my pc :)

@jeff: I Saved the link, I am mostly looking for current lingo as the book would be set in current times.

@beenthere: I live in Ohio. The two main characters in the book are both going to be loggers in the pacific northwest. The book is not meant to be about logging exclusively, I just need to provide an accurate setting and have dialogue that is consistent with their line of work.

@DMcCoy: 'Powder Monkey'? Did they really blow up stumps back in the old days? As far as the environmentalist living in a tree, I think I remember seeing that on the news a long time ago. That guy was an idiot lol. I read something on wikipedia that stated in the 80s environmentalists used to drive spikes into trees causing the chainsaw to throw a chain or sawmill to break a blade. I couldn't believe they would be so reckless and uncaring for human safety on the premise of saving a tree.

Thanks once again for all of your help guys, take care and God Bless.

enigmaT120

They weren't trying to save a tree, they were trying to save an old growth forest. 

A lot of modern logging around my area is done with big processors.  The operator drives around on a big tracked machine with an arm that can reach out quite a ways to grab trees, cut them, limb them, and cut the logs to length.  They seem to be mostly used on more level ground.  You can tell if they were used by looking at the stumps.  The cut across the top of the stump will be flat, as they don't need to cut a wedge out of one side to help the tree fall.  Most of the loggers will make the wedge angling down so one end of the stump will angle down; that leaves the butt of the log flat. 
Ed Miller
Falls City, Or

thenorthman

Quote from: DMcCoy on August 29, 2014, 10:41:46 AM
Double check with TNM above on these-
Straw line - lighter cable used to pull the mainline out to a tail hold.
Road - the area below the mainline, logs are pulled from either side and then up.
Cat skinner - bulldozer operator/road builder.  Also the phrase- 'punch a road in'  ->build a road.
Powder monkey - person who removes stumps with dynamite (the old way)
 
If you want some drama for your book-
Tree hugger - person who attaches them selves to a tree in order to prevent it being cut.  They can also attach themselves to buildings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tre_Arrow
...and lived on a nine-inch ledge for eleven days...

Must have got confused and thought he was a flying squirrel...
In October 2001, he suffered a broken pelvis, broken ribs and a concussion when he fell 60 feet from a hemlock tree where he had perched to protest a logging sale in Tillamook County.

Yup,

Tail hold sometimes pronounced tale holdt is a stump or tree used to hold the end of a line, be it a guy line or main line, or haulback.

Powder monkey, pretty much any yahoo willing to drag high explosives around, Yes we used to and sometimes still do blast stumps, although most of the blasting is done in hard rock for road building (truck roads) stumps aren't what they used to be...

Donkey puncher, sometimes used for the yarder engineer, its a hold over from the donkey steam engines used to yard logs at the beggining of the last centuery (S?)

Cat skinner like he said any one driving a dozer, usually someone good at it,

Both donkey puncher and Cat Skinner are evolutions of the original Bull Punchers, the hard boiled mean sobs that drove the oxen around dragging massive logs out of the forest.  sometimes in teams of 20 or so oxen...

Skid Road, used to be the road that was built to skid logs into town with oxen, now and sometimes then its where the down and out live. In the woods its still a term used for any trail that a skidder or dozer used to drag logs on.

Cat, any tracked machine with a blade not just Caterpillar, kinda like Coke for any form of soda pop (which begs the question how does the poor kid behind the counter know if you want 7UP, Root Beer or just regular old Cola?)

Cutter, timber fallers, at least the hand fallers... lot of it done by machine now.

Feller Buncher, timber falling machine, loosely based on an excavator, though anymore they are completely different.

Grapple Cat, Cat with a log grapple on the back to skid logs with, or any kitty cat which likes to dig its claws into your leg whilst petting...

Bull Buck,

As far as Tre Arrow, read douche bad in the dictionary.  Dude has gone on record saying he doesn't use TP, and advocates "activists" tying nooses around their necks so if some poor logger cuts some random line in a tree that just happens to be holding up said activists butt, our poor logger gets arrested for murder. Blood starts to boil pretty quickly when these folks show up to save... well anything...

P.S. most green movements are very well funded, Green Peace has been on a hiring drive for nearly a year now, trying to hire people to "recruit" more people to their cause, paying fairly well too. (like $15. an hour)  Makes me wonder just how many "protesters" over the years have been making better than minimum wage to basically go camping.

But I digress and am dancing the line of politics...
well that didn't work

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