couple pics... post what your currently cutting

[mudfarmer]

Hey Barbender and Southside those center oscillating skidders are cool! Anyone know if there were others out there? Taylor made at least one, solid mounted axles f/r with a big mama housing in the center using bearings



 

 

 

Thanks for getting me to go take pictures, maybe you can see a future problem that was hastily dealt with 

[Wlmedley]

I’ve got a pretty extensive collection of watch fobs that equipment dealers used to give away for advertising back when a lot of men carried pocket watches.My grandfather sold Pettibone years ago.Thought you all might enjoy seeing a Pettibone skidder watch fob.Don’t have any Franklin fobs.

 

[Southside]

Oh gosh mudfarmer, that's a mess for sure. You better get those wasps out of there before it warms up. 

[Walnut Beast]

Wait till Barbender sees the key fobs! He is going to be wanting one!

[Old Greenhorn]

There are still a few of us old farts that enjoy the elegance of a good pocket watch. Wristwatches are neither practical nor last very long on a working man's wrist. A pocket watch make sense and I carried one for years. Finding fobs and straps was dang near impossible. My Dad was an amateur clocksmith and he got a couple dozen straps from one of the supply houses he used. I have very few left, if I can find them. But finding nice, or at least decent fobs was near impossible. I could find lots of junky ones that were cheap and wound up making most of the ones I used from keychain fobs or even a nice acorn or two. Those are nice, what you have there, really nice.
 Since pocket phones came out, I only use my pocket watch when I go out and dress nicely. I have several watches, but really only one I use, the others are special and stay in the dresser. My Dad always used them until his passing.
 Ever notice the watch pockets they put in pants and jeans today are useless? They are too short to get the whole watch in and it leaves the crown sticking up, some are so short, they can't even hold the watch. I had a pair of overalls with a pocket so short that every time I bent over, the watch would fall out. Useless.
 Did I mention those are really nice fobs you have there?

[barbender]

Wlmedley, those are sweet!

Mudfarmer, that's another rear oscillator I wasn't aware of. Cool👍

[BargeMonkey]

72 more days 🤦‍♂️ I've got an internal audit, pre-SIRE inspection and ABS inspection tomorrow, basically the maritime equivalent of being the prop piece at a proctology seminar 😆. I hope I get dinner and a movie after.
It's all about insurance so when you get hurt your on your own. The average idiots I see in these Facebook logging groups can barely read / write never mind JSA', LOTO, its slowly coming to every industry. They started pushing it here and a few captains filled out near misses for falling in the shower manscaping on crewchange day. What it's all coming down to. The guy that got squished to death the other day, the company had a fleet wide safety meeting, blamed the crew, fired the deckhand who watched him die and acted like nothing happened.






A forum member is willing to go look at it for me next week, and that 648G3 I sold is coming back, poor skidders been passed around.


 It's no virgin but I don't think it's all pounded, pile of maintenance history. 5400 head.


  

[Walnut Beast]

Great nighttime picture Barge!

[barbender]

A nice sunset over my shoulder out in the tamarack swamp😊 I FINALLY got 8-10 sticks pulled to the landing last night, but I'm still having winch issues. It's to be expected, for as long as it sat.



 

[g_man]

The way I try to work is to cut until I have about 1500 BF on my little landing (which takes me longer than you might think) and then take a day and make three trips to the log yard. I took this after I dumped my second load today which is laying behind my truck. The semi in the back ground is being loaded and heading to a mill somewhere. Probably my last trip here until after mud season. The roads here are deteriorating fast this week.



 

gg

[BargeMonkey]

Another one bites the dust. I was having a pretty rough day until this was sent to me. 


 

[ljohnsaw]

As in, you bought it? Or less competition?

[teakwood]

Probably another trash mouth competition of his. maybe the one who told him that he will eat thru a straw, Barge still looks fine to me.   

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, that's a 'neighbor' of his bailing out. It's a tough game with little mercy for error judgements.
 Eric, do you know if he is keeping the sawmill operation or did you hear any other details?
 Looks like I'll be in your town on a job either the second or last weekend in April, but you will still be on your hitch. Next time buddy.

[BargeMonkey]

 I hate seeing anyone go out but I think he's been talking about it for a while, no help, the mill he works for sucks. I don't think that sawmill has moved in almost 2yrs since the guy running it / the neighbor fell into Tommy's young girlfriend repeatedly. I jumped thru all the hoops, got financed, and then about 7pm I got a text from the guy on the tigercat that he doesn't wanna sell right now, I think his wife put a squash on it. 🤦‍♂️ That was a quick email from the company who does alot of CJs financing. Gasoline and 5.56 ammo is going to be the new world currency soon.


 No clue when I'm coming back Tom, I've got to put Matt's seed down on 1 field, get a couple customers wood. Could be 4-10wks, I told them the end of May was the limit on my sobriety / conjugal visit, depends who quits / dies, if they find willing souls.


 

[ehp]

Barge , its happening everywhere not just where you are , guys that cut trees by hand are very hard to find these days and the ones that do are getting quite old as not much young people wanting to get into a business you work your butt off and not a huge amount of reward as far as coin goes for doing it

[mudfarmer]

I would not want to try to be a full time logger here, there is just not much good dry ground near me for mud seasons. Some decent pockets of sand, they get run through hard by the big dogs. The folks that will haul a $mil in machinery 2.5hrs to clearcut 20acres of plantation pine that never got thinned and end up chipping half of it. Guys out there working for the same outfit for 15 years making $18/hr running harvester 12hrs a day eating a sandwich with one hand and running joystick with the other. Consider myself extremely lucky to have a terrible day job that pays ok to be able to play logger on the weekends.

Cutting for the state, I like their rules on this job and that is why I wanted it. No smash and grab, do the best we can for the woods. I pay taxes on it so I'm part land owner?? Would like to keep "my" land and my land nice for a long time. They are almost as strict as the rules for working on my land No skidding April1-July1, most likely no skidding mid September -> Jan1, leaves half the year for other pursuits and secondary processing to bump the $$ a few pennies.

Cut and brought out handful of maples last night, pouring rain today so that means done there until July1 except getting the rest of the firewood and last 2mbf of low grade saw logs off the landing. Don't post pics of piles in case it gives barbender night terrors but this is the firewood pile since the last time the landing got cleaned out. About half done with the job, sold some nice saw logs, kept some nice and some junk saw logs, still not enough firewood



 

 

Hang in there, keep at it, remember why you're in the woods

[Firewoodjoe]

Stop talking about bad markets im spending money like I won the lottery.

 Maybe someday I’ll be a cool logger and have a mobile shop🤦‍♂️


Maybe itll be ready for some more big trees. To hard on it!

[chevytaHOE5674]

Joe, welding up the head is pretty standard affair on most/all CTL machines eating a diet of hardwood. The low-ish hour H8 Ergo I run has its share of welds on the head already.

[barbender]

Welding on a head is about as routine as brushing your teeth. No big deal, until the cracks all start to meet each other😁 Hardwood is mean to heads, I remember when one of my friends started out in I think the second Ponsse in MN and Ponsse thought he was whacked in the brain for cutting hardwood with it😊 The North American market has definitely forced the Euro ctl manufacturers to reinforce their products!