"One Man Show" Operations---What is your typical routine?

[Spartan]

So west coast long logger... grain of salt etc...

My landing sizes are limited to what a truck can access, and what I can clear.  Sometimes its just a wide spot in a driveway, sometimes a whole field, most times just a wide spot with a drop off on one side and a hill on the other... So any processing on the landing isn't going to happen outside of bumping a few knots.

A typical day for me, cut 6-7 trees, limb em up, buck em up to 37' on average down to 27 or rarely 16's and 20's. Limbing involves walking the logs as most times there isn't much ground underneath them, and its just plain easier (hence the long bars).  Then its lunch, and go fire up the Skidder i.e. "the missus" she's just a 440 so I can usually only grab 1-2 logs at a time, that and dragging 100' of 3/4 to catch that 3rd log is just goofy at best, put a twist one each log so that as I winch them in, the bottom side rolls up and brings all the limbs I missed the first time to the top.  I then drive out to a relatively flat spot or a muddy spot, and grab the wittle saw, and clean em up, that way when they arrive at the landing they are ready to go and the landing stays nice and clean. Stack em up with the skidder blade, which can be tricky on the bigger sticks, get one end up and balanced then push from the middle and hope it doesn't fall down and roll the skidder...(yes its possible to roll a 440 on flat ground) The less crap the self loaders have to wade through to get to my logs the more happy they will be to come and get my logs.

I'm also just part timing this... for now... but I still manage to get a load a week on average in three days, though its more like 2 and half or really 3-3/4 days, put in about 6-7 hours and call it good enough. In good timber that isn't too limby I can easily get a load a day, but lately that has been mostly a wish...

Hey Northman,
Just curious, why are you are running 3/4 cable on such a small machine?
Brian

[thenorthman]

Small machine in big wood...

The 440's run the same winch as the 540's and 640's, something like 20,000 pounds or so. It originally had 5/8's on it when I bought it, it broke... a lot... the 3/4 still breaks but not as often and usually at the end where the chokers are wearing a hole.

The trick is to get enough traction with the 440 to allow it break 3/4 cable, usually involves pulling the front end off the ground, which I honestly try to aviod, but when yer pulling 5' diameter Sitka spruce... not much choice in the matter since cutting it short is a good way to not get paid.

[BargeMonkey]

Small machine in big wood...

The 440's run the same winch as the 540's and 640's, something like 20,000 pounds or so. It originally had 5/8's on it when I bought it, it broke... a lot... the 3/4 still breaks but not as often and usually at the end where the chokers are wearing a hole.

The trick is to get enough traction with the 440 to allow it break 3/4 cable, usually involves pulling the front end off the ground, which I honestly try to aviod, but when yer pulling 5' diameter Sitka spruce... not much choice in the matter since cutting it short is a good way to not get paid.

I would like to see a smaller westcoast operation someday.  :D. Not the TV version, but the difference between regions is huge, between equipment and timber size alot of times.

[Spartan]

Small machine in big wood...

The 440's run the same winch as the 540's and 640's, something like 20,000 pounds or so. It originally had 5/8's on it when I bought it, it broke... a lot... the 3/4 still breaks but not as often and usually at the end where the chokers are wearing a hole.

The trick is to get enough traction with the 440 to allow it break 3/4 cable, usually involves pulling the front end off the ground, which I honestly try to aviod, but when yer pulling 5' diameter Sitka spruce... not much choice in the matter since cutting it short is a good way to not get paid.

Gotcha,
Yeah that's big wood.

[Straightgrain]

Small machine in big wood...

The 440's run the same winch as the 540's and 640's, something like 20,000 pounds or so. It originally had 5/8's on it when I bought it, it broke... a lot... the 3/4 still breaks but not as often and usually at the end where the chokers are wearing a hole.

The trick is to get enough traction with the 440 to allow it break 3/4 cable, usually involves pulling the front end off the ground, which I honestly try to aviod, but when yer pulling 5' diameter Sitka spruce... not much choice in the matter since cutting it short is a good way to not get paid.

I would like to see a smaller westcoast operation someday.  :D. Not the TV version, but the difference between regions is huge, between equipment and timber size alot of times.

Living here and seeing it frequently does nothing towards loosing interest in it; it's truly amazing to see how equipment is used to move so much timber; I particularly like to watch the high lead towers, telephone poles being felled (from an adjacent ridge....), the processors, and the "floppers" as they move trees to the processing pad.

Determining adjectives from nomenclatures in a logging discussion has its up-sides too... ;D

[enigmaT120]

Do you guys ever do shovel logging back east?  Here they often use large excavators with grapple buckets to move the logs toward the landing, rather than winching or skidding them.  Usually bigger operations. 

[M8274]

Do you guys ever do shovel logging back east?  Here they often use large excavators with grapple buckets to move the logs toward the landing, rather than winching or skidding them.  Usually bigger operations.

I have heard of guys logging with excavators but never personally seen it. Know some farmers that have an excavator handy to clear tree lines, and they might move logs with it when the opportunity arises. Timber isn't a huge industry "here" so it is usually a low budget operation.

Someday I hope to venture out west and see the huge timber you guys handle. The pictures and stories that come out of the PNW are just crazy. I'm accustomed to our Appalachian Oak-Ash-Hickory hardwood forests. Wood like you guys have is extremely rare, hence the popularity of small equipment and one-man crews.

[thenorthman]

Unfortunately, most of the really nice and big timber is locked up on Federal land, the majority of what is cut out here is either private/industrial land, or DNR. The DNR will get some pretty good timber now and again, but its rare. The private i.e. industrial timber is harvested so fast now that the trees don't get a chance to get really big, weyco/SP/Hampton bros, are all set up to cut 5-32" logs, none of them will accept any butts over 32", for that you have to go to the less massive mills and there are only a handful of them left.

What is left is the private owner controlled, regular old 5-40 acre plots where the folks live there or nearby, get some pretty impressive timber on some of these... Great gramps bought this place when he got back from the war (spanish/american...) and it hasn't been touched since etc.

Though the tower sides are a hoot... and nothing like haxe boyz would have you believe, dangerous yes, but not much drama, just a bunch of folks doing a hard job well.  500hp yarders dragging 6 trees up a 80% grade at 35mph... and not trying real hard at it.

[starmac]

I have hauled for a small, basically two man show that shovel logs for the last two years.  He doen not use an excavator but a regular shovel logger and only uses a skidder for house logs. He works by himself except for maybe 2 days a week and has no problem loading my truck twice a day while still staying a little ahead of me.
I hauled about 30 loads for a guy this winter that is just getting back into logging, he only had a smallish excavator, with a thump, no grapple. He usually managed to get one load a day out, but worked pretty hard to do it.  The excavator was barely, and I mean barely big enough to handle unloading my trailer, and didn't get around as good as a shovel, plus with a curved excavator boom it didn't have the height to use if he would have had a grapple on it.

[Ed_K]

 Get a copy of Loggers World, nice write ups and lots of great picts.

[Mike_M]

Loggers World and Timber West are both great publications that cover logging in our neck of the woods. Our operation is always open to anyone that wants to come out for a visit. Like I said we are pretty small compared to the big boys in our area, but it has continued to work for us.

[quilbilly]

Out here there is a ton of old growth left, they just wont let you log it. Olypen that is. Canyon lumber in Everett takes big sticks, no over size and green creek in PA used too, but they shut down.
. Shovel logging is fun. Some of the steep slope stuff guys are doing now is crazy. I've heard of guys doing 75%. We've done about 60% give or take a few times. A good ground side with 4 guys will put out 30 30ton loads a day in most wood. Tower logging really depends on the wood. Back in the old days a local non mechanized crew would  average 20 in the OG using a trailer mount Skagit 737. 100ft tube. They would hang line out over a mile. I think the flying  cats vid from dahlgrens is still on YouTube. My pa and gramps used to cut for em. They're a really good crew.

[mad murdock]

I am one of those guys like the northman describes, 40 acre treefarm in prime timber ground in the N Ore coast range. I have a few biguns,(see my avatar, 7 1/2' dbh +\-). The only way I will get those out will be to whittle down with my 075 and mill into cants then haul out. Probably close to 30mbf in one tree. Most of the timber on my place is 20-30 y o reprod. There are a few bigger sticks in the private ground, and as NMan said too, BLM and other fed blocks have much huge timber. Most of it will just burn up in a bad fire year or die as management of that ground is scarce to jon existent. Crying shame, IMO. I log myself and when I am cutting, i cut a couple 3 tanks of gas in the saw, then get on the skidder and cleanup, stack eith the blade and repeat. If you have a decent size machine (skidder or cat) at least 40-60hp you can pile pretty well especially if you have a brush rake on the blade. Thst really helps, and great for cleaning up after the initial felling too!

[enigmaT120]

My only complaint with the BLM forests in my area is they need to thin it, they're getting a lot of dead, depressed trees but it's too crowded so far to let the shade tolerant species like hemlock get a good start.  Up around the ridge between me and Valsets they have done a lot of thinning, and it will look really good once the brush rots down some.  And it's way more fire tolerant.  It's hard to figure out from their web site, but I think they are grooming it to approach old growth conditions more quickly, and I approve of that.  There is plenty of clear cut/reprod habitat in our area and very little original type habitat.  I love the Valley of the Giants, but I think my place (32 acres) is bigger than that. 

[DDW_OR]

here is a weird tree. top of tree is broken off and a side branch has grown to make a new top.
the side branch has a 24 to 36 inch diameter!
estimated GPS  42°42'39.60"N , 123°26'4.01"W