couple pics... post what your currently cutting

[BargeMonkey]

What do you do with the crooked stuff? Must be by the ton stuff, I still haven't figured out how it works for some of you guy's. Around here I can only sell saw logs

    i lay down with my Timbco but tend to hand trim and slash tops, the stuff on this job is long and loaded with nice firewood. That small stuff is like gold here come wintertime, i can sell every stick i can lay my hands on. Have to keep Obama's children warm this winter, we do the HEAP program for 4 counties, stuff about 8-16" and decent my processor will do almost 2 cord per hr.

[so il logger]

Makes sense, I appreciate the explanation. I was having trouble wrapping my head around cutting and pulling firewood to the landing. If it pays it pays And sounds like you are moving production so it all work's. 

[BargeMonkey]

Makes sense, I appreciate the explanation. I was having trouble wrapping my head around cutting and pulling firewood to the landing. If it pays it pays And sounds like you are moving production so it all work's. 

I dont cut alot of high dollar fancy wood, if i get 1-2 sticks of veneer at the mill a load im doing pretty good. Your not going to get rich cutting firewood but its winter money, and demand keeps on growing every year. I take the tops down to 4" or less, if i can salvage a 6-7' piece that stays attached it goes out. Most of our woodlots have been highgraded, the timber is coming back, but there is alot of junk and most guys wont cut it, i pull hitch after hitch of ugly beech and lowgrade, very rare i see a log check over 2500. A cord of seasoned wood local is about 225ish right now, you get over towards the ski slopes and 5-6-700 a cord isnt unheard of, if you can deal with the city people. Up north our tax dollars are hard at work keeping those who dont want to work warm all winter, about 25-50% of the people actually deserve it, the rest are just a leech on the system, last winter they averaged about 1200 per person in free firewood. Recent article in our paper figured if you got welfare, medical, heap and housing it was equal to working a 43k a yr job, why bother working.

[so il logger]

We got plenty of that type here as well. It is sad when there is work all around here via oilfield or factory work, and sometimes logging but if it all get's paid for why work? I should check into selling firewood myself, we generally leave nice sized top's in the wood's. I can see where a percentage of what would be left behind could be profit, especially in the winter

[BargeMonkey]

 The only smaller loggers your going to see here soon are the family "father and son" or just 1 guy operations soon who dig deep and go 100% mechanical. Recently saw 5-6 other local loggers who said the same thing, the work is there but good luck finding the help. My Timbco hasnt moved out of a 10 mile radius in 4 yrs, i figure 1mmbft to cut locally right now we just wont deal with the hassles of keeping help in the woods, and NY wonders why things are going the way they are.

[so il logger]

I go off of doyle scale but try to stay around 1.5 mil board ft yearly. Have had better year's than that and some worse  Seems like I am always moving from job to job. P.M me bargemonkey I think we are cluttering up the thread 

[jwilly3879]

Firewood (8') is at a premium right now. It pays operating expenses, like BM said high grading was the standard around here for years and our forester marks a lot of firewood (pulp) to open up the crop trees. All our hardwood pulp goes for firewood.

[treeslayer2003]

bargemonkey you must have a processor right? i know there is money in it but i can't cut much by hand and log to..........struggled with the thought of a machine a long time.
problem is there is alot of timber i cut that is not oak.

[BargeMonkey]

 We have an older Brute / builtrite that we have kept upgrading over the years, about 40mins a cord in the truck. I went to a "Firewood seminar" a few weeks ago for a TLC credit and wasnt impressed, 1/2 the people where dreamers, and the other 1/2 where established guys i knew, everyone kind of has their own little territory up here which is fine with me. The smaller machines they had running are ok if your doing 14" straight wood, i routinely trim knobs and bells off stuff and jam 22" ugly thru my machine without issue. I will say, a 2040 multitek is the way i want to go in a few yrs, yeah its expensive but they make the best processor hands down.
 My last job i had 3 people stop in one afternoon, 1 woman was taping a note  on my log pile looking for log length, you could sell a load a day for cash around here and never keep up, but we basically refuse because people want it behind the house, over the fence and under the wires and the risk is to great, let the guy down the road do it.
 The processor dealers kept telling the "new" guys, "with this machine you can build a business selling 5-10k cord a yr" which sounds great but the logistics arent there, unless you want to give it away once you crack 5-600 cord the profit goes the other way and the headaches multiply by 10X. There are 8+ processors within 40 miles of me, only takes a few guys to raise the price on logs and set the price on fw and these guys are selling their new multitek next season for whats owed.

[BargeMonkey]

bargemonkey you must have a processor right? i know there is money in it but i can't cut much by hand and log to..........struggled with the thought of a machine a long time.
problem is there is alot of timber i cut that is not oak.

I have about 90 cord of red oak right now and personally i dont want it, we sit on top of the MT and let out piles air dry for 6-8-12 months and the oak still sometimes isnt ready. I have a spare set of wedges standing by, the red oak and bitternut hickory do a number on a machine, HM, SM and Ash dry quickest and go the best. The federal rules changed May 15th for indoor and outdoor stoves that wont meet emmisions, no more tractor supply stoves, your going to see more gasification systems and the demand for kiln dryed wood will come around, but its another way for the Gov to keep the thumb on you because the hand writing is on the wall for fw to include a bill of lading.

[treeslayer2003]

no HM maple here and you couldn't give soft maple away. it has to be oak hickory or cherry. for my own use, i round out tops from the large trees we take. i don't make a dent in what we leave behind........i just can't come home from the woods and bust all night any more. i have thought about those small machines but they are high for what they are.
i would like to build one but.....not the time right now, just to busy. if i could buy a small rugged machine for 5-10 i would have to think about that. i know a couple guys with big machines, they can;t cut enough. one even sells right off the yard, he don't deliver nuthin.
i her ya on tree length, i get that all the time. when i ask how they will unload it they are dumbfounded. no self loaders here.

[Autocar]

I was telling a friend of mine that Iam ashamed sometimes how much firewood I leave in the woods ,but working by myself I start out with good intension but into the job a few days and it turns into get the logs cut and trucked.

[BargeMonkey]

I was telling a friend of mine that Iam ashamed sometimes how much firewood I leave in the woods ,but working by myself I start out with good intension but into the job a few days and it turns into get the logs cut and trucked.

How do you guys heat your homes in the winter ? Sawlogs make up about 20% of what i skid out, we cut some softwood logs and pulp but rarely more than 1-2 nice trees in a hitch of wood. Takes 40 cord to heat my house, my parents and our sawmill a winter, and thats just scrap and junk wood we cant sell.

[gww]

barge
Hard to fire the stove with all the little scrap and it doesn't hold a fire all night like the bigger stuff. I have been leaving the big tops in the woods with good intentions that may never come to fruitation.  I am strickly small scale but still feel guilty.  My dad till last year used 12 to 14 cords a year and it took for ever to fire with small stuff. We always tried to cut it where we could just lift it and it would still fit in the stove door.  I only heat the garage now and will have to sell it if I end up cutting the tops up. 
gww

[treeslayer2003]

I was telling a friend of mine that Iam ashamed sometimes how much firewood I leave in the woods ,but working by myself I start out with good intension but into the job a few days and it turns into get the logs cut and trucked.

How do you guys heat your homes in the winter ? Sawlogs make up about 20% of what i skid out, we cut some softwood logs and pulp but rarely more than 1-2 nice trees in a hitch of wood. Takes 40 cord to heat my house, my parents and our sawmill a winter, and thats just scrap and junk wood we cant sell.

only takes about 4-5 cord here.

[ga jones]

There is also what's called scrag here. 55.00a ton at the mill. Any hard wood down to 7-8 inch. Crooked short doesn't matter. It's a way to get rid of poplar basswood aspen soft maple sycamore for me. Everything else I make firewood. It's not as lucrative here due to coal being the same price as wood..a ton of coal is equal to a cord of wood. 180.00 a ton for coal. 175.00 Tops for a cord cut and split.

[Ken]

We get only a very small % of sawlogs from our hardwood species.  Deciduous trees go to the local pulp mill although the firewood market is also seasonally strong.   Hardwood is merchandised to a 2-3 inch top.

I am currently harvesting some small cedar areas on a clients property.  He has some blowdown around the edges and wants to use the stumpage money to fix up his road network.  Very good quality eastern white cedar.   The one in the head was showing 17 3/4" in diameter at the butt.  Getting 36-40' of sawmaterial to a 6" top in the best ones.  Cutting 12' and 3 different 8' products

 

[BargeMonkey]

 Im always impressed when i see the CTL operations you guys run.    we went with a fixed head barsaw at the time because thats what we had seen run but the handwriting is on the wall down the road for it here on alot of jobs, insurance and lack of decent help. Our regional DEC is marking some huge pile of wood and its really geared towards the CTL guys, saw a bid sheet thats specified "forwarder only" the other day which knocks out 99% of the local guys here. Funniest thing about the bid sheet was it specifically stated "quarried stone", could not be screened crushed stone of the same quality from a local gravel pit, has to be trucked 35+ miles for the header. 

[so il logger]

As long as it work's, some of the tiny tree's that you guy's have to cut is our future crop around here. We rarely cut less than 20 in DBH, some of them bushes get cut for clearance but never go to the landing

[Ken]

We rarely cut less than 20 in DBH

I get all giggly when I get to cut something over 20"