need advice

lord_kenwolf · January 27, 2007, 01:34:10 PM

we have just bought 7,500 feet of logs and most of them are 10 and 12 footers. they are all paid for and today while scaling one i noticed that it was a little short. instead of being 10ft 4 inch it was 9ft 11in. i went and measured a bunch of the others and some of them were short, and some with no trim room at all. others were ok they were long enough to have about 1-2 inches of trim on them. the person knows to give room for trimming the boards, he told us that he usualy gives 6inches trim room.
what do you do when this happens ? the person is still cutting logs for us and we tryed to get ahold of him today but he wasnt around. we are hopeing to talk to him later this evening. we know we will have to cut the 12 footers that are short to 10 ft. and the 10 footers back to 8 ft so that we can sell them. but when you think of the amount that we will have to cut back we could be taking a big hit on the amount that we ave to saw up. has this ever happened to anyone on here ?

beenthere · January 27, 2007, 01:49:06 PM

lord
The logs are paid for, before they are bucked to length? You start out saying you "bought 7,500 feet of logs" . Seems you should scale the logs and pay for what you received. Must be softwood logs if bucking back to 2' increments.
But seems you should just pay for the log length that you receive, IMO. Not sure what is really happening tho from your description.

TexasTimbers · January 27, 2007, 01:52:27 PM

lk,
I have not had this happen to me in my limited experience with loggers, but if you like the guy otherwise, ask him to make it up in the next load with some extra logs.

Tom · January 27, 2007, 02:04:04 PM

This happens when someone steps off lengths or tries to cut on the foot and the chainsaw cuts crooked. (another reason to add 4-6 inches to the length of the log. If the tape is being held on the "short" side of the cut, it gets even worse.

If these are hardwoods, you aren't restricted to 2' increments. Decorative softwoods may also be sold on one foot centers, but, you have some explaining to do at marketing time.

Whoever is doing the bucking needs to pay stricter attention. If they are missing the lengths like this, then there is a good chance that you aren't getting the most out of your logs either. They are just cutting lengths, not usable logs.

Your Bucker either needs a class or you need to buck your own logs.

WH_Conley · January 27, 2007, 02:07:08 PM

Happens to me a lot. Try to explain that they have to have enough trim to square up to length after they are sawed, be mister nice guy, might work, probably not.

Finally had one logger that would not listen, I gave him two tally sheets for one load, one marked VOID, hae asked why two. I showed him the one he got paid for and the one he would have got paid for if they had not had been anywhere fron 2-6 inches short. When you are talking about 30-40 logs on a load that tally up 2 feet short, that's a lot of money. You might make the logger mad but YOU cannot afford to pay for wood that you can't sell. The logger is the only one position to make sure of the length.

Tom beat me to it on posting, he is right about lenght if you are sawing grade lumber. Around here if selling pallet stock they will only buy in 2' sections. Also the guy that need 12' 2x6 might not be able to use 11'10".

Fla._Deadheader · January 27, 2007, 02:41:00 PM

Had a couple of loggers pull that on me, way back yonder. I just put them aside, and when they came back, MEASURED the new load, and accepted it GRATIS, as in FREE. 1 jumped up and down. I said, THOSE are your short ones I already paid you for, pointing to the pile on the ground. Take 'em back, OR, buck to right length, and I will pay for them, then.

Stopped ALL that crap, rat now 8) :D :D :D

If you don't think they know what they are doing, you need to get out more. ;D :D :D

leweee · January 27, 2007, 03:15:12 PM

Harold's got them figured out. ;D The logger saves the short ones to sell to the little guys. He would get docked by the big mill if he takes them there. :

Sometimes the mill won't take logs that don't met their grade standards(#2 sawlog) Best not to pay for logs before they are scaled & graded to your specs.

Norwiscutter · January 27, 2007, 03:49:13 PM

Remember that the Logger gets paid what the mill tells him he scaled, not what he thinks he is hauling you. My loggers are normally happy with my scale because I normally over what the other mills around here would scale at. All the soft wood I have bought has always been between 16'4" and 16"8". If they are longer, it is normally beacause they are hauling for weight and not scale. Sometimes I will get an ocassional short stick but never anymore than two or three out of a hundred. This i can certainly deal with. I make a point of always paying my loggers right away, and sometimes even tipping the drivers if they do a nice job decking the logs and are here on time. This has resulted in me getting tipped of about when and where the good qualty logs are going to be available. If they are cutting with cut to length harvesters, then I would be amazed if there was a difference of more than 2 inches or so on overall length. Sounds like they are sorting out the shorts before the hual and sending them to you. There are alot of loggers out there competing over the same business, find a different supplier and let the other one know why you did.

Ron Wenrich · January 27, 2007, 09:44:38 PM

I used to scale for a mill that did about 5 MMbf annually. I had one logger send in a trailerload that had all the logs cut 1/2" short of 16'. He got paid for 14' logs and was told why. Never had a problem after that.

lord_kenwolf · January 27, 2007, 09:56:22 PM

Quote from: beenthere on January 27, 2007, 01:49:06 PM
lord
The logs are paid for, before they are bucked to length? You start out saying you "bought 7,500 feet of logs" . Seems you should scale the logs and pay for what you received. Must be softwood logs if bucking back to 2' increments.
But seems you should just pay for the log length that you receive, IMO. Not sure what is really happening tho from your description.

the logs are all cedar, and the place where we sell all of our lumber to buys at lengthes of 6,8,10,12,14,16 feet, so we will have to cut the short logs back 18 + inches atleast to get to the right size.
the logger that is selling the logs to us has been working in the woods for a long time. i guess that he just got a young fella to buck the logs to length in the past week or so. we are getting all the logs that he saws and we go and get them our selves with our ton truck. we never thought of measuring how long the logs are cause he told us he always gives 6 inches trim on his logs, and we always let a logger know we need atleast 3 inches trim. the 7500 feet of logs have already been delievered by us and paid for. we scale them then we pay for them. we never pay before the logs are in the yard.
when you buy 7500 feet of logs and they average about 20 feet per log thats 375 pieces, if 1/2 are short or with no trim that means that 188 logs need to be cut back atleast 18 inches. if we loose just 5 feet per log on the short log that adds up to close to 1,000 feet. if it is 10 feet lost per short log it is close to 2,000 feet that we paid for that is lost to us. just thinking of it makes me mad as heck.

arj · January 27, 2007, 10:00:12 PM

I have that happen all the time, the guy I get most of my logs from doesn`t own
a tape or ruler he just paces them off. I don`t complain the logs are free. I don`t sell
a lot of lumber but when I do I ask for min. lenghts. A lot of times people don`t need
a 10 or 12 foot peice, and can use a peice a few inches short. There used to buying
even length boards at the box store.
arj

beenthere · January 27, 2007, 10:11:47 PM

Lord

Quote........we scale them then we pay for them.......

Guessin here that you didn't measure length when you scaled them, which is a pretty costly error.
But scaling them again, and letting the logger know how much you lost in scale, (or overpaid putting it another way), might lead to an adjustment on the next load (either that, or the next load would get an adjustment when you scale them

).

Not surprised that this is eating away at you. Good luck to you with a resolution to the shortage.

Norwiscutter · January 27, 2007, 10:17:23 PM

If you have been doing business with this guy for a while call him, I am sure he will understand. New guy or not, you would have to be pretty much brain dead to just start hacking stuff to random lengths without a second thought. IMO that sounds like a bad excuse for trying to work you over, of course I could be wrong though.

woodmills1 · January 28, 2007, 08:06:22 AM

2 guys close to me do not use tapes, one says he stuck the nail into his finger too many times. :D They use a 4 foot stick and flip it end over end, many times they are short or over long, but it didn't matter to them. I don't do much business with them and ifin I do I measure then pay.

WH_Conley · January 28, 2007, 08:16:30 AM

I use th four foot stick too (and a tape on the veneer), only problem with a stick is to have it at EXACT length and not be lazy. Neighbor mine had a friend stop in and visit on his log job one day, helped him measure logs. The mill called him that night to point out almost logs on the last load were short, checked the load on the truck, they were short too. If you use a stick you have to bend over to get to the log. I have seem people walk beside a trunk which was maybe knee high, standing up straight put one end of the stick on the log and rotate their wrist to make the other end touch the log. Try it the log will come up short a few inches for every "flop" of the stick, done right it is very accurate.

Norm · January 28, 2007, 08:47:08 AM

I don't allow loggers to tell me what bd ft are in the load. I scale it myself and pay accordingly. Since I cut hardwoods only I'll allow the odd lengths but they must have at least 4"s of trim. Anything less and it's scaled back to the next foot mark. Not my problem if they think they're too busy to not use a tape.

Bibbyman · January 28, 2007, 08:56:34 AM

We get logs cut like that all the time. I don't know what they're thinking - if they're thinking at all.

We scale them back to the next two increment. We have been buying 9'-4" and longer logs as 9' if they would make a RR tie. Not got many of them.

leweee · January 28, 2007, 12:19:14 PM

Quote from: Bibbyman on January 28, 2007, 08:56:34 AM
We get logs cut like that all the time. I don't know what they're thinking - if they're thinking at all.

Bibby..... those loggers is dumb like foxes ;) :D

lord_kenwolf · January 28, 2007, 09:19:16 PM

well we talked to the logger about the short logs today. he uses a stick and it was 2 inches shorter then he thought. so now he is using a stick 50 inches long. all he said about the short logs was "thanks for letting me know about it" thats it, no offer to make good on the short logs or anything. i know if we made a mistake on sawing lumber we would make good on it and give the customer what he wanted to start with. we wouldn't just say oh well thanks for letting us know we messed up. we have more respect for the person we do business with then some people i guess.
we will be measuring the lengthes every now and then for now on. we might of gotten burned this time but it wont happen again thats for sure.

arj · January 28, 2007, 10:02:41 PM

The guy I get logs said he used a measuring stick for awhile but lost it
the only problem was he paced that off too.
arj

Tom · January 28, 2007, 10:26:26 PM

those guys understand what they are doing. I don't think they always understand what they are doing to you.

It pays to have a heart to heart. They also need to know that you are interested in the log having more attention than just the right length. A log that is 8'6" and full of knots, holes and scabs isn't worth a whole lot. IF it is crooked then it might not be worth much either.

Sometimes asking a bucker to draw a string down the log and imagine what it would take to get a square timber out of it, will be education enough.

thecfarm · January 29, 2007, 04:38:27 AM

I use a 4 foot stick with a mark at 2 foot.Never had a problem,but I make sure the stick is on the log.When I made it,I made SURE it was 4 foot and 2 foot.Probaly checked it 3-4 times.I want to make sure.Just the way I am.No reason for short logs unless you don't care.If this guy did this once,what else will he do with the next load and he didn't even try to help you out with the short logs.I keep away from people like that.I know of a few people kicking around here like that.Do it to thier own Mother too,if they had a chance.They just don't care.

Dana · January 29, 2007, 06:44:14 AM

If you feel you lost 2000 ft., then subtract 2000 ft. from the next load he delivers. Make sure you do a tally of the new logs before subtracting the amount. ;)