Advice on logging buisness

[NateTaylor]

Hello everyone.
I am just looking to hear everyone's opinion on how I should expand my logging buisness. I am a small time operator in the North East. I operate an 88 Clark f66 and chainsaws. Occasionally I will have a skidsteer on the job to sort my logs with.  I have been out on my own for a little over a year now. Prior to that I was a buncher and grapple operator. It has been tough getting going but finally got to the point where I have woodlots lined up. I enjoy being self employed and wish to remain that way. With the current markets and weather being the way it is I was wanted to expand what I can offer. I will probably start selling firewood this spring. Just as something to occupy my time during the wet days. I don't look at firewood as a very profitable endeavor. Mostly to help a little cash flow and a way to keep me busy in the slow times. I have also been playing with the idea of adding a portable sawmill or buying a small bull dozer. I am interested in doing custom sawing but not sure if the demand is there. I am also thinking about buying a small dozer with a forestry package. If I went this route I was thinking that I could use the dozer on some of by logging operation by building roads and landings and bunch wood on steep ground but was also thinking I could use it to do small earth moving projects and get into some landscaping.  I don't see many of the excavating companies use dozers much so I don't know if there isn't much of a demand for one or if most of the companies just choose to use an excavator. I just wanted to hear what you guys had to say to help me figure out which one might be the better option.
Thank you.

[mike_belben]

One man can only do so much.  If you think its been hard so far, dont be in a rush to add new debt.  


Starting the firewood side is the cheapest venture to get into that still stays focused on logging, and it will extract more money from the jobs you are doing.  Going into sawmilling will take you away from logging imo.  Firewood gets set up at home under a roof and is reserved for your rainy days.  Whereas mobile milling will take sunny days away from logging.



When youre in small homeowner cutting or clearing jobs on shares you can offer a choice.  Leave the job ugly or leave the job clean, meaning what is to be done with the tops.  If you can leave em lay its say 50/50.  If you trim it all down and skid the tops away to take home for firewood you get 10 or 20% more of the cut, whatever you can get the landowner to agree to. Firewooding tops and jazzing up the site to look good after is a very tedious job. Dont just do it for the wood.  It adds extra hours and needs extra money to cover the resources youll consume and break in the process.  Firewood is a poor consolation prize for it. Btdt.




Eventually when you end up with a dozer, target view clearings, home sites and ponds.  Then you get to remove small woodlots entirely and charge for it by the hour, without paying on shares. All the wood is yours.  This never happens in real timber stands, only in backyards.  Done this way, a 5 acre yard pays you like its a 10 because the landowner doesnt get a cut of the wood.


Sawlogs to the mill, tops to your firewood pile and pines you can pile up and advertise for sugar evaporator or boiler wood or maybe for the tons of hobby sawmill owners who have no idea how to get logs.  Hopefully just plop on someones trailer from the jobsite without any extra labor invested.


In time add an excavator for stumps and then basements.   Make friends with the gravel hauler or a young asphalt crew. new construction needs driveways.  You can offer turnkey packages.  

[mike_belben]

and also, market your logs hard.  Make a million calls, dont just settle for what one mill says theyre worth.  If your buying stumpage, its important to cut when you can best sell the POOR quality logs.  You can sell a good log any day.  You can make firewood out of lowgrade any day and let it sit on skids for years.  But the biggest next class by volume will be the low value, but too clean to firewood grade of sawlogs that will spoil if they sit.  When the timing is good for that class of wood is when the timing is good for the job.   Really learn your tie market.  You dont want to cut them to sell into a seasonally flooded market.

[kiko]

I have been around the logging / trucking business most of my life as a mechanic and as a logger for a period of time.  At least around here, the logging business is designed to keep the small logger out.  The mills require WC and general liability insurance to sell direct .  So the small logger has to sell their product to a wood yard at a reduced rate.  As Mike says it all about marketing.  Another member, Native wolf seems to be focused on finding alternative markets .  Finding your niche and concentrating on that would seem to me the best way to go.  Having money spread out in many different things is dangerous IMO .  A compact track loader would be a machine that could be used in your logging business and also generate income in areas not related to logging.  

[Corley5]

Don't spread yourself too thin.

[OH logger]

Pm me if you want

[NateTaylor]

Hey everyone,
Thanks for the advice that has been giving so far.  I try to market my product as best I can. That took me awhile to grasp. I used to just send to the most convenient mill but didn't take long to figure out that sometimes paying the extra trucking was well worth it. I am trying to find a niche in this industry. So far the it seems to be I'm getting jobs because of the access to the job. Most of my landings seem to be only for straight trucks. Which has been a pain. Not to many straight truck owners in my area. Both of the truckers I have used live an hour away from where I am. If it wasn't for the size of my landing I would be trying to compete with the bigger whole tree guys.  I am trying to target small homeowner lots where it's a mix of logging/landscaping. The hardest challenge that I have noticed with that is people can't grasp that there wood might not cover the cost to clear it. Especially the way the pulp market has been. 
Thanks again. 

[driftlessinwi]

I personally wouldn't try to do sawmilling at the same time.  Maybe build a network of small Sawyers who would be interested in your better logs. Firewood would be a good way to have a "savings account' for your business to level out highs and lows. Also I think a lot would depend on the type of trees your logging,  if softwood, I would definitely steer clear of milling. Hard to compete with $2 2x4s at the big box stores. White Oak and walnut always seem to be in demand around here,  but the loggers here will barely touch any job that doesn't have enough of these 2 species.  Full disclaimer,  I am a wanna be sawyer and logger, but did start and run a successful business in another life and industry.  Logging is a very tough business so kudos to you for getting where you are! Best of luck and stay safe out there. 

[nativewolf]

Good morning Nate, hope you had a great holiday.  I am a forester turned logger because I had very specific goals regarding my harvest that were not being met by subcontractors.  My son and I do the harvest and we are slow.  I know we are slow.  Very slow.  To compensate we spend quite a bit of time merchandizing as well as we can.  

Our one advantage is that we have good timber under good contracts (maybe 2 advantages).  

My advice:  Find small harvest with large diameter timber.  Specifically look for big timber, even if only 2-5 acres- BIG is BEST.  Sugar maple should be a product you see quite a bit of in the frozen north.  Sugar maple pricing is at an all time high.  Cut big sugar maple.  Sell veneer to veneer buyers NOT to mills.  

Phone is your friend, call buyers.  Have 10 veneer buyers.  If you have 50 nice veneer butts than a veneer buyer will come, if they find out that you actually had 50 nice butts and they want 40 they will come again.  

I think  @so il logger takes his veneer butts back to a concentration yard where he accumulates logs of certain classes until he has enough logs for the best buyers.  Great strategy.  Can you move any logs yourself?  Even just putting a few veneer butts on a trailer?  Doing little projects it might take a while to get a good veneer load together.  @stavebuyer ran a concentration yard specializing in white oak but he's bought many other products.  I think he would tell you that if you go the route of selling to veneer buyers that you want your veneer logs to be "presented" well ; presented well would mean clean the butts up, no fiber pull visible, etc etc.  Probably good advice especially as you will be a new buyer, look serious and don't be afraid to say "no way Jose" on bids.  I rely on my forest looking serious and I don't even let buyers look at logs until we walk through our woods discussing trees.  After an hour they all know I am drop dead serious and that I don't care about dressing up a corpse; but I know what a corpse is worth.  We don't really clean our logs up as much as some guys but our forest is being crafted to standards you don't normally see here in the US (maybe @ehp area has better and higher standards- I hope to see it one day).  

We've had a few log price threads, review those.  Pricing varies by region but in my opinion it mostly varies on buyers.  We almost double the price of WO veneer because we are cutting out the mill buyers and going right to a major entity but on red oak and black oak veneer we just get good pricing but not amazing.  Selling black oak butt logs (double) is amazing enough to some (I did not know this I just asked for it and we have had no problem with 2 buyers offering about the same pricing on BO veneer).  Michigan Veneer, Coldwater, ISV, Danzer, Indiana Veneer.  There is a veneer buyer on here from PA (memory is terrible) that knows the major players better than I do.  Then there are the straight export buyers and they can be very good on certain products and boy do the prices vary.  Call, call, call.  

Trucking is also our problem.  You may find you have to find another truck with a loader.  Have you called mills asking for trucking references?  In a worst case, go to a mill - the largest around, sit and take names of the truck drivers as they pull in.  A slow way to spend a day but profitable if it gets you a few more truck driving names.  

Our second problem is merchandizing low quality logs.  I see you are considering firewood, you have the right view of it I think- almost as much trouble as it is worth.  Can you just leave the low grade pulp material to decompose and help the forest?  We are going to saw fence boards out of our junky oak and maybe barn siding out of our junky yellow poplar.  

Always glad to chat, just PM me.  

[mike_belben]

The hardest challenge that I have noticed with that is people can't grasp that there wood might not cover the cost to clear it. Especially the way the pulp market has been.

Thats the problem with labels.


Construction contractor: i pay him
Plumber: i pay him
Electrician: i pay him
Dumpster guy: i pay him
Roofer: i pay him
Snowplow: i pay him
Lawn care: i pay him
Tree service: i pay him
Paper boy: i pay him
Logger: he pays me



Sometimes it's easier to be a logger masquerading under a different label.

[driftlessinwi]

@mike_belben makes a great point.  Maybe try marketing yourself as a tree and landscaping service, who will also do small logging jobs (with big trees). 

Marketing is probably the best place to spend your time, between jobs

[mike_belben]

In my experience people call the tree service when they have money.  They call the logger when they need money.  And the general public thinks their yard tree is a highly valuable lotto ticket.  


Small time logging is very frusterating.  I have looked at "jobs" for some seriously desperate, ridiculous people.  From an old man wanting a check from me every friday from a 40acre lot that had been almost clearcut.  To a guy with monster oaks, half uprooted and leaning into each other over his singlewide tangled in a powerline and covered completely in poison ivy wanting to be paid.  I told him id do it for 10 grand and needed to rent a bucket truck and hire a crane.


The neighbor who referred me to this "logging job" wanted a $400 "finders fee" off the timber share.    

:


I will stick to dishes and let my wife handle the demented public.

[BargeMonkey]

When you say "Northeast" your talking a HUGE geographical area, certain places are easier to make it than others, go 3hrs any direction and things change a bit. 

 A dozer with a forestry package is almost a must especially in hard ground, cut roads in, that whole deal. 
 
Honestly and don't take it the hard way, everything im seeing is being geared to "Get big" or get out. Im working for a large forestry companies out of Maine, forester basically said go buy 2-3 more grapple skidders and a newer stroker, they don't want to see a chainsaw and cable skidder if possible, X amount of trailers a week. Talking with a guy from the WAC today, now EVERYONE is going to carry COMP to be eligible for reimbursement, doesnt matter if your a 1 man band, all the mills and forestry companies are requiring that and a higher liability amount. That basically cuts the little guys throat here. 

 I "hobby" logged it for years, engineer on a tugboat making decent money, good benefits, im pushing 40 and questioning my sanity daily, live and die by log prices, landowners who dont have a clue, its a tough nut, everything is against you. 

[Firewoodjoe]

Welcome. I need comp and general liability here. No big deal. If you want to deal with firewood that's a great route. All you need is a good truck and a strong back. You have the cheap wood. Personally i hope I never sell it again. Heck I'm not even burning myself right now lol  but it's cash in hand that takes little extra equipment.

You said yourself trucking is an issue. (Is everywhere) if you get a lot of small landings and you have a decent size machine you need to haul and you want to sell firewood well there's three reasons to buy a truck. I also told myself I'd never drive again but I'm now hauling my own equipment whenever I can make it faster. Time is money and waiting on trucks add up fast. I don't know what your rules are for license and axle weight there but I have a class A and with a gooseneck I can haul a very unsafe load legal here. I hope I don't have to buy another big truck but if you want to stay moving making money you have to change. I also just bought a feller buncher and didn't really want one but sometimes you have to try just to see how it goes🤷🏼‍♂️  Hard work and determination are your best tools. Everything else will find it's place if you let it. I don't see where a sawmill or dozer will be a money maker.

[mike_belben]

A dozer pushing dirt and a dozer pulling logs goes back to those two different pay formats.  No dirt guy ever said im in the wrong kind of dirt and it just doesnt pay.  I push, you pay.  I skid?  I pay.