What are you cutting 2024? - pics welcome

[thecfarm]

All looks good!!!!

[olcowhand]

Congrats, Barge!

[teakwood]

Congrats Eric, did you make it to the hospital on time?

[Magicman]

Congratulations Sir !!!   

[Old Greenhorn]

Once again, congratulations on the new baby! Two weeks doesn't seem like a lot of time to catch up and still do al you have on your plate, but I guess if anyone can, it's you.
 I hope you, Momma, and the little one are all doing well. I'll have to try and catch up with you sometime this summer, but you're a tough one to catch in town.

[WhitePineJunky]

Pulling some nice balsam(for once) out of this mostly red maple stand, they will be happy to see the balsams gone

[OH logger]

Congrats barge.   Cute kid. Rowan. I see what you did there.  Boat reference 😂 

[BargeMonkey]

I was kind of running out of good, white, Scandinavian names, child #5, going for 7 or 8,  I was Chief on the Rowan when he was created, figured run with it. Yeah she called me at 4am Tuesday, said it's time, got home at 1230, hospital by 1400, kid showed up at 1830 Wednesday. 

[WhitePineJunky]

[BargeMonkey]

The price of used iron in central NY is getting cheaper, I heard today someone else is folding up unfortunately, not a little logger.
Someone's gotta be buying it, probably going to South America or Australia / NZ. Sitting on the dock tonight in Newark waiting to go on a ship.


 I've gotta do something, paying the gov isn't on my to do list, if it didn't have the Mercedes-Benz engine I would have jumped already.

[barbender]

 Quit being afraid of that MB and go load it up

[BargeMonkey]

[Resonator]

For a while I drove a Freightliner back in the day with a Mercedes Benz logo on the wheel... and still at the end of the day it was just a Freightliner with a MB logo on it.

[BargeMonkey]

Tigercat and MBE no longer deal with each other is the story I got. Engine's not bad in the machine but at somepoint its going to happen, Barbenders talked to a couple people who have converted the truck engines. We have 1x MBE in a truck now and it's honestly not bad, it's not a Cat but has been a good truck. CJs has never sold / had this model, it was a Maine / 🇨🇦 machine. Frank Martin in Maine sold a bunch of them, 1/2 of the MBEs had issues and got converted to Cummins, the one in KY I looked at was converted but for the hours that machine is spanked. It's 25k for a reman MBE, it's 50k to put a Cummins in, or buy an 822C. Either way I've gotta buy a bigger lowboy. 

[barbender]

 Barge, what kind of issues did they have with the MB in those?

 Like Barge mentioned, I know of a few guys sticking MB 906 truck engines into Ponsses. There were issues though. The injectors and ecu on the truck engine were not compatible with the Ponsse system for whatever reason. MBs use unit injectors, so every injector has its own pump and control unit on it. They had to swap the injectors and ECU  out of the original engine and then they fired up and worked fine.

 The reason these guys used a truck engine is that you can find used take outs for $5000-$8000. A reman MB engine is pushing $30k😬

 My experience with the MB engines in Ponsse equipment is they are excellent. They are very, very trouble free in those applications. 

[BargeMonkey]

 Biggest problem I've heard about was oil consumption, couple guys have said they where great, just get hours on them and start eating it. This one isn't tired BUT she's coming due. If I put 300hrs on it between now and next May I would be surprised. 

[barbender]

 I've only seen one that went through a lot of oil. It was old and tired, and nicknamed "Smokey"😊

 We ran a 500 hour oil service interval. Some machines would use ½-1 gallon just before service. The machine I got new, I don't know that I ever added any oil to in the 8500 hours I ran it. 

 When I was in a higher hour machine, Ponsse switched to a 5w-30 synthetic from the previous 5w-40. I figured that machine would start to use oil with the 5w-30, but it didn't. 

 One gripe I have with Ponsse, is some of what should be daily checks are a real chore to do. To access the engine oil dipstick, you had to drop your blade, drop your brush guard, and then put the hood up with the electric hood lift (slowwww). And if you left your blade up, you have to start the engine to put the blade down🤦 I didn't check my oil very often🤷

 My buddy's processor went through several computers so he didn't know the actual hours on his machine, but guessing in the area of 35,000 original hours on that engine. At that point, it finally started using some oil. So he put a reman in, just seemed like the right thing to do. Is that high hours?😊

[Southside]

Just be sure to emphasize the importance of checking your coolant lines. 

[barbender]

Coolant lines are often overlooked and can always benefit from additional protection.

[BargeMonkey]

I keep telling myself the extra work is going to slow down, actually go cut wood, hasn't happened. Buying wood off someone else for 500 a triaxle load, haul more when I get back.




Dock ships, tow containers, move rail cars.

[BargeMonkey]

I've never been into the valve bank. Slow on the stick, swung around, hit the stop and won't swing. I've gotta move it when I get home, tempted to make sure the swing break is unhooked, pull the swing motor hoses and turn her to get it home. Anyone got some tips of what I'm getting into here ?

[GRANITEstateMP]

Barge,

No help with your Timbco but $500 a triaxle load for logs is a deal.  I'm almost triple that for a load of processor logs here in NH (7 full cord)

[BargeMonkey]

I've gotta truck it but still, I'm not going to argue at that price and only the BEST is going on the truck. Couple times over the years its been cheaper to buy wood than cut wood. I don't see this year being great again for firewood, softwood is slowly coming to a halt, only thing really paying is ash right now. Fuels dropped way down, couple weeks ago on-road was .02 cheaper than 87 gas, back up to 3.30 today. I'm hoping it's not crazy, get it moved home and dig into it, problem is the stuff sits to much. I find a hotsaw I wanna hang a head off that Timbco, keep it for the stupid ground.

[newoodguy78]

Barge,

No help with your Timbco but $500 a triaxle load for logs is a deal.  I'm almost triple that for a load of processor logs here in NH (7 full cord)

Geez Granite at that price is there any meat left on the bone for you?
Certainly understand the loggers having to raise their rates. Just makes me wonder when is it going to stabilize and at what point is it not worth it anymore?

[GRANITEstateMP]

Margins have never been great, but when the cord of logs goes up $10, I go up $15 on the finished side.  I am trying to shrink down my delivery area too.  I am between $130-$140 a cord log length, processor wood, delivered to the landing.  I am getting between $285-$300 a green cord delivered.  Campwood I'm getting $210 a cord delivered.  I'm not getting rich but plugging away.  I'm mostly working alone this year and my goal is to get down to 100 cords processed.  I put a little bit into my pocket, the rest goes into inventory, and equipment upgrades, or an envelope to grow