Hand cutting vs harvesters

[Corley5]

Are you from the wolverine area?

Yup  ;D

[smwwoody]

Work ethic...  What is that?  20 years ago when I was cutting by hand I han no trouble keeping 2 cable skidders busy.  Now that my 20 year old son is cutting he can't keep me busy with one cable skidder I had to hire him a helper. Now when the Fat Old Man gets off the skidder and cuts the kid can't keep up running skidder. Don't get me wrong he is a good worker but it surer isn't like it was. And in all fairness we don't have the timber like we Did then.

Woody 

[SwampDonkey]

That's the thing woody, the piece size has dropped a lot in 30 years. That is one of the number one things when your cutting by hand. A lot of the big mills these days won't take big wood even if you had it. Even aspen pulp, we had some mills here that couldn't take 26 inch aspen and one mill you needed a special over size ticket, to control the volume of the big stuff coming in. I've seen a lot of aspen almost as big as white pine come off the Tobique valley. In fact in some of the stands from fire origin, all that stood was pine and aspen, the fir all died and fell down from old age. And the white birch was dying because the death of the fir opened up the woods too much. Much safer in a machine in that mess. There had been a restart on the fir, but it was suppressed for too long and most of the advanced fir was junk with rot. I saw some of it being thinned, PCT with brush saw, after the remaining residual overstory was cut and it should have been burnt. Junk today will be junk tomorrow.

[Knute]

I would think soil compaction could be a factor to consider with the heavy machines unless used on frozen ground.

[chevytaHOE5674]

I would think soil compaction could be a factor to consider with the heavy machines unless used on frozen ground.

Except that most of the larger equipment is either tracked or 3 and 4 axle rubber tired with large float tires and even tracks over the tires. This allows the large machines to be light on their feet in the woods. I've seen fully loaded double bunk forwarders with tracks front and rear drive on top of snow that a skidder would be plowing through. 

[SwampDonkey]

I see lots of machine ruts from those machines, but on wetter ground. The forest companies seem to be getting away with cutting wetter and wetter ground on crown lands. Then they want that wet stuff thinned after. Ruts and mud sespools to sink to your knees in.  :

[chevytaHOE5674]

Well on wet soils just about any machine will have rutting. Got to save the wet jobs for winter work when there is good snow cover and frozen ground.

[SwampDonkey]

My ground was skidder harvested and it's not rutted. It's flat land to, mostly winter cut. But then there are lots cut during the wet weather and it will be rutted for sure. When you have a forwarder with several tons of wood on it, it leaves it's mark. On good hardwood ground a skidder won't rut, not a bit. If you run a machine up a wet gully or seepage area, yeah it will rut.

[logloper]

Whats the difference in a harvester and a feller buncher with a processor head?

[amberwood]

FB with a processor head is a harvester. Normally the feller boom set is a different configuration with a shorter reach and higher lift, verses a long reach on a dedicated harvester. Harvester head is normally dangle, Feller fixed, or with a wrist.
DTR