Newbie Logger questions

[Woodschopper]

Hello All!
First, my apologies for the long winded explanation and questions.

I recently purchased my first log skidder here in Mid-Michigan. A treefarmer C4B. I currently farm around 100 acres of hay ground along with trying to finish up school, but hay doesn't grow in the winter and I need a second source of income with minimal overhead. I went and looked at a 7 acre woodlot, some Hickory and Basswood. About 20,000 Bd Ft. I called Quality Hardwoods and struggled with who to talk to about pricing on a couple different species. I don't know if there's a price sheet I can request? Or do I have to call and ask about pricing every time I want to know? I also called Deveroux Sawmill to ask about pricing but couldn't find the right person to get a straight answer from.

I'd like to work with somebody who has the ability to haul the logs directly from the job site but don't know what that entails.

ANY advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you for taking the time to help a greenie out!

William

[doc henderson]

welcome woodschopper.  I am not the expert you seek, but there are those who can help you.  

[mike_belben]

When you call the first time just say do you buy sawlogs logs from the general public?  If they say yes then ask what are you paying for ____ today?  She will transfer you to whoever you need.  DO NOT give away your green-ness, it will get exploited.  Ask if you can come get a spec sheet and when you do, ask for the trim amounts if not clearly listed. 


Every mill will call stuff a little different.. 123, ABC, 1A, 1B etc.  Theyll have a sheet for that in the office if they buy from anyone.  You want to have a market to get rid of firewood/pulp and tie logs primarily as thats what every woodlot produces the most of.  Youll have to learn sawlogs from there.  In cheap cutover land, ties are your bread and butter so talk to the scaler before you cut or they will make #3 instead of tie.  Big pay cut over a few inches. A switch tie is as good as you can do on knobby low quality wood so find out what it is and who saws em. 


You can do okay hauling your own logs on a gooseneck or tag trailer if you stay in the good graces of DOT.  Build some bunks or to get started.. 3inch C channel will drop into a stake pocket, just weld a little stopper tab and strap the tops together so they dont spread. Tons of little guys around here log with 2wd duallies and 4 post short bunks.

[g_man]

I'm just a little guy - maybe even smaller than that. I find it easiest to work with a log yard. There are several around here. They take wood from anyone who can cut it to meet specs and willingly give out spec sheets by species and grade. You won't get the highest dollar because they are a middle man but you don't have to ship anything a 100 miles either. The ones I use will pick up at the landing if it is a full load and charge so much per 1000 or ton but I just bring in small loads on my one ton. You don't have to do any marketing but you are limited to the connections the log yard has.

gg

[thecfarm]

I use to cut on my land. I paid someone to haul the logs. If you are hauling logs, who is cutting the wood?
I sold to a sawmill that cut eastern white pine. Sold truckloads to them. They would buy just about anything that I had. Helped me out. Yes, I probably could of done better selling a truck load, but if a maple in the way, I could sell them 4-5 logs. They all want them longer than 8-10-12-16 foot, about 6 inches longer. Maybe even more? Don't give them what they want a 12 foot long will be scaled back to a 8 foot one.
You can cut a sweep out of a log and make more money that way, They like straight logs.

[Riwaka]

If you have some where to store and dry wood. Compare with the firewood price. You are likely to have offcuts as well so look at the local firewood market too.

[BargeMonkey]

 What Mike said ☝️. I'm not sure how far you are from the yard your planning to sell to but stop in, ask for a price sheet. A couple times when I've sold to someone new I've went out where they are scaling, if this is possible and flat out ask the guy scaling what they prefer, for instance here a #1 or better HM log is 8-9-10' + 6" Min trim, if it's a great veneer log I leave an extra inch or so because they will cut them back again possible. If it's a #2 or worse but not huge taper or additional defects I will go for a 12' so at least I'm getting footage, if it's a ugly #3 or #4 the market for mat logs is 300 right now. If you can sell to a decent place ask them if the buyer can mark the wood up, skid enough out so it's not a mess, have him mark them as you cut and let the truck swing the wood, sometimes that's how places want it, but like Mike said I would want getting exploited if you get a slimy buyer. Most guys should be more than willing to take 30mins and walk you thru 5-6 logs. Hickory can be funny and your better off not slashing it ahead anyway. 

[nativewolf]

Not much to add but good luck! 

Knowledge is power and as low person on the food chain you'll need some, as Mike and Barge say call around and get pricing!  Go meet the buyers!  Most of the poor loggers I meet stay poor because they won't work phones.  To maximize pricing in this way will require an ability to sort and sift through enough logs to get to tractor trailer loads of target logs.  Not only do you need to know the pricing but you need to know the price of a log.  I like Barge's advice to go and visit buyers while they are scaling.  Spend an hour as they scale through a load, do this 3-4 times with different buyers.  Then you'll know what they want, how they view a log, what knots matter, how much curve (sweep) is a defect, what mineral stain issues are real or not, etc.  

Another valid approach is one like g_man - find a log concentration yard that buys everything.  Just be ok with paying that marketing $ because a concentration yard buyer has to make a $ too.

[Firewoodjoe]

I don't know of many if any log yards. Just mills. But they all act like things a big secret. But if u have logs they will come. There's lots of mills call around. And just cause your small don't mean anything. They get the best logs from small producers and quantities from the big producers. They need both but won't tell you that. You have to be hungry and want to do it to make it work. And now a days it's all on the internet learn before you call them. They may ask if you can bore cut and directional fell. Don't let them know your fresh/green if you can. It's not there first time either. They blow a lot of those calls off because they get a lot that leads no where. 

[mike_belben]

Lot of good advice.  

Im not a logger,  but when down and out,  ive been paid for dirtwork with standing timber ...so they were situations where i really needed every penny, and every mistake i made cut me deep. When i started the wife and kids and i went in the car on little roadtrips to round up price sheets and see the roads in to these mills before i ever cut so id know how to get to these backcountry mills without having to Uturn a loaded gooseneck in some little driveway and crush their culvert, get stuck etc etc over a wrong turn.


There is a correlation to how full or empty the mills woodlot is and how much they want to talk to you.  If you can send your wood when their pile is getting thin you will get a lot less disappointing scale sheets.  When they are full, theyre gonna tighten up the stick and send you away aggravated.. Knock you down a grade or two over piddly stuff.  Its just business.. When theyve got a surplus of their own, they can only afford to buy discount timber.  Dont take it personal.



I got real lucky with a tie mill scaler who was hungry for wood, gave me his cell# and was willing to teach me the ropes.  Id be standing over a tree and call saying gary i got this one blah blah how do you want me to cut it.  I think that commitment to sell to them made him generous on the stick.  He told me a few times that he had guys bringing a full trailer per day that he could give em $100 more per load if they would just listen to him and cut it right but they were set in their ways, employs who didnt care etc etc.  I did whatever he told me and he scaled me kind for it.  Treat your scaler like he owns the whole mill.  Because he is deciding how much you make today. 


im gonna tell you it took quite a while before i really learned what to do in what situation to get ties, switch ties and double ties instead of 3common logs. 2 sound single hearts is required in a tie and 9'3 was the very last inch for a single tie.  9'2 goes in the 3c pile.  But if its say 13" DIB small end, at 10'6 that bumped  up the rate per bf because the cant made a single tie and the jacket boards made 10ft barn lumber. They dont want 9'3 jacket boards so if you brought in a 13" at 9'3 you were giving away jacket boards for nothing.  And no one is gonna tell you to stop delivering free boards either.

Now a switch tie [where the track splits at a switcher] had to be 16'6 minimum so id cut to 17. If it wasnt sound id trim off as many cookies as necessary to hit two sound ends and stop there.  I had to use the doyle calculator and regular calculator on my phone alot in the beginning to see if i was better getting maybe 16ft 3common or a 14ft tie.  Almost always better in a tie.  How else you gonna get $350-440 for a zero side clear little stick? 


Now if the tree had 2 sound ends and straight at 19ft it could go as one joined pair of ties. A double tie that they will buck in half.  And that was one less butt that was visible for inspection so less risk of exposing an unsound heart thats costing me.. shifts the risk to the mill on just that one cut.  If i bring it in at 19 and he rejects it for a double tie i could buck it right there to 17 and get a switch @$440/mbf.  Always try for switch ties. 


Clean buttlogs over 8'6 are easy to sell so i let the buttlog length vary and try to maximize toplogs as a primary goal most of the time. the forest produces mostly rough, crooked and knobby 1sc wood.  So i always started measuring from the top to be sure i didnt loose 1 tie log out of a tree. The buttlog could be sold at any length, cleaner the better.  Always have knobs and flare trimmed flush so itll roll nice.. goes a long way with most scalers.  Getting paid $300-400/mbf on tops is the only way i could eat and it took a lot of eyeballing and measuring.  Very slow but it made my pay go up in the long run.  PVC length sticks are handy to have on the landing for this, they save time when youre trying to figure how many ties you can squeeze out of the top.  Put a nail through each end and lay them on the tree with a little tap. Use a hatchet to mark your imaginary cuts from top to bottom before tbe first cut
 


This is very slow, but my slips tallied up to $4k an acre by sending staves to brown foreman, hickory stave to a handle mill,  ties to a tie mill and doing firewood at home.  I struggled in poplar and red oak. Getting tie for small red oak was easy but i never could find $500/mbf for say 18inch 2SC red oak.


In my experience as a one man hand cuttin band with a small truck and trailer, 3common, pallet and pulp just arent worth hauling, its gotta be cut split and delivered to make any profit and thats a whole other efficiency problem.  Pulp Friction. Without a buncher, grapple skidder and knuckleboom with bucksaw i dont think one man can live long fooling with pulp.  And thats a lot of iron to buy if you havent got it already which i dont.  Fork loading pulp is horrible. 


Cliffnotes:  only trim a log shorter if it benefits YOU. By removing a defect or making an additional log above or below it so to speak.  If what you trim off just leaves a piece of firewood on the ground for you to roll over to the side of the trail, dont cut, leave it long.  Each cut of a good face is a chance to reveal a bad one. Shake, ant hole, stain etc. If you bring a 14 and they pay you a 12 so what. Atleast you didnt discover a defect that brings it down to a 10 or lower grade 12.

[mike_belben]

oh and keep all your receipts.  Obviously for taxes but also for tallying average $/bf that you bring in.  Do not be surprised if you start off doing well and then taper back hard at any one mill.  Its common for initial checks to be generous to make a habitual customer out of you.


  a mill spec sheet may show they pay great on a stave grade but if your best stave logs never make that grade its not the best paying mill.  Its their job to buy your logs cheap.. Not teach you grades. Youre responsible for knowing what youve brung, what you can get for it and seeing to it that you do. Only you are gonna be able to say 'hold on a minute, how much for this one here? What makes that a two and not a one?'  Do NOT be afraid to say "nah, i wont take that, throw those two back on the trailer for me" if you have another mill you can try them at.  


Thats how you find out where to go.  Comparing avg $/bf on each load over time and 'taking offers' from two mills on the same log.  I would tell them to put it back on the truck over any jerky stuff just to keep them from jerkin me next time.  Ill burn it right here before ill let ya rip me off. Just the principle, to me.  Ive never had it come to that but know some mills that will do ya wrong, i dont fool with them.