Thanks, but No thankyou moments

[Ox]

I had a guy last year TELL me what he's going to pay me to saw up some red oak for him.  I declined, just out of principle.  It was actually close to the going rate for around here (.40/bf), but I was quite busy at the time with other important things and I didn't appreciate that he thought he could dictate pricing to me.  Plus, my mill being all manual I would have lost on that one anyway.

[fishfighter]

Yep, had a few people wanting me to fell trees for the logs. Not going to happen.

[Peter Drouin]

Ox, I get that from time to time. OR, [You only have to make 4 cuts] 

[sealark37]

The last tree i was "given" was a beautiful longleaf pine, knocked over in a storm.  Level ground, no obstructions, right at 36 inches at the butt.  Three 16' logs with no limbs.  Buck it and stack the limbs and tops.  The root plate was over 10' tall, with a 3' hole under it.  I was a bit leery, so I put six cedar posts against it to keep it from falling.  After limbing and stacking, I bucked the trunk into 16 footers.  When I made the butt cut, the root ball spit out three of the cedar posts, and crushed the other three into the hole.  All I saw was the stump disappearing from my vision.  Two of the loose posts fell harmlessly, while the other one went through the side of the barn and almost started a stampede.  The "thump" brought out all the neighbors  for a quarter mile, and taught me that I enjoyed playing with a sawmill a lot more than cutting timber.  As an aside, when the word got out, the lumber and slabs went like hotcakes.     Regards, Clark

[Ox]

sealark - great story!  I had the butt log of a big old sugar maple stand up like that once but in slower motion.  I left it like that for a few years to season, which worked out well.  I had a few people ask how I got up there to make such a nice square cut at 16' in the air. 

Peter - only 4 cuts?  Heh.  That 4 turns into multiple after they see the thicker flitches and start getting greedy for every single board that might be salvaged and they want you to repeatedly shave them to try to get the "best" board.  But at the first agreed upon price of course!  People never cease to amaze me.  It's as if they never try to put themselves in the other person's boots and see what they're doing. 

[shortlogger]

Most of the logs I saw are gimme trees because of the lack of local markets in my area if you have less than 8 or 10 loads of tree length you can't get a logger to move his equipment to your place . We had a tornado in March and I'm covered up in logs now . My neighbor had about 5 loads of logs and 2 loads of pulpwood down and couldn't get anyone to cut it so he decked it all and gave away to anyone that would get it and he still had a couple loads piled up .

[WV Sawmiller]

Sealark,

   I had a similar incident 4 years ago the summer when we had freak storms come through the area with tornado force winds. Power was out here at our house for 11 days.

   That was before I had my mill but I had friends called and asked for help so I took my chainsaw to their house and cut a couple of big pines that had fallen across their drive blocking their access. We'd cut the logs and pull them parallel to the drive with my P/U. One tree likely had a 10-12 ft root ball. I never even thought about it till I cut the tree about 6' above the base and it stood right back up as pretty as you please. Fortunately nobody was hurt. I wish we'd had a video of it. It was quite spectacular.

[Peter Drouin]

Most times storm down trees are junk. They look good on the outside, but, the thing is all crack on the inside.
There was a man I knew bought storm down W Pine for .10 a BF and that was a deal if the logs were good . But 90+% where junk. He went out of business a year later.

I won't take them for free delivered

[WV Sawmiller]

Most times storm down trees are junk. They look good on the outside, but, the thing is all crack on the inside.
D

Peter,

   I can vouch for that. Same storm I mentioned before broke one fork of a huge white oak here at my place. When I got my mill and a bigger chainsaw I cut the last log up for lumber. Started with an 8' log over 42" diameter small end. Had to split it with my chainsaw to fit on the mill. A lot of effort to drag it to the mill site. When done sawing yield was about 100 bf because of all the cracks and shake involved. Was not worth the effort at all.

[plowboyswr]

Had a neighbor stop by and looked at my pile of walnut lumber and made what he thought was an offer I couldn't refuse. He goes hey how bout a trade,  I smiled, sure what ya got?  How bout all the lumber you have cut for my log.  Okay what's so special bout your log?  Well, it's a black walnut 45'long and 30" on the small end. Oh really, how big on the butt? Gotta be 48" or better.  tell ya what why don't you just sell it and buy my lumber that's way too big for my little mill. Or tell ya what find some smaller stock and I will come mill them for ya.

[shortlogger]

All this timber is fine it's just blew over I've sawed a bunch of it already . The only reason nobody will cut it is cause all the crews in my area are high volume and need enough wood to justify the cost of moving equipment .

[sandsawmill14]

sealark you gotta watch those root balls worst i ever got into was 12 red oaks that a track hoe dug out he knew they were for lumber so he barely even scratched the bark no split or crack anywhere BUT he stacked the dang things like logs on a landing full tops on 1 end and root ball on the other took me most of a day to get that mess straightened out  but i got about 5500 ft of logs and all the butt logs were perfectly clear and sound so it was still a good day being as i managed not to get a leg broke or something i could not have got that many out in a day from the woods by myself but cutting those root balls off and the top ones 10 feet off the ground was scary for me all were in the 24-36" range   i went and looked at the logs before the were taken down and they were between the house ,shop,and barn so only one way they could fall and since he was going to have track hoe dig the stumps out anyway we just had him take them down is why the were dug up instead of cut with a saw

All this timber is fine it's just blew over I've sawed a bunch of it already . The only reason nobody will cut it is cause all the crews in my area are high volume and need enough wood to justify the cost of moving equipment .

i have sawn alot of blow down timber to and it was all good lumber too but it also was all hardwood and i bet the softwoods might be different