Starting Out Logging...

[TheLumberJack]

I have tons of tree work experience, but not an inch of logging experience or knowledge. Anyone willing to chip in and share some tips as to how to get into this business?

Thanks

Kind of just the process???

cut trees>take to mill>get paid ????

 

[forestryworks]

not a good time to get into it.

save your money til the market picks back up.

 

[deeker]

Honestly??? Go back to school, get a degree in forestry.

I used to be gainfully employed.

Now I am self employed...own my own mill and log too.

Go back to school.

What are you interested in??? What do you want to do and how do you plan to do it??? Decide this while going to school.

Not impossible to get into, just hard to make a go of it.

 

[TheLumberJack]

Going back to school isn't in the cards, unfortunately.

I have one bachelors already and that debt is paid off....no more, no way!

Unless lack of forrestry degree categorically disqualifies me, I'd love to hear some more suggestions.

Even if it's not now or even next year....is there a typical path?

Could someone atleast describe the way money is made?

How does a logger get access to trees..pay for them then sell them to the mill? profit is the difference?

thanks again...i know these have to be annoying rookie questions.

 

[BC_Logger]

first off start you just don't jump into this industry you have to learn the basics see if you can get a job working with a log grader / scaler or some one who does timber cruising or is a Forester. if you don't know what the logs are worth in the area how are you going to be able to bid or know how much your going to need haul to the landing in order to stay afloat

 

[TheLumberJack]

first off start you just don't jump into this industry you have to learn the basics see if you can get a job working with a log grader / scaler or some one who does timber cruising or is a Forester. if you don't know what the logs are worth in the area how are you going to be able to bid or know how much your going to need haul to the landing in order to stay afloat

right..i didn't want to come across haphazardly. i would never go from knowing nothing one day to getting business cards made the next stating i'm a logger.

it just peeks my interest and i wanted to post to here some 'for dummies' advice and information from those with experience.

 

[TheLumberJack]

see if you can get a job working with a log grader / scaler or some one who does timber cruising or is a Forester.

any suggestions for going about this?

doesn't sound like your typical sunday morning paper classified...

 

[380LGR]

Run run run as fast as you can in any other direction than logging!!!!!!!!

 

[380LGR]

And if your woried about how the money is made its easy there isnt any...

 

[slowp]

Win a lottery jackpot, then buy the equipment, and go broke.

Some guys here started out successfully buying small roadside salvage sales, but they aren't logging now. The log market is still on a downward trip. I saw the figures today.

Buying a timber sale? Well, you need to have money up front for a deposit. For federal timber, you need a bid deposit before you can bid, in cash, and then if you get the sale, you must pay or provide bonding for 25% of the value of that sale. Then you have to pay in advance for what you are going to log, and a performance bond for the standing timber.

Should you decide not to log the sale you bought, you are liable for damages--the sale is resold and if the bid is lower than your bid, you pay the difference.
You are also liable for the clean up work that isn't done.
I don't know about Pennsylvania sales, only sales on federal ground.
Learn how from somebody who knows how. And now is not a good time. There are some small sales sold elsewhere. There are also Stewardship sales in which you would do "restoration" work in exchange for the timber. But those still require an initial outlay of deposits.

Bidding can be ferocious when the market is good. Often, in oral auctions, an established mill will "make the newcomer pay" and bid them up only to leave them with a very high priced sale.

Equipment is going cheaply at the auction, and there's a reason for that. Workman's comp insurance is not going down.

My job--I'm a cheaply educated forester, seems pretty darn good right now. And here's something else to think about. During the 1980s the loggers made more salary than we did. Their wages stagnated, ours didn't and we now get paid more. I'm talking crew wages.

 

[056kid]

guys that have been chunkin in the $ for decades until lately. Times are terrible. The WRONG time for someone with no experience and(i dont know what you have) no equiptment.

And you dont even know how a logger makes his money??

I think you should wait on the logging...

 

[TheLumberJack]

guys that have been chunkin in the $ for decades until lately. Times are terrible. The WRONG time for someone with no experience and(i dont know what you have) no equiptment.

And you dont even know how a logger makes his money??

I think you should wait on the logging...

I am. I came here to play dumb and learn...looks like I've learned don't do it....more than anything really interested in hearing kind of 'day in the life' tidbits of logging companies....no big deal

thanks all!

 

[sILlogger]

the moral of the story right now is that there are alot of guys that haven't worked in 6 months and there is no positive outlook for the future.

if you can live on working your butt off 6 months out of the year in the elements then maybe logging is for you. but you aren't gonna learn it over night, and the only way to learn is to do it, get knocked down, get back up again and try it again. find somebody to take you under their wing. listen and watch everything they do!! if they can teach you something in 6 months that it took them 15 years to learn you better listen, it will save your life. I've found that logging isn't about the physical cutting of the trees, it is about the little tricks that make you more efficient and get more done.

it took me a while to figure it out, but i can slow down, do better work, be less tired, and get more accomplished than if i just go cut like a banshee.

 

[371groundie]

arborism is a service business, you make your money charging a client for your services.

logging, money is in the wood. you have to be able to take a tree a squeeze every dollar out of it. bust your balls to get wood to the mill. the mill pays you. now comes the fun part. you pay the trucker, and the landowner, and the skidder payment, and the fuel bill, and the insurance, and replace the saw you ferked up, and the tire that popped on the skidder. now you have to live off the three cents that are left til you can get another load out.

thats a one man show with a cable skidder. you get into mechanical harvesting and its the same but the numbers are bigger. my grandfather always said "cut more wood, make more money, give more money to the government." you can produce more wood mechanically harvesting, but initial investment is bigger, repairs, fuel all bigger.

another wise old man told me that there are two kinds of logger, ones that make payments, and ones that make repairs. you can run old equipment thats paid off and have to fix it, or you can run brand new machines and have to make payments every month.

now, remember you are a link in a chain. things upstream and down stream affect you. you have to have wood to cut. that may mean working for a forester who takes care of it, that may mean bidding against other loggers for standing timber. you have to bid high enough to win, but low enough you can still make a profit. now you have to sell that wood. is there a market for that wood? if there is you know every other logger is sellin wood there to, if theres not, why did you bid on that kind of wood?

due to the economy affecting building starts and the paper industry it is a very poor time to get in the logging business. nationwide. no exceptions. if i were you i would stay in the tree service business theres more money and more prestige. you are a tree service professional not a dirty old woods rat.
personally im tryin to go the other direction. i was a logger, now trying to get into the tree service business.

 

[tlandrum]

hers a day in my logging life (today) first fuel pick-up $45,fuel log truck $250,get offroad fuel for the day $150,get engine oil $40, get trans fluid and hydro oil $100, bar oil and saw gas $55. ok now that i am 640 bucks in the hole i can head to the job.

at job ,fuel skidder, loader and dozer. add oils as needed,try to start skidder , wont start. pull starter tear apart clean and put back in (2 hrs wasted). finally fire up skidder . head into woods find that 30 yellow pine have been uprooted and are laying all over my logging roads. spend 2 hrs getting trees limbed, skidded, bucked up and un fortunately loaded. yellow pine cant be given away around here so i had to load them up and take them home to saw on the bandmill. i wanted to leave them standing so that i did not have to mess with them but weather happens. now that the pine are gone and roads are fixed i can skid logs. by now its 1:00 i have about 15 hardwood logs on ground ready to skid head in to get 1st turn and chain braks and rolls off front tire in tight turn. spend 2 hrs trying to get muddy chains out of woods ,cleaned and put back on skidder . get back in woods hook onto 5 logs hit winch cable pulls out of winch. get cable out of woods put back on winch weld eyelet back in ready to log again.

quiting time, and no money made at all, went 1000 bucks plus in hole.

days over , ,, well until the land owners wife calls you to say they are not happy becouse the wood that i hauled away for them ( yellow pine) is worthless and they did not get money for them.i only hauled it away so that the paralized from the waist down husband would not have to pay some one to clean it up later. ... my bad.... i should have pushed it up into windrows and went on about my day...... sorry for trying to help out.....

now she says we need to clean up some of our brush thats close to the house. the deal was that i would log the job for them and the brush that was left close to the house would be piled up to burn by a grunt that they would pay out of there end.. my job was to supply the guy and they would pay him. they did not like how long it took the guy to pile the brush and fired him. my end of the deal is done . if they want it done they can hire a new man, i am not a job bank.

now,we have been gone from this job for 6 weeks since i cut off two of my fingers working on the knuckle boom,and she says my log truck is messing up her road. the drive has pot holes all up and down it , now, from the rain in the last month. but i have not been there driving on it ,remember ,fingers cut off,went to marking timber and boundry for a while until i healed. so ,no its not my truck that done it and if i fix it , you will pay for it..... up front so i dont get stuck with the bill.

long story short,timber prices are down, weather is bad and they want to blame me for the stock market crash....


do you really want to be a logger???????? i can set you right up with everything you need for a heck of a deal. then you can tell people your day in the life story of being a logger.........

 

[spankrz]

Honestly??? Go back to school, get a degree in forestry.

I used to be gainfully employed.

Now I am self employed...own my own mill and log too.

Go back to school.

What are you interested in??? What do you want to do and how do you plan to do it??? Decide this while going to school.

Not impossible to get into, just hard to make a go of it.

thats what my dad did, get a degree in forestry. hes got a manager job at a stihl distributor now.

 

[TreePointer]

Wexford, PA? Allegheny County is one of the oldest in the country. Forget forestry, yinz all should get into some type of healthcare/geriatrics. Or go up the road to work for Westinghouse n'at!

:hmm3grin2orange:

 

[FIRESMOKE]

I"ll try to be a liitle more positive. I have not been a "logger" for a few years but some of my friends are and I still keep in touch with some of my contacts.
It is a lot of work for really no return right now. But it was the most enjoyable thing I have ever done that I could call a job. State forest depts. are a good place to find timber to bid on, but you will need a place to sell it first. Start checking into local sawmills and see what they are buying. Find different mills that buy different species , grades and in different locals to help with hauling costs. When I started on my own I would sub contract to mills that bought there own timber and needed someone to harvest it, this takes away some of the fear of over buying and underselling untill your more comfortable in the $ side of things. Take your time be patient and do not expect to get rich over night. The more time you spend planning the better off you,ll be in the long run. GOOD LUCK!:greenchainsaw::greenchainsaw:

 

[TheLumberJack]

thanks for all the great advice fellas...learning a lot and that was my initial goal

 

[thejdman04]

Depends on your area. "logging" around here doesnt really exist in the traditional sense. woods are cut down when they want to build a subdivision or mall. Then either you hopefully hear about this happening, or you advertise and hope the developer calls you to do the land clearing. Depending on the timber and lot, youe ither pay to do it (if there are lots of good oaks) or they pay you so much to clear it. Then you take the logs to the mill and get paid. Around here log prices are THROUGH THE ROOF. Not many housing projects, etc going on right now with the economy not much land being cleared=high prices. Around here we really dont have forests that get cut and replanted for timber use.