cedar shake bolts

[da new feller]

i've got a friend that has some property with some nice old growth cedar laying around. we're toying with the idea of cutting it into shake bolts. the place i talked to about buying it really didn't want to give me much info other than they perferred somewhere around 20-25 rings per inch. i was hoping some here could shed some light on the subject or maybe point me in the direction of a website that had a video or diagram of how to cut it.

thank you, Jon ( thanks for the b-day emails, you guys are a riot, lol. ).

 

[Turkeyslayer]

This might help http://www.ehow.com/how_5793180_make-cedar-shakes.html

Good luck

 

[Dayto]

Its long ####ty work , you gotta make sure you buck DEAD square (18-24") you have to make sure its decent cedar clear as possible , knock the bark and old heart wood rot out , and make the bolts as squard as possible ... Iv done it lots out here on the westcoast vancouver island , we get salavage permits and get into first growth Snags and blow down patches (10+ Cedar across the stump) and its just ####ty tuff work , Helicoptors and slings are use out here...Much easier doing firewood.

Its funny in the 80's (was huge on the on the island there was shake float camps up and down the west coast , and the Shake rats were getting paid usually more then fallers were at the time)Shakers were some of the tuffest SOBS around , swinging a Mual /Blockin Axe the old block buster mauls were 15pnds .for 8 hours a day packin 2100's with 36-60' bars dealing with snags that the prevoius fallers left on a daily basis you gotta be either crazy are stupid to wanna get into blocking lol ..... Thats why i took the easy route and went to Falling.

 

[Humptulips]

Oh, give me a break. I cut many a shake block and it used to be a pretty good job. Set your own hours and work as hard or as little as you want. Nowadays though the mexicans have pretty well taken it over and it's mostly shingle blocks.

My advice to you is find a mill and talk to them, see what they want. There are some mills around Forks, Amanda Park, Humptulips and Hoquiam. Most of them are cutting shingle blocks which are 16 inches and a few cutting flatsaw and shake. Length is real critical on the shingles and most are ripped instead of split. Shakes and flatsaw are 23" to 26" and split but you can rip flatsaw. Price is way down now, not sure what it is but still a lot of money in it if you have the wood. Couple years ago blocks were up around a thousand a cord but I know they have dropped back.
Don't waste the cedar trying to make shake blocks if you are going to make a lot of spalts. Better off to make shingles. If you need a helicopter for fly out the mill can line you up.

This is very important!!!! You must have the proper permits. A cutting permit and a hauling permit. No one will touch your wood without those.

We used to use a frow and a mallet but that's not neccesary if you end up making all shingle blocks. Other then that you'll need besides a saw a splitting maul, wedges, peevee and if they are buryed which they usually are a hodad or pulaski and maybe a shovel.

Lot of shingle blocks get cut out of old stumps too so don't pass them up.
Grain count? They'll buy anything but it will have a bearing on the price.

 

[Humptulips]

OK,
I looked at that link Turkeyslayer provided and it won't help you much.
Single and shake blocks need to have a good face of vertical grain. That's what they cut off of for the shingles and shakes. They do not like to cut bastard shakes so you want them spilt to maximize the width of the grain side. When you go to a mill take a look at the blocks, You'll see what I mean.
They have to be trimmed up so the mill is only getting good wood, They'll cry if you send them rot or bark or buggy wood.
If you have a lot of sound but buggy wood there is a market for that too but you have to search for it and sometimes wait for it.
Generally speaking the bigger you make the blocks the better. One more thing I would price several mills beofre I committed.
Get yourself an Olympic Coast phone book and look under shingles in the Yellow pages. A number of mills listed. Should be able to get the phone book in the library.

 

[Turkeyslayer]

Yeah sorry, I was thinking you wanted to make shakes

 

[RPM]

A buddy and I use to get old B&W airphotos out of the gov't archives timed to when an area was logged (1940 - 60's) and look for the logs that they lost (gave up on) to excessive ground lead / poor deflection or just to damn big to lift (old high lead units) and that were mostly buried in the ground. You could still see them on the photos before the plantations came back. We would tie off of a road junction with a distance and bearing off of the photo and go look for the logs and found them most of the time. Usually the area had been shaked once or twice already so it was the mostly buried piece that we got. Nice and shady though as there was a 30+ yr old stand coming back (this is west coast of Vancouver Island so 2-3'/yr ave. height growth). Lots of digging and lewis winch work. We still managed to average a cord a day though and then we were subcontracting to the guy that had the salvage licence. Price then (1990-92) was arounf $1,000 / cord ... once it was sitting on the truck it was worth about $200 / cord to us. I cut mostly inthe winter so we were still making $20/hr gross less our saw costs and gas to get out there. Everything was flown by heli ... lots of running around on fly days from sling to sling. We had to carry a flash light to shine up through the canopy so the pilot could spot us and the slings.
It was hard and dirty work but fun too .... one of those jobs where really the only limiting factor on how much you made was how hard you wanted to work.

 

[da new feller]

Humptulips,
if you would, take a look at this attachment. am i understanding how these bolts are to be presented to the mill? my diagram is rough at best, but no bark and remove heart/rotten center. i wish there was more info on this somewhere on the web. i obliviously want to be efficient about this as to have little wasted product.


thank you to all who have responded.

Jon

 

[da new feller]

evidently my attachment was a fail. what else is new. i'll see if i can't get that on here.

Thanks, Jon

 

[Humptulips]

Hey there's really not much to it. You buck off a round and for shake just split from bark to heart. Trim the rot and knots and slab off any bark. You want fresh wood on all sides of the block. Split it up in blocks you can lift. It has to split straight. If it is eady, propeller grain or just plain knotty you will be better off making shingle blocks and mostly you rip them with the saw. If it is real coarse grain like you get on bastard growth the mill may want you to make flatsaw (24" shingle blocks). Not all mills cut this so again talk to the mill.
I cut a bunch of bastard growth cedar in the Silverdale area about 10 years ago and it all went flatsaw. Think I got $350/cord.

 

[Dayto]

Your lucky if the cedar is all ready to go , out here on the island the first few days were with a shovel digging ,digging, digging, Alotta guys figure theyve done Shake blockin , but unless you were in 10+ cedar , getting Hellied in and hellied out running from and setting sling, spending a day are 2 digging a nice log out , living on float camps loading B trains OFF ROAD Pacifics (P12 P14any one on the island can remember that) , I dont know about Washington .. But out here in a camp it was simple you dont produce you were on the plane going home .(No drive into camp )..this was no back yard week end shake block job this was the real deal... Check out old Pictures of Gordon River, Knight Inlet ,Thasis,Renfew, THE REAL DEAL WAS HARD WORK.

 

[Humptulips]

Never said it wasn't and still is hard work. Never had a job in the woods that wasn't but I made good money and was my own boss. I know there were shake rats that just worked enough to keep their cooler full but most made a good living.

I mainly just worked at it between logging jobs so probably the longest session I got on it was three months. As far as digging and bad wood you have to know when to walk away from a bad show. If I couldn't make decent money I tramped. You can usually look over a show and know if you can make money or not. Only once did I get fooled and I tramped after a week.

I will admit though you will have a sore arm after the first day of swinging a mallet after a lay off.

When the illegals started showing up it pretty much ruined it though. Beat the wages down to nothing. Can't make any money at it now. That and the fact that the woods not there. I wonder sometimes where they are getting it from. I know one guy told me they were buying a salvage sale that had been shook seven times before. Hard to imagine how there could be anything there but still the block trucks go by everyday. Geez, I did hate loading them.

 

[mike.t]

Hay I live in revelstoke bc Canada I have been at the shake blocking now 11 years all wilth wedge and axe I can buck and whatever else needs to be done if you need a experienced guy I am in like sin it's in my blood brother if u need a good guy that will work hard and make us lots of money I am the guy

 

[northmanlogging]

Been some time since shakes where being done much around here.

But Hump's got er nailed, get a permit, and get one for every thing. Mills won't even talk to you if they think your cutting without one.

Cedar theft was big business at one time and it caused the FS to crack down hard on it, not to mention the regular state patrol and sheriff.

As far as cutting it, about all I know is you absolutely have to cut the blocks straight and its an ass kicking long day to get a load, but worth every drop of sweat and creak in yer back. The good dad made a damn good living at it back in the early 90's, and the SOB can still out split me with a 4# axe.

 

[2dogs]

I think there are pics here on AS of some cedar stumps that were cut for blocks by some outlaws but I can't find them.
There were a lot of little mills around here that made redwood shakes. They left lots of bolts unsplit when the market swung down. I remember finding one back around 1969 or 1970 where the shake bolts were stacked 15' high when the mill owner just walked away.

 

[Humptulips]

Blocks or bolts?
To me and I think this is the consensus around here a bolt is the length of three shingle blocks. Before my time they used to cut cedar bolts and they were 4' long, 16" x 3. Once they arrived at the mill they were bucked to length for shingles.
There is no such thing as a bolt cut anymore. Everything is made into blocks. Blocks are the proper length to go right to the saws.
I know, nitpicky.

 

[2dogs]

I have never worked at a shingle mill or cut anything that was to be made into shakes/shingles so my use of the words in question is strictly from an amateur point of view. Sorry I didn't mean to confuse the issue. Thanks for the correction.