Enough

[jrcat]

I'd rather fight mud, wasps, and back leaning snags, then go to work on monday... but it pays the bills for now, with a little luck the logging will pick up and I can quit my day job, for good this time

I know what you mean. My old boss called this morning, he got his tree service back up and running. He wanted to know if I would come back and turn wrenches and drive chip truck O_O. I politely said that I am doing fine with what I have going right now and I am not interested in doing tree service work or turning wrenches or driving truck.

 

[RandyMac]

I remember the moment I realized I had enough, it wasn't entirely my choice. I found that after a major repair, I could no longer move as fast as I needed to, so I went to part-time, flatground hazard trees.

 

[jrcat]

No major repairs yet here "knock on wood". I hope to never have too.

 

[northmanlogging]

Problem is the mechanics are getting really good so down time is at a minimum, but the parts cost a whole lot more, and the Mechanics are charging like 2000 an hour...

Not sure I can even afford another visit... (Hel I couldn't even begin to pay the last one)

 

[bitzer]

Quitting has never really crossed my mind. I can't work for another man, it's not in my DNA. I do not possess the gene that makes a man "Just happy to have a job". I'd rather live in dumpsters than punch a time clock. A 9-5 work-a-day job sucks away my will to live, even one working in the woods.
So, God willing, my business will expand a bit. Brother has a disc surgery to get done, then he can buy the machine and join me. I have way more wood than I can cut, and I'm not even searching for it. It comes to me more and more now.
The trick will be getting bigger without getting too big. I don't have a desire to be so big that I have to spend my days doing everything BUT logging.

So are you guys getting a forwarder along with the harvester? Or are you getting a buncher to go along with the grapple skidder? I've heard that the dangle heads put out a #### ton of wood compared to a fixed head. For doing a lot of pulp and small sawtimber cut to length with a forwarder sounds about as good as it gets.

 

[mitch95100]

I just want an oil well...

Sent from me to you using my fingers

 

[Oldtimer]

So are you guys getting a forwarder along with the harvester? Or are you getting a buncher to go along with the grapple skidder? I've heard that the dangle heads put out a #### ton of wood compared to a fixed head. For doing a lot of pulp and small sawtimber cut to length with a forwarder sounds about as good as it gets.

Hope to see him buy a tracked feller with a 22" hotsaw. A harvester would be awesome, but they are quite expensive and require the forwarder.
We have decent sized wood as a rule, not west coast huge, not south-east poles. Pine averages 18" - 30", and hardwood sawlogs are usually 16" - 26". Pulpwood goes as small as 4", but usually we leave anything that isn't 12" or bigger. I know opinions vary, but my feeling is that even a pulpwood grade tree that is 6" has a huge head start and will gain value just like a sawlog grade tree. The way mechanized crews mow all the understory and everything but the best young sawlog grade trees doesn't seem wise to me...so I don't think I will ever go into full scale chipping. We may chip the larger tops and whatever pulp can't be sold due to quotas.

 

[jrcat]

The company I used to work for chipped for Globe Metalurgical. It was a 3" by 3" by 1" chip ...a massive chip by most standards. We feed that chipper (morbark model 30 NCL with a 2 knife disc) with tsi wood and culls along with poplar and numerous other garbage wood we could get...even willow. At any rate that chipper could make 1000 ton a week with no sweat. We had a deere 653 tracked bucnher with an 18" hot saw and a 450c jack grapple skidder that made 50% of that wood. The remaining 50% came from various loggers as we paid by the ton and that paid more than a load of fire wood poles did. That market is now gone as globe chips in house now and brings wood in on rail car.

I was curious what market you have for pulp/chip wood where you are?

 

[roberte]

Problem is the mechanics are getting really good so down time is at a minimum, but the parts cost a whole lot more, and the Mechanics are charging like 2000 an hour...

Not sure I can even afford another visit... (Hel I couldn't even begin to pay the last one)

My major repair in 2010, right ARM, was over $10,000.00 a screw, 10 of them

 

[Oldtimer]

I was curious what market you have for pulp/chip wood where you are?

There's a fairly reliable market for both: 3 power plants, a few pellet plants, several chipper plants that feed several pulp mills, and firewood is always a hot seller.

 

[jnl502]

Sorry to hear about your down sizeing. Hope things are better now though and work is good. Having to throw the towel in is a very hard thing to do. After my wreck in September 19,2003 I had plans of getting back to work. It never happened. I came home 5 weeks later and still had to learn to walk again and a $1.2 million hospital bill.
Anyway hope you all do well in your endevers and be safe
jnl