Sorting wood from multiple fallers

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bitzer

bitzer

******** Timber Expert
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Here is the scenario- My skidder op is back full time on Monday after a several month hiatus. I've been skidding all the wood and cutting some in the mean time. Icepick has been cutting a couple days a week and will continue to. Whats a good way to keep our wood separate from the woods to the landing? When I'm picking up the wood I know the approximate bf and cords I'm bringing out, but my operator really has no clue as of yet. Just not enough seat time. I'm thinking of flagging off cutting corridors and then having the operator separate the piles on the landing. What is typically done to keep a fallers wood separate if they are getting paid by volume? Any suggestions would be helpful. Well, other than to go **** myself.
 
The stud mill used to make us mark the butt of the tree with a lumber crayon. Had to put our initials, date, & tree #. Something like this.
AO
12/6/13
77
When the saw boss would give us a "pep talk" about upping production, I'd tell him "sorry, I'm too busy doing inventory to cut more logs".
That was a little overkill if you ask me. I think what Clint, and Bob said would suffice.

Andy
 
you're bucking for a forwarder, you'd have to scale so many logs on the stump, plus the auditing. Its silly to me, you know who is cutting what day in and day out, and what their other values are to the company, so day wage them accordingly. Less time marking and measuring and more time falling and they can make more money than if they were scaling. Daywaging, fairly.
 
I agree with hammer, I'm guessing you would be scaling the logs in the separate piles not on the stump though(that's a PITA if they're random length)? You would have 2 piles for each cutter? pulp and logs? Seems like alot of messing around. I worked for weekly pay cutting before and it worked out well.
 
I've sawed for hourly pay on a short wood job with other cutters. The boss knows what your worth anyhow and it made the decks and trucking a lot simpler.

Otherwise is it feasible to assign units or blocks to each faller? Or one side of the road is yours one side is mine?
 
It's easier for us due to we sell in tree length, so marking takes like an extra second. Someone might ask, "Why mark your logs at all?" Well, if you and another cutter are cutting day rates nd you are running through 9 tanks er so and the other cutter is running 4 tanks....and you are the only one that knows it....that will make you explode eventually...take my word for it! Every crew I have ever worked for, I have out produced who ever I was working with. It gets ridiculous really, people would try and claim pieces of my cut. I was forced to start marking my timber. On the landing is when your boss will see what has been going on. When 3/4 of the logs have your mark....questions will be asked.
 
Unless its' day wage, it's date or scale and initials on the butt, and a small snipe on the butt for poles. Usually it's day wage, scale here is to iffy when the sheets come back and a lot of the "newer" saw boss's don't really understand scale it seems now days. They just know mill sheets and day book tallies don't match. They also don't want to mess with it. Seems the only ones who do much complaining about the crayon are the ones who don't like being checked up on. Takes all of about 15 seconds to handle that. Ya I know time adds up but that time adds up to maybe two trees a day. If two trees is a big deal then you need another job. Just remember the mill will never scale in your favor or even at a wash. Heck we got one guy around here that wants to pay or grade ablility by fuel usage, he's pretty lonely.

If he's a less experienced operator, make it real simple for him. He'll have enough going on already. BUT be sure that everyone agrees before it gets started.



Owl
 
Ya probably pay ol' ice pick 7.25 an hour and be done with it:laugh:

Isn't it just you two doing the cutting? I'll bet you know pretty much what you did in any given day
 
With two processors in the woods, we sometimes keep separate piles, but sometimes pay is hourly base plus so much each cord, depending on the job. Small wood around here. It sometimes gets fuzzy- so I can see where a good system might be nice, if it can be done without hiring a manager for it.
 
The better fallers will (do) initial their logs some times just because they are proud of them and doin' a great job, the ones that won't are well the other guys.
 
DavdH said:
The better fallers will (do) initial their logs some times just because they are proud of them and doin' a great job, the ones that won't are well the other guys.
Click to expand...

I wish we had stuff large enough to initial :) The run we are in now is about 15 trees makes a cord of wood.
 
gives me more to think about, but its not only the fallers time, its the auditing and paperwork. I already know whose stumps are whose 98 of 100 times.
 
On Monday I flagged the area Icepick had cut and I may end up doing it that way. Took me about 10 minutes and I had the skidder op pick up all his wood first. Then I was able to count logs and scale up the pulp pile. I've got log counts down to a science almost. I can figure logs/load against the scale within a few hundred feet usually. If I had a cutter working for me on a full time basis I may consider day waging him, but then again it kind of limits his potential earnings cutting volume. Another issue is I can only pay out when the wood gets hauled. Logs are picked up regularly enough or I can take a draw on the pile and I usually get a check every week. Sometimes the pulp/firewood sits on the landing for several weeks though due to lack of truckers. Most truckers in the area are chasing processor crews and don't have a lot of time for my putsy couple of pulp loads a month. So the pay is kind of split up. I really have to scale the wood on the landing anyway to figure out what I've got and by now I'm pretty close every time. Icepick and I also count our logs and trees in the woods with tally counters. I've got mine on my wedge belt suspenders and I did that to up my own production when I was cutting/skidding alone. Having no competition I kind of had to create a way to out do myself in order to up production otherwise it would get kind of stale after a while. I like knowing how many trees I've cut or need to cut, how many logs per tree, and it also gave me a good idea of what I needed to pick up with the forwarder. Anyway its a pretty good all around check and balance system. I don't really want Icepick or any future cutters to waste their time as well as the forwarder operator. We are all out there to make money. If anyone has time to putz around and hang flagging at this point its me. Of course there is a lot of trust with all parties involved and I know I've got some pretty good guys. I think they trust me as well and I'd like to keep it that way. I want to make sure everyone is getting paid and happy (or at least satisfied) with how things are working out. Like everyone knows who has done any kind of logging it seems like you just cut/skidded a **** ton of wood and they hand you a stack of nickels at the end of the day for it.
 

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