# Just A Curious Question!



## ChainsawmanXX (Dec 9, 2010)

Whats the worst/best you have been screwed over selling logs? Or buying standing timber for that matter lol


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## 371groundie (Dec 10, 2010)

the log truck left my landing full. normally a full load runs around 5000bdft. 

when the check and the scale slip came in the mail it was 2500bdft. the mill blamed the trucker, the trucker blamed the mill, i got no help from either place. 

i dont use that trucker anymore. i still have to send wood to that mill as they take low grade logs and i make more money there than i do for pulpwood. but the trucker doesnt leave wood to be scaled later he puts a log down, and it gets scaled right then. and he doesnt leave until he has the paperwork in hand and agrees with the numbers.

i think the previous trucker dropped the load and left, then somone piled wood ontop of it before it was scaled. no way to tell where one load began and the next ended.


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## ryan_marine (Dec 12, 2010)

I didn't get screwed but I had a mill tell me that one of the ash logs I sent them was rejected for being to big. They did offer for me to leave it there for free. I called up a buddy that works at a veneer mill. His boss bought it at the mill and picked it up there. Never did buisness with that mill again. I still hear from my other mills I deal with. They think that it is funny. Because I offered to split the log for them.

Ray


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## Terry L (Dec 14, 2010)

Many years ago a self-loader picked up a load where we were logging. I knew the trucker well, saw the load go to the mill, with probably 4200 board feet. The trucker counted 38 logs. The scale ticket came back with 13 logs, and around 1800 feet. What happened? I did a lot of investigation. Facts: that day it rained, hailed, blew and there was thunder and lightning, and there was a bunch of students visiting the log scaling yard. Conclusion: for some reason, the electronic data collector (Made by HP) did not send all the data. Another scaler said he had seen that before, he had to punch send, or print, several times to ship all the data. The log buyer agreed to pay us for that load based on the average for that job. Don't assume your trucker ripped you off.


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## Gypo Logger (Dec 14, 2010)

Barring an honest mistake, some mills and especially second party log buyers, including some log truckers can smell an inexperienced logger a mile away.
The biggest giveaway is when the logger bucked to log length paying little or no attention to grade or scale.
We all got screwed when we first got into the business, but often bought the timber cheaper in the first place because we weren't knowledgeable about grade or scale.
John


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## Gypo Logger (Dec 16, 2010)

I'm surprised this thread didn't take off better than it did.
Other than not knowing how to cut for scale and grade, the biggest mistake a logger can make which is mostly occurs on the landing is to not sort.
Veneer, goes into the veneer pile, sawlogs go in another pile and marginal firewood logs (pulp) should not be included unless specified.
All logs should be bucked square and clean to exact lengths with no branch nubs sticking out.
Any mistakes in this regard shows the log buyer that the logger has limited experience and most will take advantage because the logs may have been severely down graded due to incorrect bucking, grading and sorting.
John


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## ryan_marine (Dec 18, 2010)

Best I have ever done is right now. I have a couple of guys buying all of my aspen and cotton wood to carve stuff out of. I am getting paid double what I could make selling else where.

Ray


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## Gypo Logger (Dec 18, 2010)

ryan_marine said:


> Best I have ever done is right now. I have a couple of guys buying all of my aspen and cotton wood to carve stuff out of. I am getting paid double what I could make selling else where.
> 
> Ray



Those little niche markets are great if you can sell some volume, however, I found myself talking about it more with the buyer than actually producing it, but thats always part of the fun.
John


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## Thorcw (Dec 24, 2010)

Were can a person find out the differences in grade logs? Anyone have any pics?


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## buzz sawyer (Dec 24, 2010)

Worst thing that happened to me was a time my father helped rebuild a circular sawmill for a friend. We then cleared a hillside for a cemetery and the idea was his friend would saw the wood and we would share the lumber. The friend wound up selling the logs for next to nothing and I think I got about $20 out of it.


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## joesawer (Dec 24, 2010)

Thorcw said:


> Were can a person find out the differences in grade logs? Anyone have any pics?



And so it begins....
It will take more than pics.


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## 371groundie (Dec 25, 2010)

log grades vary from mill to mill. names are different some use names, some use numbers, some use letter. 

best to learn from the buyer your selling logs too.


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## ChainsawmanXX (Jan 12, 2011)

Yukonsawman said:


> Those little niche markets are great if you can sell some volume, however, I found myself talking about it more with the buyer than actually producing it, but thats always part of the fun.
> John


 
You got that one right! Burl, Weird shaped trees. The biggest problem is selling them.. or at least where to sell them too? Ebay? engineers? Carpenters? That would be my only guess? 

But it seems like every logger has a story about getting screwed over real bad? maybe its just the fact that us loggers are to giving? haha.


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## horseloger (Jan 20, 2011)

The best one I ever seen was the time that I was sitting in a log yard early one morning waiting on them to open, I had driven through the night and was sleeping over the steering wheel when I was awaken by the sound of a truck loading logs! I looked all over the yard form inside the truck and couldn't see anyone in the yard and it was still too early for the crew to be there so I got out of the truck and walk around a little bit! Over on the other side of the yard I seen a truck reaching over the fence and picking logs out of the yard and placing them on the truck. I took down the name on the side of the truck with out the driver seeing me and told the yard foremen what I had seen the night before.He asked me to wait around till this guy came in for he was a local and wanted me to Identify him. Well sure enough he pulled in around noon and started unloading logs the yard foremen called the cops and we went over to see what the logs look like and sure enough there was signs of tag stickers in the log ! The driver went too jail and I had top dollar every time I sold to these folks until they sold out too a bigger operation!


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## tntreedude (Feb 28, 2011)

*pecan log*

i am the tree business and am cleaning up a huge southern pecan tree that uprooted in a storm. its at least five ft across and 35 ft till the first limb. any idea what it is worth? i dont deal in these types of things, but i hate to cut it up into fire wood.


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## horseloger (Feb 28, 2011)

By the sound of things you have a pretty nice tree there if you can find a local bandsaw mill in the area that is willing to come to your site and cut the log up that would be the thing to do. You can find them by contacting some of the major bandsaw company's on here and they have list of people that do custom cutting in your area! Or you can buy a chainsaw mill and do it your self there is plenty of good ideas on how to do this in the milling thread on this site! I would cut as large a slab as I could and you can advertise on craigslist local news paper and ebay to sell your slabs! Would be glad to help you all I can as I am sure alot of other people will want to on here ! just PM me and I will do what I can.


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## tlandrum (Mar 1, 2011)

2 winters ago i was doing a steep mountain side job. it was a pain in the a$$ to say the least. i had to take up a mile of old train track to get to the landing site before i could even start the job of logging this mountain side. on the adjoining property next to my landing at the foot of the mountain the owner(brother of this land owner) had told the guy i was logging for that we could clear cut the bottom along the river to his field and keep all the money if we built him a good rd to his barn with my dozer. well the guy we were logging for relayed it to me as it being the same 60/40 deal as i had with him . so when i was done clearing the river bottom he asked me to build a rd and he would pay me to do it. he pocketed the 7500 worth of log money and wanted to pay me 1000 to build a rd. this was all brought to light after i told him to take his timber and shove it up his ..... i logged his tract of timber for about 3 weeks and when the loads were not adding up i checked into it. the mill that he wanted to send the logs to was crooked to begin with and i warned him about it up front. well his neighbor was the main truck driver for the mill. he wanted his neighbor to haul the logs so he would have work. i agreed to it as long as the land owner coverd any cost over what it would have cost me to haul it myself. that did not happen. when i got my check i was charged for hauling the logs and pulpwood out of the job. the truck would come to my site and pick up a load of pulp and drive it 30 miles farther up the rd and unload then stop back at my site to load for the trip home. truck made one round trip but i got charged for 2 seperate trips. the full amount was taken out of my end of the check. which was not the agreement. i also scaled a log one day with the driver as the witness that had 504bdft in it and the biggest on the scale ticket was 355. i guess my log had fallen off the truck on the way to the mill. i sent one load of tie logs that had 4500ft and paid 1050 bucks the next day i sent a load of butt cut white oaks as prime logs that should have paid about 4000 bucks and i got 1100 out of it. i was not really nice to the land owner or the mill as i pulled out of the job. i took my 977l track loader and cut that rd in half about every 50ft on the way out of the jobsite. i spent about 7500 on getting that site prepped and rds built to log the site and got about 700 back out of it. that job just about sunk me that year.


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