Sandhill, I might be thinking out of the box, and my box might have a big hole in it. Since I dont even try to sell any wood, I am sure there are some logistics I am not considering. Buying logs by weight is not so far out of the box, at least not here. If you cut timber here, you sell it by weight, thats how all the yards buy it. So it wouldnt be that big a jump to expect a timber hauler to sell me wood by weight and throwing a few extra pennies on the ton would insure a steady supply. Paying for a large quantity of wood up front would pose a problem for just about anybody. Selling firewood by weight might be a hard barrier to crack since folks are used to the rick, facecord, cord methods of buying wood. Some folks would never see the value of paying for weight rather than scaled amount of wood. Those that do would beat your doors down. Over time others would come on board.
The mention of using a big truck and knuckle boom isnt the problem you think it is. For one thing, the knuckle boom only needs to be big enough to handle one pallet of splits, and it doesnt have to have 20ft of reach. All it needs to reach is long enough to get the back pallets on the rear of the truck and set those pallets beside the truck. Any of the foldup booms that sit behind the cab of a truck would probably work and they dont pose a height problem when working under power lines. Mount one behind the cab of a 1 ton truck that can haul 4-6 pallets at a time and deliver your wood. Pallets can be weighed as they are loaded by carrying them across the scales with a forklift. Just staple a weight ticket to each individual pallet. For someone wanting a truck load of wood, just weigh the truck after its loaded. For someone driving on the yard wanting their own wood, just weigh their truck before and after its loaded and use a fel to load.
Once wood is on the yard it does bring up some expensive problems. You have to have a loader to unload the trucks, since most loggers around here use big trailers and haul tree lengths, and you have to handle those tree lengths for processing. For a stationary processor, you can build conveyors to handle long trees, or you can buck the trees with a chainsaw to sizes your processor could handle, or you could set up a buck saw. Then you still have the problem of what to do with the splits. Could just let them pile up and worry about packaging when your not processing. Probably need a fel to load on a conveyor to feed the packfix. I would consider some sort of automation for the packfix so your not constantly having to get on and off the loader. And nothing wrong with stacking the pallets out in the weather to season, but I would still want a large shed to store dry wood under. Everything I have mentioned would cost a considerable amount of upfront investment, and I'm sure I hav'nt thought of everything. Not something I would be willing to do, but how I would want to do it if firewood was my business. Any amount of hand work would need to be minimized. You can pull levers and push buttons all day long, but picking up and carrying splits by hand will get old in a hurry.
I know a old guy, in his 70's, that processes wood year round. He uses a circle saw cord king. He does buy all his wood by weight. he uses a large knuckle boom to unload the trucks and load his processor. He runs the wood thru the processor and he has two smaller splitters at the end of his processor wedge, one each side of conveyor. two people pick the large splits off the conveyor and resplit them with the small splitters and throw the splits back on the conveyor. He uses large metal baskets to catch the splits as they fall off the conveyor. Those baskets he hauls down to a kiln, where they are dried. He then has bundle machines he bundles all the wood and packs in those large cardboard pallet boxes. He loads those boxes of packaged wood on tractor trailers and ships them all over the country. He also does local sells, specializing in 4ft fireplace wood. He has a special built processor that will do 4 way splits on 4 ft rounds. (builtrite I think) He does sort his truck loads to get the right size wood for the 4ft processor. He will also let you back your truck, or use his 1 ton dump, up under the conveyor and buy wood that way. All wood comes in and out over those scales. I am not sure how many people he employ's, I have only seen him, his resplitter operators, and a equipment operator, so I am guessing 4 or 5 people on the payroll. I have never asked him how much wood he sells but it would have to be 1000 cords or more a year. He has offered to sell me his business, but we have never talked about how much. Its 100 miles from where I live and I aint interested in driving that far everyday, or running a firewood business.
