Contract fellerbuncher southeast USA

[Jhenderson]

All the work here is forest management, not pure logging. People try mechanization occasionally but most landowners and foresters aren't happy with the end result. Far too much residual damage.

 

[Skeans]

All the work here is forest management, not pure logging. People try mechanization occasionally but most landowners and foresters aren't happy with the end result. Far too much residual damage.

Doing a thin typically is much easier and less damage is done with a machine. What area are you at?

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[bitzer]

Your average hardwood tree is 1,000bf? Where is that location? A good job around here is 250.

I'm messing with ya! There used to be a guy on here from New Hampshire that didn't believe we had 1000 bf plus oak here until I showed him. Average is probably 250bf. Better jobs in the 3-400bf range. Exceptional jobs will average 6-700bf. The biggest tree I've ever cut was a 2500bf red oak. I've had 2000bf hard maple too. I'm in SE WI. I've had a few jobs that averaged better then 1000bf per tree.

 

[Jhenderson]

Doing a thin typically is much easier and less damage is done with a machine. What area are you at?

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Southern New England. Cut to length has been tried with very limited success. Our hardwood is just too rough. It takes a lot out of a head and machine dealing with 6-8 in black or white oak limbs. What we've seen here is feller buncher and grapple skidder. Big hardwood or softwood needs to be trimmed before skidding. Hardwood tops tear up leave trees and long softwoods need to be trimmed and cut into manageable lengths. That's not in the cards for an outfit making payments on big iron. Skidding whole trees makes for larger landings and mountains of debris compared to trimmed and topped in woods. You are correct in the statement that a feller buncher can do a better job of initial placement. It's just what goes along with paying for that kind of equipment that most landowners object to. You need to understand virtually all forest land here is privately held. A good portion of that has been in the same families for generations. Aesthetics play as big a part as silviculture . There is little or no commercial forest.

 

[Skeans]

Southern New England. Cut to length has been tried with very limited success. Our hardwood is just too rough. It takes a lot out of a head and machine dealing with 6-8 in black or white oak limbs. What we've seen here is feller buncher and grapple skidder. Big hardwood or softwood needs to be trimmed before skidding. Hardwood tops tear up leave trees and long softwoods need to be trimmed and cut into manageable lengths. That's not in the cards for an outfit making payments on big iron. Skidding whole trees makes for larger landings and mountains of debris compared to trimmed and topped in woods. You are correct in the statement that a feller buncher can do a better job of initial placement. It's just what goes along with paying for that kind of equipment that most landowners object to. You need to understand virtually all forest land here is privately held. A good portion of that has been in the same families for generations. Aesthetics play as big a part as silviculture . There is little or no commercial forest.

Ok I can tell you for a fact there's CTL out where you are, normally a fixed head such as a fabtek or rolly they were designed for that kind of wood. Skidding can be done long or short with this style of head trust me I do it, one day I can be cutting as short as 16's down to 2" up to 40's to a 5" top the difference will be how the trails are set up.

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[Jhenderson]

Let's begin with the op asked about feller buncher, not processor, which comes at 3 times the expense. I've seen 3 Rolly heads tried around here in the last 5 years. In every case they were operators from north of here come down to make a killing. They all went home poorer for the experience. One local fellow was having a terrible time. The factory sent an instructor to help. After 2 hrs he told the owner you'll never make money in this wood. He sent the machine back before it got repossessed.

 

[Skeans]

Let's begin with the op asked about feller buncher, not processor, which comes at 3 times the expense. I've seen 3 Rolly heads tried around here in the last 5 years. In every case they were operators from north of here come down to make a killing. They all went home poorer for the experience. One local fellow was having a terrible time. The factory sent an instructor to help. After 2 hrs he told the owner you'll never make money in this wood. He sent the machine back before it got repossessed.

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...&set=o.152245188280482&source=48&__tn__=EHH-R
Just for you, I know they are run in New York as well because we've been looking at a few timberpro 725's with rolly's there as well some 753's set up with both.

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[Jhenderson]

A little information for you. 1st, Facebook does me no good. I find it vile and will have nothing to do with it. 2nd, upstate or western New York has about as much in common, woods wise, with Southern Nwe England as Montana has with Eastern Oregon. One of the largest hardwood mills in the area had a crew go mechanized with a feller buncher and a harvester. They ended up folding their tent because their employees got tired of New York motels. That's where they had to go to buy wood that was fit for their equipment. You can post all you want about elsewhere, but I've got 30+ years in the woods here. I know the wood and I've seen people who thought they knew, come and go. Always lighter in the wallet.

 

[northmanlogging]

funny thing montana has a great deal in common with eastern oregon, High plains, lodge pole pine, some ponderosa, inland Doug Fir, bunch a sheep shaggers in both of em

Technically isn't New York part of new England? Being one of the original 13 states/colonies

 

[Skeans]

A little information for you. 1st, Facebook does me no good. I find it vile and will have nothing to do with it. 2nd, upstate or western New York has about as much in common, woods wise, with Southern Nwe England as Montana has with Eastern Oregon. One of the largest hardwood mills in the area had a crew go mechanized with a feller buncher and a harvester. They ended up folding their tent because their employees got tired of New York motels. That's where they had to go to buy wood that was fit for their equipment. You can post all you want about elsewhere, but I've got 30+ years in the woods here. I know the wood and I've seen people who thought they knew, come and go. Always lighter in the wallet.

That's a company that runs in Vermont with a fixed like I was talking about, not much different between Montana and Eastern Oregon to be honest. Both are fuel reduction based logging anymore. We have spent time in the New England area looking at CTL operations in the past before it was popular on the west coast to get some ideas I think you should look around.

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[northmanlogging]

A little information for you. 1st, Facebook does me no good. I find it vile and will have nothing to do with it. 2nd, upstate or western New York has about as much in common, woods wise, with Southern Nwe England as Montana has with Eastern Oregon. One of the largest hardwood mills in the area had a crew go mechanized with a feller buncher and a harvester. They ended up folding their tent because their employees got tired of New York motels. That's where they had to go to buy wood that was fit for their equipment. You can post all you want about elsewhere, but I've got 30+ years in the woods here. I know the wood and I've seen people who thought they knew, come and go. Always lighter in the wallet.

Before this degrades into a snarling circle of drool and fangs...

I'm sure you know what you are doing in the woods, but your way isn't necessarily the right way or the most efficient, just cause it works or doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it wont work for someone else. That being said, what exactly is it that you do in the woods anyway?

 

[Skeans]

Here's that company running a harvester in Vermont

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[Jhenderson]

Technically, you need remedial geography. N. E. Has five states, none of them being N. Y. But you did point out my error, that I was about to edit when the notification came in. I should have said western Oregon. Being from the east coast, every time I think of the ocean I think east. Much like many out west think Rhode Island is that long spit of sand off New York City. That would be Long Island if you're counting.
Ps. We've got a company down here from Vermont right now, doing a job I hand cut twenty years ago. They're a mechanized, long wood outfit. It appears they came down to show us how it's done. They paid twice as much as the second bid. Now ,I hear they've asked the landowner for a refund cause the wood isn't grading and scaling like they thought. So much for what works up there, works down here.

 

[Jhenderson]

Before this degrades into a snarling circle of drool and fangs...

I'm sure you know what you are doing in the woods, but your way isn't necessarily the right way or the most efficient, just cause it works or doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it wont work for someone else. That being said, what exactly is it that you do in the woods anyway?

I work alone cutting skidding with a small forwarder. About 300,000 bf and 500 cords of pulp a year. If you read all the pertinent posts you'll see I've watched others make the mistake so I didn't have to. Several have signed the paperwork for CTL . None have made the last payment. That is the final measure of success.

 

[northmanlogging]

to be fair, skipping right past geography, If yer gonna come in and start cutting long logs when the mills want short logs, then yer just a ******* idiot, or a crook going asking the LO to refund money they likely already spent.

Anyway, from what I've seen mechanization can be a money maker, if its applied correctly.

 

[Skeans]

to be fair, skipping right past geography, If yer gonna come in and start cutting long logs when the mills want short logs, then yer just a ****ing idiot, or a crook going asking the LO to refund money they likely already spent.

Anyway, from what I've seen mechanization can be a money maker, if its applied correctly.

I see a day where if stuff isn't too big you'll have to cut mechanical just like Maine or Michigan where everything is pretty much CTL especially in small wood it only makes sense.

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[Gologit]

I work alone cutting skidding with a small forwarder. About 300,000 bf and 500 cords of pulp a year. If you read all the pertinent posts you'll see I've watched others make the mistake so I didn't have to. Several have signed the paperwork for CTL . None have made the last payment. That is the final measure of success.

300,000 bf and 500 cords of pulp? Can you make a decent living on that?

 

[northmanlogging]

I work alone cutting skidding with a small forwarder. About 300,000 bf and 500 cords of pulp a year. If you read all the pertinent posts you'll see I've watched others make the mistake so I didn't have to. Several have signed the paperwork for CTL . None have made the last payment. That is the final measure of success.

Seems like we have more or less the same business plan, keep the equipment costs down and a bunch of hand labor, somewhere in many of my older posts I go off on big equipment and big payments... ad nauseum...

been several "discussions" about the need for 300 sized excavators/log loaders (though the more time I have in my little 120 the more I see the need for a bigger machine but don't tell anyone ok, just still can't justify a 300 class machine unless its processing big sticks)

Is it possible that some of these big ctl outfits you've seen come and go got bit by the recession, or the general flatness of timber prices of the last 15 years or so (though right now we're doing alright on the left coast)

 

[northmanlogging]

I see a day where if stuff isn't too big you'll have to cut mechanical just like Maine or Michigan where everything is pretty much CTL especially in small wood it only makes sense.

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Blasphemy...

though if yer planning on a bunch of pulp thins then ctl and processing is the way to go, hand working a load of hemlock pulp is just ignorantly stupid and pointless

 

[Jhenderson]

I see a day where if stuff isn't too big you'll have to cut mechanical just like Maine or Michigan where everything is pretty much CTL especially in small wood it only makes sense.

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Easier said than done. We can talk till we're blue in the face but there's no substitute for feet on the ground. With the photos you guys post I honestly don't think you know what crooked, ugly wood really looks like. I've said numerous times in this thread, the wood is too crooked and bony. It's won't allow a harvester a fair shake. Nobody, but nobody ever shows a video of any machine working crooked, limby, hardwood. Much like a firewood processor sales video. They brag about turning crooked logs into firewood, then show you phone poles going through the machine. Same with harvester promotional videos. The patch I'm working now is cutting about 6 cord of firewood and 3000bf of pine to the acre. I'll get about 2 and 1/2 cords of processor quality firewood. The rest is so crooked I have to peddle it to homeowners in 12 ft lengths. That's just the way the wood grows. Besides that 3000bf of pine I'll get 6 cords of pine pulp out of those same trees. Crooked or double, sometimes triple tops. You could do it with a harvester, but you'd go broke, just all the others before you.