Do loggers really cut "200 trees/day"?

[Westboastfaller]

It is like a marathon. You get used to holding the same pace through each tank all day.

 

[Huskybill]

There was a logger here from vt who cut 100 trees a day. He had a 750 skidded one of the biggest in ct. this was decades ago.

 

[slowp]

It is like a marathon. You get used to holding the same pace through each tank all day.

This is true, 'cept for the tank part, of a lot of forestry work.

 

[Dave1960_Gorge]

Yea, seems high. Back in 1987 I had a job in Portland for a tree service run by an old logger; crew I was on just cleared lots, he had a pruning crew as well. Learned to climb with spikes and run a skidder. Lucky I didn't get killed -- no company policy about PPE or much training at all. Three or four guys could clear a 1/4 acre lot and leave everything chipped, chip piles bladed, and a log deck by the road in a day (we had better do it in a day -- boss liked to scream and yell if he thought we were slacking). Probably 15 trees with logs worth putting on the log deck for milling or firewood on average; maybe a few leave trees in the lot corners.

Every branch, top, windfall, smaller tree and shrub was run through the chipper by hand. The chipper was "custom" as in redneck build: blades in your face type (which the boss would touch up with a grinder without taking them off), no safety features, a 500 cui gas engine, straight pipes 6 ft. high with a bend at the top (handy for warming your wet cloves), and huge aircraft tires for off-road. Sounded like a stock car when you fired it up. Sometimes you had to duck out of the way of a pencil stub like piece that shot back at you. If it choked on too much brush and you didn't hit the clutch lever in time, there was hell to pay for the melted belts (but he wanted us to work faster?!). We sometimes caught air with it driving down the road (kind of on purpose).

Climbing was to haul the wire rope from the big drum winch up a tree if it had a bad lean- boss didn't think we needed a lighter synthetic rope -- what are you *******? The winch was so powerful you only had to go up around 20 ft., but the cable got heavy fast. Made the mistake of sliding down the line one time instead of down climbing on spurs; pants shredded to my crotch, lucky I kept the family jewels.

There was that job on the Tualatin Golf Course where we almost dumped a 4 ft. fir on a green -- because we had the cable too low. So we were supposed to climb 60 ft. with it? I still remember how the carrot shaped tree (lots of water and fertilizer) just kind of shivered and wouldn't go over, with the wheels of the skidder starting to lift. Could have used a logging jack! Nasty timber (three loads) with knots up to a foot in diameter all got sold for low grade studs. Years later I actually did put a wire rope logging cable that high in a big pine with a bad split -- but first I rigged a block and had my groundie pull it up with a poly rope (I helped from up top as well).

 

[Huntaholic]

Theres all different types of logging. Around here nobody has ever heard of, let alone seen or used a highline operation. If I was on ground decent enough to run a harvester and was doing pine/pulpwood, I could see 200 trees a day easy enough. What I do though is in hills and hollows, all hardwoods, and all handfelling. The timber Im in right now is taking 8 trees on average to load a truck and trailer. Any man that tell you he can cut 200 or even 100 trees like this a day is a liar.

 

[northmanlogging]

last 3 days (besides today, was in the log truck) I was doing contract falling, averaging about 8 trees in 6 hours limbed and bucked, a good 1/3 of these are well over 40" on the butt, some closer to 60"

Thats 3 days of cutting, and so far 4 loads, with at least 3 more for me to haul tomorrow... so as many have stated its a matter of scale.

 

[Huntaholic]

last 3 days (besides today, was in the log truck) I was doing contract falling, averaging about 8 trees in 6 hours limbed and bucked, a good 1/3 of these are well over 40" on the butt, some closer to 60"

Thats 3 days of cutting, and so far 4 loads, with at least 3 more for me to haul tomorrow... so as many have stated its a matter of scale.

That's more in line with what I do.

 

[SliverPicker]

I only have a tally for one short job In 2016. On the last day of that day the Super came out in the woods and asked me how many trees I figure I had dropped during the job. I said that I had no idea. He informed me that it was “Over 2200.” I said “You kept track?” He said ”Yep.”

This was all standing dead battle kill. Mostly 10” to 18” DBH. On the ground. Delimbed on three “sides”.

Back of the napkin figuring:

6 weeks. 5 days per week. 8 hours per day. 30 days of cutting. Two or three short days due to wind. 9000 feet elevation.

2200 trees/ 60 days = 73.3 trees per day average.felled and 75% delimbed.

Never really thought about it before.

 

[northmanlogging]

last 3 days (besides today, was in the log truck) I was doing contract falling, averaging about 8 trees in 6 hours limbed and bucked, a good 1/3 of these are well over 40" on the butt, some closer to 60"

Thats 3 days of cutting, and so far 4 loads, with at least 3 more for me to haul tomorrow... so as many have stated its a matter of scale.

forgot about this...

got 8 loads total out of that job, right around 40,000bf, probably could of been closer to 10 loads, but a lot of the hardwoods are not worth hauling... (Maple has plummeted in value here, and is always tough to make a log out of that fits on our log trucks)

 

[Huntaholic]

forgot about this...

got 8 loads total out of that job, right around 40,000bf, probably could of been closer to 10 loads, but a lot of the hardwoods are not worth hauling... (Maple has plummeted in value here, and is always tough to make a log out of that fits on our log trucks)

Its always amazing to me how the markets are different in different parts of the country! Hard maple here is doing good, best I remember its about 1.50 for the best grade. Even soft maple is pretty good at 60 cents.

 

[northmanlogging]

Its always amazing to me how the markets are different in different parts of the country! Hard maple here is doing good, best I remember its about 1.50 for the best grade. Even soft maple is pretty good at 60 cents.

think we're $300 per 1k ish? what .30 per foot?
it Big Leaf Maple, so its not rock hard, but its not soft either, Gibson guitars and I think Fender will interchange it with hard maple and not tell anyone.

Problem is our hardwood mills were pretty dependent on the China trade, Ole Donny pretty much ****** them, as soon as the trade war started, China sent back several ships full of wood, both logs and finished boards, its permanently closed at least 2 mills, and hamstrung one of the major export yards for most of a year. China hasn't picked up much of the export market still...preffering to get their wood from... Russia... and Australia, but mostly Russia.

So we have lots of hardwood, but only a handful of mills to send it to anymore.

 

[Huntaholic]

think we're $300 per 1k ish? what .30 per foot?
it Big Leaf Maple, so its not rock hard, but its not soft either, Gibson guitars and I think Fender will interchange it with hard maple and not tell anyone.

Problem is our hardwood mills were pretty dependent on the China trade, Ole Donny pretty much ****ed them, as soon as the trade war started, China sent back several ships full of wood, both logs and finished boards, its permanently closed at least 2 mills, and hamstrung one of the major export yards for most of a year. China hasn't picked up much of the export market still...preffering to get their wood from... Russia... and Australia, but mostly Russia.

So we have lots of hardwood, but only a handful of mills to send it to anymore.

Its that way here except it just the opposite, its softwoods and pulp that have almost ZERO market value! Even my tulip poplar, (which isn't really a poplar at all, its in the magnolia family) is shipping overseas and mostly to china. The closest pulpwood mill I know of is 90 miles away, hard to make wages trucking that far.

 

[northmanlogging]

Its that way here except it just the opposite, its softwoods and pulp that have almost ZERO market value! Even my tulip poplar, (which isn't really a poplar at all, its in the magnolia family) is shipping overseas and mostly to china. The closest pulpwood mill I know of is 90 miles away, hard to make wages trucking that far.

Yeah, Ironically the pulp mill here is running out of wood (for "soft woods" everybodies in panic mode at the mo) if the main mills can't get saw logs, the pulp mill plays second fiddle. After the trade war thang, they had nearly half the yard locked up with cotton wood (poplar) and no market for it to go to... it started growing on its own before they managed to get rid of all of it.
as for you'se eastern and especially south east folks, its down too some enterprising folks decided to plant millions of acres into pine because its quick growing, easy to harvest and great for making paper... then Bill Gates and Steve Jobs made home computing easy and the Email was created... so bye bye paper market. Don't feel bad they tried the same **** here with black poplar (cottonwood/cottonweeds) Now I get calls every week to come get loads of it that probably won't cover trucking 10 miles let alone 90.

 

[Campbellcontractlogging]

200 is a bit of a stretch, unless you're talking mechanized.

realistically if your just dumping, no limbing or bucking, about 50 in 6 hours, maybe more if your in smaller timber.

I cut and trim 50-60 trees a day takes 6 to 9 hrs depending on how good the timber is I’ll cut and skid 30 in a 5 hr period by myself 200 just felling in extremely good timber is possible but I doubt sustainable over time.

 

[Campbellcontractlogging]

It’s not a rare thing for fallers to be paid by the board foot here in the US and by the cubic meter in parts of the world while doing piece work. With smaller trees hourly may be a better way to go, especially on pre commercial thinning. It just depends on what you’re cutting.

The last couple of jobs I had cut where in garbage wood and I paid hourly-$50 for someone supplying their own equipment. If you’re in decent wood, it’s not rare to gross $330-350 per day paid per board foot. Helicopter outfits will do even better, but there are reasons for that, mostly the remoteness of where you’re working and the difficult terrain. I mean, let’s face it-if nobody will put a yarder on the ground, it’s probably not fun to walk around, much less work in.

There are a ton of variables in faller pay, and production. My personal preference is to be paid by the hour. It’s easy to bill, there’s no question or argument to be had of quantity or scaling, and if I have a bad day I still get paid wages-with the understanding I’ll make an effort to make up for the bad day. Falling per board foot can get somebody into trouble pushing pace, being that they get tunnel vision on production. High production is good and all, but going home in the same shape you got to the site is more important.

I appreciate the kind words about seeing the bigger picture. I think a lot of people forget about the “ancillary” activities that go alongside the main focus of every task. That was a hard lesson learned at a very young age in an industry that is unforgiving to forgetting the ancillary parts of project or task management.

I get paid by the ton usually make 4000$ a week Midwest timber hard wood tie logs 3 to 5 cutter 9’4” logs

 

[Kodiak Kid]

I've been cutting old growth spruce, ceder, and hemlock all over south central and south east Alaska for 30 years. I've never know any cutter in that time that has put down 200 trees in a day. Not even close. Not even in small wood on flat ground just dumping tree lengths for a prosesor with no limbing or bucking involved. Under those conditions in six hours, 160-170 is the number that comes to mind. Maybe 180 if your going balls to the walls.

 

[sb47]

I get paid by the ton usually make 4000$ a week Midwest timber hard wood tie logs 3 to 5 cutter 9’4” logs

In the few places I have worked where people got paid by piece work, safety was no where in site. I quickly quit and found something with a safer work environment

 

[softdown]

In the few places I have worked where people got paid by piece work, safety was no where in site. I quickly quit and found something with a safer work environment

I was recently talking about this "200/day" figure. Saying there is no way the logger would ever look up if that was the goal. Ridiculously dangerous to never look up. I charge about double for widow makers.

 

[Kodiak Kid]

I was recently talking about this "200/day" figure. Saying there is no way the logger would ever look up if that was the goal. Ridiculously dangerous to never look up. I charge about double for widow makers.

Absolutely agreed! You must keep your head up! Especially when cutting big and tall snags! I hardy look at my kerfs when cutting snags depending on the stage of decomposition in the snag especially if there is big loose bark slabs up the trunk. Pretty much do everything be feel as far as my cuts go. Never take my eyes off the top on down to just above my head! Any cutter that's been cut'n for any amount of time will tell you they've had s**t come loose and down on top of them just from the vibration of the saw at least once or twice! A lot of neck injuries cut'n timber without a doubt! I've been so lucky over the years I lost count long ago. Stayed alive this long because I keep my f***ing head up!

Cut safe, stay sharp, and be aware!

 

[softdown]

Looking at current lumber prices, someone is making tons of money. It isn't the stores though. They just mark it up a certain percentage. I'm guessing some of the big mills are making bank.

In fuel - seems the refineries are making a killing now? I heard Shell just posted a tripling of profits? They are the big refiner I think. Crazy days.