is this professional ?

[slowp]

And sometimes they can't be read from the ground.

The secondary point of my original post being that trees can be read differently by different folks and how you read a tree determines your approach. All 17 of my hypothetical cutters could read this tree differently but all could put it down where they wanted.

The primary point of my post was FWs cut trash trees that a hand faller logger would avoid.

Ron

Not always. In this part of the country, we have snooty firewood cutters. They want an old growth Doug-fir with no knots (peeler grade) and straight. They turn their noses up at the tops--I used to go behind and cut their left overs up for my own firewood.

One guy came up to me when I was cutting a road open so I could get back to a unit. He wanted me to mark a blowdown that was the quality of the above. It was about a hundred feet off the road. I did not. The tree was in an area where cutting was limited to the width of the road and the tree had to be across the road, blocking it, like the hemlock was. That hemlock was a nice tree. I mentioned to the guy that I could help him if he wanted to cut it up. I wanted the road open. He turned up his nose and drove off. Of course, the Doug eventually disappeared. Some folks only obey the firewood rules when an FS person is around.

 

[Gologit]

And sometimes they can't be read from the ground.

The secondary point of my original post being that trees can be read differently by different folks and how you read a tree determines your approach. All 17 of my hypothetical cutters could read this tree differently but all could put it down where they wanted.

The primary point of my post was FWs cut trash trees that a hand faller logger would avoid.

Ron

You make a very good point. Sometimes though a person falling for a living will have to cut trees that no firewood cutter in his right mind would voluntarily attempt. Goes with the job. LOL...I wish it didn't.

 

[SliverPicker]

So you've been following me around and taking pictures of some of my stumps eh? Not appreciated one bit.

 

[rwoods]

slowp, sorry I wasn't trying to defend anyone. There are plenty of bad actors out there. When someone mentioned veneer logs, I thought convenent, straight, no knots - perfect firewood for the lazy thief. I doubt I would had enough patience to do your job. I bet bad hunters were bothersome too. Found a bear bait barrel on my property some months back. I own under 4 acres adjacent to the NF. Why pick me over 650,000+ acres of pubic land - simple, easy access off the paved road.

Bob, your point is just as good. There a huge difference between a professional trying to make a living in the woods and someone after free firewood. Same should go for the voluntary risk taking. The older I get the more trees I pass.

Between the unscrupulous FWs, the clueless FWs and lawyers, it is no wonder private landowners in your area don't want us around and the FS ends up with the bulk of us. From a nuisance FW standpoint both slowp and you would like it here as there is no incentive to go into the forest for firewood. Big game could pose an issue though.

SP, those sorry stumps in my pictures are infortunately all mine and freshly made yesterday, I was having a little fun - like using the vine to pull over that tiny tree which by the way was the most dangerous one of them all. It's fall took down enough dead limbs from adjacent trees to wipeout the AS four man twelve saws FW huddle.

Ron

 

[Gologit]

So you've been following me around and taking pictures of some of my stumps eh? Not appreciated one bit.

I'll make you a deal...I won't look at some of your stumps if you don't look at some of mine. Some of the big Redwood stumps looked like they'd been attacked by a horde of rabid beavers.

 

[Trx250r180]

Guys that cut wood off decked logs are culls ,and deserve an azz whoopin .

 

[Sagetown]

Lately; I've seen professional tree company employee crews that are not only amateurs, but can't speak a word of english either.

 

[treeslayer2003]

maybe i am weird........ant big log is going on the truck, little 12-14" sticks are for wood. i am not going to pick up 300lb rounds and put on a splitter, it boggles my mind why any one would want to fool with great big sticks for wood.
take big sticks to the mill, cut up the tops of them for wood. is this not normal?

 

[treeslayer2003]

Since I married into a Yankee family where Dinner is thought to be the evening meal, I had a little time on my hands since my last post so I went and cut a handful of trees. At the risk of having my license to visit here revoked, I'll continue this post with a few pictures and commentary.

An example of why FireWooders flourish in the absence of pulpwood cutters:

Small cherry (picture does not do its curvaceous figure justice) succumbs to Eastern FW Humboldt:
View attachment 464237 View attachment 464238 View attachment 464239 View attachment 464240 *

Patented slow and easy fall FW side wedge:

View attachment 464247 View attachment 464241 View attachment 464242

FW natural falling vine for limb locked wee ones:

View attachment 464244

Very valuable Black Walnut:

View attachment 464250 View attachment 464251


Ron

* Also an example of why I prefer to cut alone. 17 different cutters would have come up with 17 different assessments of the lean and the proper approach.

Ron, cherry looks ok.........what was it ya was tryin to do with that super tall block? just wanted it to go slow? if so, i'm not sure that tall of one was necessary........then again i weren't there.
i see what you mean by progressive chair, just not sure why.
i take it your shoulder is healed then

 

[Gypo Logger]

maybe i am weird........ant big log is going on the truck, little 12-14" sticks are for wood. i am not going to pick up 300lb rounds and put on a splitter, it boggles my mind why any one would want to fool with great big sticks for wood.
take big sticks to the mill, cut up the tops of them for wood. is this not normal?

Yes, this is normal procedures, big blocked rounds of veneer split up really nice. Lol
After all the best and biggest and fastest wood comes from the butt logs.
Who wants to deal with mills and log buyers anyway, they always seem to have their thumb on the Doyle stick anyway.

 

[treeslayer2003]

make money on the butt, keep warm with the top

 

[rwoods]

Ron, cherry looks ok.........what was it ya was tryin to do with that super tall block? just wanted it to go slow? if so, i'm not sure that tall of one was necessary........then again i weren't there.
i see what you mean by progressive chair, just not sure why.
i take it your shoulder is healed then

Mike, just a little playing around, the small one was leaning into canopy it could not penetrate and I wanted it to help clear the deadfall in the canopy opposite the lean. I normally only cut stuff this size as a favor to homeowners. Typically with the long block I can control and manhandle small stuff to keep them out of the rosebushes, fence, or whatever a small tree could damage. Here the lean was too heavy for me to push the tree over so I wedged it upright enough to pull it where I wanted with the vine. Once again I was just playing otherwise I would have just cut it with the lean and jerked it down with my little tractor.

As to the purposeful barber chairs. that was a funky short tree (I don't know what it is but it looks like a bush growing on a tree stem. There are a bunch of them in my little patch.). This tree had a nice bow towards the lean and all of its canopy was draping on the lean side at the edge of a clearing . I was afraid ithat if the canopy hit the ground with any force the stem would chase me if it broke from the stump so I cut just enough to begin to fall, when it stopped I repeated the process until it was down. I think I read this one right as there was enough push back from the top I was able to cut the stem into seven pieces and it still held in place. I stopped at seven only because I was up to the first major fork; I then cut it free from the stump. The bucking was just playing. The falling was not - didn't want my family to find me in the backyard with a crushed chest from a back springing stem. I would not cut a dead tree or an oak this way. Whatever these bushy trees are they hold together quite well.

When confronting a small spring pole with a short bar I usually take several quick cuts to relieve pressure instead of just plowing through.

I do know this isn't a game, but I don't really know if there is a better way short of pulling/pushing equipment to take care of such trees other than slowing the fall. Any help would be appreciated.

Ron

 

[northmanlogging]

Ron, cherry looks ok.........what was it ya was tryin to do with that super tall block? just wanted it to go slow? if so, i'm not sure that tall of one was necessary........then again i weren't there.
i see what you mean by progressive chair, just not sure why.
i take it your shoulder is healed then

The Doug Fir and Hemlock out here makes the best fire wood, and its super easy to split with just an axe (though some would argue that a maul is better... they are wrong) You start getting into the tops and you start messing with knots which are less easy to split.

Personally I prefer Alder and Maple for fyre wood...

But growing up, the folks decided where we got our fire wood, we generally had 2 options, FS road clearing, or DNR fire wood permits, (though you used to be able to do the road clearing for DNR just now all dnr land is gated... *******s) The FS road clearing stuff was great cause you could usually find some decent sticks, get in early enough and you would have a permit to clean up X section of road, find a couple of pumpkins and you could easily get 8-9 cords in a weekend or 2. The DNR stuff which was free was a little different, they would clear cut and stack all the tops near a road or on a landing then set the whole area up for a fire wood area, just had to print out or request a permit that came with a map etc, then you get a couple weeks or months to cut as much wood as possible, down side was that it was a slash pile so dirty wood lots of limbs and small dia stuff... made for lots of work usually in the dead of Summer when it was like a scorching 75+ deg...

Anyway to split the big pumpkins it took 2 people but you could usually do say a 4' round in less then 5 minutes, start on either side, swing and leave the axe in, next guy swings and his strike would loosen your axe, repeat until round is split (3 hits was and is normal) then work your way around your side of the round until the wood is stove size, once they are broke in half it usually only takes one hit to split any given piece, and you don't need to swing real hard.

The whole fam damly would get involved with this pa usually ran the saw or one of us boys depending on how tough the splitting was, me and my brother or Dad and brother would split, ma would stack (my brother is terrible with a saw, likes to dig up rocks and stuff that and I'm the youngest so the hard splitting stuff was given to the bigger of us)... anyway the saw could usually just stay in front of the splitters, once the saw work was done (4-5 rounds of the big 4 footers) then whoever was running the saw would either start chucking wood or splitting... we have done as much as 6 cord a day like this including a half hour to an hour drive each way.

 

[Trx250r180]

make money on the butt, keep warm with the top

Mike. It is very common to get 2 or 3 logs out of 1 tree ,the softwood grow nice and strait a long ways 40 footers

 

[madhatte]

The Doug Fir and Hemlock out here makes the best fire wood, and its super easy to split with just an axe (though some would argue that a maul is better... they are wrong)

Agreed. I do most of my splitting with a mystery doublebit somebody from my office found rusting away in the woods which I rehandled and put a half-hearted edge on one side of. You just gotta know how to do the twist thing.

Excellent post, by the by.

 

[Sagetown]

Agreed. I do most of my splitting with a mystery doublebit somebody from my office found rusting away in the woods which I rehandled and put a half-hearted edge on one side of. You just gotta know how to do the twist thing.

Excellent post, by the by.

My brother found an old single bit axe head along side the highway. I cleaned it up, sharpened , and rehandled it. I use it often. Looks similar to a Dayton axe.

 

[treeslayer2003]

Ron, i weren't being critical, just curious. i am spoiled, i have never not had large equipment. now i'm curious what your bushy trees are......

Matt, i see, its a different ball game on that side. a 4' round of white oak here you couldn't split with a stick of dynamite.......axe is pretty useless here but for kindling.

 

[rwoods]

Mike,

No problem. I look for critism from you guys as I don't have anyone here to teach me.

As to the trees, they are short (20' to maybe 30'), the wood is white and the bark changes up the stem from close to a mature poplar to a knobby texture. The branches drape downward so the falling side tends to roll under upon impact. I can't see any commercial value in them.

Ron

 

[Skeans]

My favorite bad guy story is a firewood cutter who got in my face after I told him he was not in a legal area to cut firewood in. Note that I could have taken info and given him a ticket instead of shooing him away. He was upset and started on with a political rant and informed me that I would be out of a job come November because they were taking the country back. I did not tell him that I would have my job until January, because that is when the inauguration is....

Now I are a firewood hack myself. And there was one guy who I shooed out of an area who actually thanked me for not writing a ticket. Many are misplaced and we do have very complicated rules. But we need to be courteous to each other during face to face contacts.

Then there was the unhappy logger who had his log deck ruined over a weekend. He muttered, (add expletives) "Why couldn't they have cut one log up at a time?" The cutters had lopped off the ends of many logs and ruined the lengths. I started actually painting NO WOODCUTTING on decks after that because signs get ripped off too easily.

The firewood cutters do help open up roads after storms though, unless the road is blocked by alders that are not of a record breaking size.

We had some firewood guys decide to cut a few of our oversize poles one weekend after that we gated the place.

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[Skeans]

Yes they are. They shouldn't be though. A dead standing tree is a safety threat and belongs on the ground.

Doing the government work for the state they make us leave dead standing trees and create snags even in young thinnings.

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