Logger Lingo

[Dave Hadden]

Here's a few from my experiences and yes, there were (maybe still are) Supersnorkles. Tahsis Company at Gold River Logging made one from an American log loader and I seem to recall one at BCFP Ltd. in Port Renfrew.
They had a really long extended wooden boom off them and could basically short yard stuff in to themselves as they moved along and then load it out.
Good operators could toss the grapple quite a distance and "caught" logs that way too.
Also, what a couple of you guys call "haywire" is what we called Strawline, commonly 7/16" in diameter and used to pull the mainline and haulback out through the backend blocks, commonly called haulback blocks, when stringing up the side. This is for conventional high lead logging with a tower, usually a 90' Madill in my experience. One of the old sayings amongst BC loggers was "you couldn't go too far wrong if you yarded with a Madill and loaded with an American."

I probably know most of the different words or phrases commonly used in BC coastal logging camps, having spent some number of years working in the industry, so if you have any others you'd like described or identified, fire away.


Take care.

 

[clearance]

I had seen pictures of supersnorkles but never seen one. In 2005 on the Queen Charlottes I saw one that was not a super but still had a long stick. It was cherry picking logs from the road (all logs within about 75ft.) and loading trucks. So it was being used as line loader, another thing I had never seen. I watched it for a while, Dave, you have probably seen line loaders, but as you know they have been replaced by hydraulic loaders. They must be a very hard to operate machine, especially for loading trucks. Lots of skill needed to run one, nothing like a hoe.

 

[Cedarkerf]

There is 4 Skagit yarders sittin' about 40 miles from my house just rottin' to the ground. They aren't used as much anymore.

Gary

Are those the ones sitten out there around Deming. A couple down the road from me about 3 miles sad to watch them rot. Yarders seem to have shrunk big time.

 

[RPM]

Heres the closest thing to a super snorkel I could find from when I worked on the coast. Imagine another pole or 2 out past where this one is rigged. As mentioned before most of these were used to 'cherry pick' right of ways - cheap wood to the road side and most cases set up the side (or setting) to be yarded by the grapple yarder or tower. Right of ways were cherry picked prior to yarding so guy line stumps could be rigged up for the yarders (uphill and down). They were also used for loading big old growth pumpkins as well.

This was one of our Skagit towers (110') that we used mainly for skyline yarding with a motorized drop line carriage (4cly diesel) with 500' of drop line (3/4") with 5/8" chokers. Used to run about 8-9 guys per tower (hook tender, rigging slinger, 3 chokermen, yarder engineer, chaser, loader operator, buckerman). We had 3 of the 110' towers at one time but as noted they too are probably rotting somewhere now as well.

 

[gavin]

Here's a few from my experiences and yes, there were (maybe still are) Supersnorkles. Tahsis Company at Gold River Logging made one from an American log loader and I seem to recall one at BCFP Ltd. in Port Renfrew.
They had a really long extended wooden boom off them and could basically short yard stuff in to themselves as they moved along and then load it out.
Good operators could toss the grapple quite a distance and "caught" logs that way too.
Also, what a couple of you guys call "haywire" is what we called Strawline, commonly 7/16" in diameter and used to pull the mainline and haulback out through the backend blocks, commonly called haulback blocks, when stringing up the side. This is for conventional high lead logging with a tower, usually a 90' Madill in my experience. One of the old sayings amongst BC loggers was "you couldn't go too far wrong if you yarded with a Madill and loaded with an American."

I probably know most of the different words or phrases commonly used in BC coastal logging camps, having spent some number of years working in the industry, so if you have any others you'd like described or identified, fire away.


Take care.

i've only seen one supersnorkel, it was on the timberwest cowichan woodlands a few years ago. a buddy at work explained to me about how good operators could cast the grapple out like a fishing line and catch logs. man i'd love to see that. i would have figured that would be damn near impossible.

 

[treejunkie13]

Log Fishin' now that sounds interesting!

 

[RPM]

Here's a few from my experiences and yes, there were (maybe still are) Supersnorkles. Tahsis Company at Gold River Logging made one from an American log loader and I seem to recall one at BCFP Ltd. in Port Renfrew.

Dave,

The line loader in my pictures is probably the BCFP one you saw in Port Renfrew....note the the nice orange and green paint scheme. This block was up the Harris Creek drainage - north side of the San Jaun around 1997-98. I've seen guys cast that line and grapple about 150' down a hillside to 'catch' wood!

 

[BC WetCoast]

Heres the closest thing to a super snorkel I could find from when I worked on the coast. Imagine another pole or 2 out past where this one is rigged. As mentioned before most of these were used to 'cherry pick' right of ways - cheap wood to the road side and most cases set up the side (or setting) to be yarded by the grapple yarder or tower. Right of ways were cherry picked prior to yarding so guy line stumps could be rigged up for the yarders (uphill and down). They were also used for loading big old growth pumpkins as well.

This was one of our Skagit towers (110') that we used mainly for skyline yarding with a motorized drop line carriage (4cly diesel) with 500' of drop line (3/4") with 5/8" chokers. Used to run about 8-9 guys per tower (hook tender, rigging slinger, 3 chokermen, yarder engineer, chaser, loader operator, buckerman). We had 3 of the 110' towers at one time but as noted they too are probably rotting somewhere now as well.

Great pics. Reminds me lovingly of the 'good ole days'. One of my first jobs in the bush was at Port Renfrew in the mid 70's. Spent a winter there (instead of Mexico where I should have been - idiot). Nothing like working in rain falling 1''/hr all day.

 

[treejunkie13]

"I've seen guys cast that line and grapple about 150' down a hillside to 'catch' wood!"

How in the heck? I have a vision, but sure it is off...

What kind of grapple would withstand being tossed around like that?

 

[RPM]

Just like you were spin casting with a fishing rod.....The operator swings the machine through an arc and while doing so holds the brake on the line drum that has the grapple attched - once he gets the boom pointed close to where he wants to cast he lets the drum go and gravity and the grapple let go pulling line out behind it. The picture below is of a yarding grapple - they're pretty solid (steel) and weigh a good 1,500lbs - if they can survive a logger you know thats tough. The grapples on the line loaders where a bit simpler looking (still use a opening/closing line) - its logging stuff - nothing pretty or fancy about it - just practical and functional....kinda like duct tape!

 

[woodfarmer]

that is pretty amazing from this flatlanders view point. i don't think i would want to be the hooktender, or is the choker a worse job, but i guess that is were they start all the newbies? on average what is each logs diameter and length.

 

[Dave Hadden]

I was the Warehouseman for BCFP at Renfrew and later at Gordon River from 1976 until 1984, so I recognize the paint scheme alright.
And "casting" the grapple was well described above so I won't repeat it, but some guys were pretty good at it under the right circumstances.
Funny how operators differ in skill and finesse.
I've seen guys that were absolute artists at operating big machines, yarders, loaders, off highway trucks. big stackers in the dryland sort and the like, practically able to take your hardhat off with the grapple without touching you in some cases, while others were the proverbial "dumb as a sack of hammers" types who kept their jobs only by virtue of union seniority and would wreck a new machine in a year. Frustrating guys for the Master Mechanic and shop crew I'll tell you.
Back in those days it was still mostly all line loaders still and hydraulics hadn't taken over. I started just as grapple yarders came in so witnessed the wholesale change in logging practises and the opening up of areas that would not have easily been logged in the conventional way (high lead) during the next 20 years of my career in the industry.
I remember when Tahsis Co. Gold River Logging got the first Skagit SST grapple yarder ever built, serial #1001. I bought lots of parts for it as we worked out the bugs. No machine ever built would last long logging without some modifications it seems.
Chum Carley, a smalltime contractor from southern VanIsle had serial #1002, and BCFP Renfrew Logging had serial #1003. Later on I found other old Skagits being used for a variety of jobs by Lemare Lake Logging in Port McNeill, I think serial #'s 1017, 1026 and 1027 if I recall right.
As a company guy back then we thought grapple yarders were great because they cut the crew in half manpower-wise and we could log really steep terrain with them, something there is plenty of on Vancouver Island.


Hey BC Wetcoast, does the name "Skinhead" ring a bell with you from your Renfrew days?
Herb Halliday maybe?

Take care.

 

[slowp]

We called the spars, tubes and I made it a point never to look up when on the landing of a big one, too scary. You look up and that tube is waggling all over, then you wonder what the heck you are doing underneath and try to sooth yourself with the thought of all the guylines that hold it, except a couple are anchored in an old cull deck which is shaking pretty good, ... and you can really freak yourself out! When I worked here originally, the old cable and grapple shovels were common. It was usually and older guy running it, but the logs were bigger so not as many on a truck..5 to 7 maybe and occasionally 2 bunk logs and a big punkin log. The snorkels sound like bigger jammers. Idaho Jammers are tong throwers that used to be used in E. Washington but they take a lot of roads zigzagging so aren't used much anymore. Lots of the old yarders rusting away around here too.

 

[GASoline71]

Are those the ones sitten out there around Deming. A couple down the road from me about 3 miles sad to watch them rot. Yarders seem to have shrunk big time.

No Brian... they are up off of HWY 20 between Sedro-Woolley and Concrete.

I'll try to get up there and take a couple of pics of them...

Gary

 

[sILlogger]

so what is taking the place of yarders? or has logging slowed down to the point where some of them aren't needed

 

[Dave Hadden]

The old highlead style yarders are being replaced by what are called feller-bunchers or processors for the most part as a lot of the logging being done around here nowadays is on second growth small stuff compared to the old growth big stuff that required the big yarders.

Where we commonly used 7/8" and 1" chokers to yard with I see some smaller yarder set-ups using 5/8" chokers and the like nowadays.
Most of the rest is being logged with hydraulic machines, commonly called "juicers".

Logging second growth with one machine also does away with fallers, chokermen, rigging slingers, hooktenders, landing buckers and the like too.
Not near as many jobs in logging now as there were even 20 years ago.

Still about two or three watersheds left on Vancouver Island that haven't been logged as yet, but roads into them are being built right now, so there will still be some old-style conventional logging being done for at least a few years.


Take care.

 

[slowp]

so what is taking the place of yarders? or has logging slowed down to the point where some of them aren't needed

Smaller, more mobile yarders with motorized carriages are the thing to have now. On the steeper ground a yarder is still used. The big machines had 6 to 8 guylines and took a half day or more to set up. That was ok when the timber was big and valuable and volume per acre was high. Now most people are logging smaller diameter second growth or third growth and speed is needed. So, the smaller yarders use 2 to 4 guylines and are easy to move..on tracks or pulled by a skidder or truck so less time setting up. If one is working in a partial cut, butt rigging can't be easily used so the motorized carriage is in vogue. These carriages use a motor to pull line off the drum from the yarder so require less muscle from the crew, for lateral (sideways) yarding into the skyline corridor. This requires a 3 drum machine or 4 (when downhilling) and a lot of the old yarders only had 2 drums for high lead logging with butt rigging--no carriage. The market is no good right now so smaller yarders are also sitting idle.

 

[Cedarkerf]

No Brian... they are up off of HWY 20 between Sedro-Woolley and Concrete.

I'll try to get up there and take a couple of pics of them...

Gary

Probably the ones I am thinkin of only run on hiway twenty once or twice a year so I don't have my land marks straight.

 

[treejunkie13]

Yoaders

Searching around I come across Yoaders, they seem to be quite the useful piece of machinery.
They Shovel log, Shotgun yarding, load trucks, and most impressively they Tong throw.
Anyone had the chance to work around one?

 

[slowp]

I don't think any of the Gyppos can afford a Yoader for a while. I've heard of them and I think one will be on that "coming soon to a tv near you" logging show. There is just older equipment around here. I can't add reliable to that sentence either. But there might be helicopters going next year, for sure if the lumber prices go up. And I'll get a lot of hiking in if that happens.