Logging old growth question

[Haywire Haywood]

I got Jerry Beranek's "High Climbers and Timber Fallers" for Christmas and it has prompted a question.

How do you keep a 7'x20' log from shattering when you're dropping it from 150 feet up? Lots of old mattresses around the base of the tree?

Ian

 

[polexie]

Ian, is that a book or dvd. Where to order, thanx in advance.

Lex

 

[Haywire Haywood]

It's a book, available at Bailey's.... http://www.baileysonline.com/itemdetail.asp?item=17378&catID=1067 There's stories to go along with the pictures, but I have to see all the pics first... great book.

Ian

 

[polexie]

Googled a little bit on his name, saws some amazing pics,storys. Will order the book.

Thanx for fast reply.

Lex

 

[Tree Sling'r]

I got Jerry Beranek's "High Climbers and Timber Fallers" for Christmas and it has prompted a question.

How do you keep a 7'x20' log from shattering when you're dropping it from 150 feet up? Lots of old mattresses around the base of the tree?

Ian

Redwoods grow in really fertile soft ground for one, and with a log that big it would take an amazing amount of force to shatter, more so than the force it is already dealing with.
Even if it splits in half, it is a saw log, can still be used.

 

[2dogs]

There is a great book on logging the giant sequoias of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Of course I forget the name off hand, but it shows some great old pics. Most of the giant sequioas shattered on impact but were still able to be sawn into lumber.

Regarding the tougher coastal redwoods, when you have to chunk out one like is shown the main reason is to remove a hazard tree. Lumber is a secondary concern. Big pieces will fit in a portable mill just fine and many trees have had to be split to fit in a conventional mill, redwood, fir, and other species. Hopefully the soft ground found in many redwood growing areas will help cushion the impact and save the log.

 

[slowp]

A while back, I talked to a couple that had worked logging redwoods. She ran a dozer. They talked about dozing out beds--clearing the ground ahead of the falling to save the wood, but I don't know if that would work for chunking as you call it.

In the doug-fir that used to get logged around here, there was a lot of breakage due to our broken up ground. We planned for it while cruising. To cruise an old growth, the old way, you wrote down the height to where you figured it was going to bust up, then the diameter of that point of the tree. Sometimes the loggers were told to break the wood up on purpose, after the butt log. The butt log was the big money log. We had to keep an eye out for that. They'd fall the big stuff on top of the smaller and make a mess.
Bad Loggers. Bad bad loggers...

It was fun, but a no no to watch a faller launch a tree off a rock bluff. Not much left of the tree though.

 

[Farmall Guy]

Got that book also, sure are some interesting pics in there. I havent had a chance to sit down and really look it over yet but there are alot of great pics that I did see. Really makes me apprechiate what you folks do out that way.

 

[polexie]

Does anybody of you know the internet adres of a company that sells dvd´s about logging, steamtrain/engines and all kinds of other dvd´s about how working life was in the old days.

I had the adress on my pc which crashed and i am looking for it since then. I remember they had everything on vhs and had everything digitalized onto dvd. You could also order some books.

I hope this will ring a bell somewhere.

Thanx

Lex

 

[Haywire Haywood]

A while back, I talked to a couple that had worked logging redwoods. She ran a dozer. They talked about dozing out beds--clearing the ground ahead of the falling to save the wood, but I don't know if that would work for chunking as you call it.

I finally got past the pictures and read some and he does reference building a lay to drop the whole tree into, so I suppose "chunking" was the exception rather than the rule. He even said that one faller got fired after facing a tree before the lay was built.

Polexie, this book is separated into chapters covering specific areas, logging companies but more often specific fallers. Then he has chapters grouped into "old growth" and "second growth" logging. After that is a group of chapters on "Second Growth stories" and then a chapter devoted to the crew, "The Boys in the Rigging" as he calls it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Ian

 

[polexie]

Thanks Ian, have to call them and ask if they will send it to Europe.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

If they won't, I'd be happy to forward it on to you if you'd pay the postage.

Ian

 

[RandyMac]

Layouts were important with certain trees, sometimes it could take half a day for a catskinner to build a layout. Where I worked, there were two sets of fallers to a side, each set had a D8 in attendence. In most cases there was a third Cat, most a D7 or a D6 to cleanup the corners and take care of the small stuff.
Pretty much a road was pushed in, mounds of dirt were left where the faller's wanted it, at times there was much disscusion exactly where the dirt was left, how high and what shape the piles were. A fair amount of coffee and tobacco was consumed during this important work.
I was a second or third faller in these sets, I spent a lot of time standing around listening to the old guys go about their business. For the most part OG Redwood went pretty slowly.
This pic shows where the layout went for this tree. You can see where I pulled it to the left, the top is on the bank above the layout, not much was lost though. I consistantly pulled to the left, the "Bull" faller added 5/8th of an inch to my sticks, and dead center falls were normal. Added is not really what happened, he snapped them in half and had another set made.

 

[polexie]

Ian, thats an great offer, i´ll call ´m this weekend or later next week.
You will hear from me.

Thans a lot,

Lex

 

[Bushler]

Chapt., 21 is about a friend, Wally. I met him years ago commercial fishing and we spent hours talking logging and cutting timber.

The approach to the harbor at Ft. Brag, CA was easy. For years we would line up on the big oldgrowth redwood spar tree easily seen way back up in the mountains behind town.

In a discussion about this interesting old spar tree, Wally mentioned he had climbed that spar to retrieve an old rigging block the old boys had left up there.

A month or so ago, Wally drove up in my yard and handed me an autographed copy of High Climbers and Timber Fallers, signed by Baranek and Wally Shattuck.

Cool. Incidently, that spar tree fell down a couple years ago.

 

[forestryworks]

Chapt., 21 is about a friend, Wally. I met him years ago commercial fishing and we spent hours talking logging and cutting timber.

The approach to the harbor at Ft. Brag, CA was easy. For years we would line up on the big oldgrowth redwood spar tree easily seen way back up in the mountains behind town.

In a discussion about this interesting old spar tree, Wally mentioned he had climbed that spar to retrieve an old rigging block the old boys had left up there.

A month or so ago, Wally drove up in my yard and handed me an autographed copy of High Climbers and Timber Fallers, signed by Baranek and Wally Shattuck.

Cool. Incidently, that spar tree fell down a couple years ago.

cool story, bushler, thanks for sharing

 

[1I'dJak]

here in bc alot of the highgrade old growth is in a lot of settings where the logs will bust up if conventionally felled...so a method of single-stem harvesting was developed, where trees are marked and mapped....a climber comes in limbs and tops it at grade or weight... the stem is then 'jigged' so there's just a small skiff of hingewood left (basically two backcuts almost meeting together) and the tree is then plucked by a helicopeter that has a long line with a perpendicular grapple...quite the production....

 

[Metals406]

My neighbor is an old, crusty timber faller named Bill. I've always thought of him as an Uncle in a way. He has more time in the woods than I can imagine. His sons became fellers too.

One of them Noel, felled redwoods for a while. He would tell me stories of beds being made with bows, and duff and dirt. He said a feller got three trees in his entire career to shatter the grain. No matter where you went, or who you worked for, they would know if you had shattered a tree. I asked him why it was such a big deal? He said, "When you're talking trees that big, and you shatter wood... It's not just a few boards lost... It's hundreds."

Last I heard Noel had shattered one I think.

Coincidentally, Bill still cuts timber if he can, and when he can't he gets firewood... Lots of firewood! 30 (or more) Cord a year by himself... And the dude had a stroke!! His left arm isn't as strong because of it. I asked him about holding the saw, and he said he uses his knee to help support it in the face and back-cut.

Tough Ol' sumbeech. I've learned a lot from him. He's well known as the best cat operator in the our area.

I'll be sad when he passes on... A lot of logging knowledge will go with him.