Looking for advise

[bionicbelly]

Here is the deal. I cut a little firewood, and am currently working on some ground of a lady that I work with. She wants her timber cleared for pasture, and I have been cutting everything down, large and small. I toss all the small "crap wood" (boxelder, silver maple, basswood, a couple of mulberries, etc.) into a pile, adn the good stuff gets cut and split.

My question is, there are a few really nice walnuts, hickorys, and oaks that I am wondering about selling the logs out of. (I would have to ask her about this of course) Would this be worth the time? I am guessing that there are 6 walnuts that are 30-36" diameter, and the logs are 12-16 feet long. Same goes for the oaks.
There are also a couple of oaks that are dead, but have really nice 16 foot logs, are they still useable?

I know nothing about this at all, so any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[Slamm]

Here is the deal. I cut a little firewood, and am currently working on some ground of a lady that I work with. She wants her timber cleared for pasture, and I have been cutting everything down, large and small. I toss all the small "crap wood" (boxelder, silver maple, basswood, a couple of mulberries, etc.) into a pile, adn the good stuff gets cut and split.

My question is, there are a few really nice walnuts, hickorys, and oaks that I am wondering about selling the logs out of. (I would have to ask her about this of course) Would this be worth the time? I am guessing that there are 6 walnuts that are 30-36" diameter, and the logs are 12-16 feet long. Same goes for the oaks.
There are also a couple of oaks that are dead, but have really nice 16 foot logs, are they still useable?

I know nothing about this at all, so any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

The walnuts could be worth a good amount, the oak, not so much, up there its probably Burr Oak and that is just a common oak for the most part. Get some photos of the walnuts. If you don't know what you are doing with them, don't cut them. At that size every inch counts. Get ahold of someone like Pike Veneer in Indiana or some other Veneer company and have photos ready to produce. Possibly they will buy on the stump or after dropped and you let them get someone to drop them, or you could screw them up.

If the oaks haven't been dead for too long they are fine maybe upwards of two years.

I wouldn't sell them to a logger, they are just middle men and you will be lucky to get 1/4-1/2 of what the logs are worth. Just go straight to the top of the food chain and let them pay you. They have representatives in your area, but in order to not waste their time have photos ready to email to them with approximate sizes of logs.

I've cut a lot of walnuts around you years ago.

Later,

Sam

 

[bionicbelly]

Thanks. I was thinking it would probably be worth it. I don't really like to burn walnut anyway.

About the oaks, there are some burr oaks there, but I always figured they were to stringy and knotty to be good. I am talking about 10 or so white oaks, and 3 or 4 big red oaks. does that make a difference?

Also, Sam, where abouts did you used to cut?

 

[Slamm]

Thanks. I was thinking it would probably be worth it. I don't really like to burn walnut anyway.

About the oaks, there are some burr oaks there, but I always figured they were to stringy and knotty to be good. I am talking about 10 or so white oaks, and 3 or 4 big red oaks. does that make a difference?

Also, Sam, where abouts did you used to cut?

Yeah, walnut green will plug up a chimney fast. I know an amish guy that found that out the hard way.

White oak is good, burr oak not so much. If they are nice white oaks, then you have something there too. I don't know what the market is for those around you, if they are good the veneer guy you find will take them too.

I logged walnuts in many counties of IA, all four corners and everywhere in the middle and eastern Nebraska, don't remember everyplace I have been, but I leap frogged two skidders all over IA cutting 5-70 walnuts trees at each job and then moving on. I worked for a wealthy Amish walnut buyer up there, he sold the walnut to Japan, then they burned him pretty bad, something like a $60,000 whoops. He made his money and now is into other things.

Cutting skill was of some importance as they want the stumps very low (sometimes we dug the dirt out around the stump to cut lower). Also we did a lot of spurr cutting so that absolutely nothing of value could be pulled or broken out of the veneer butt log.

Sam