Looking To Get into Forestry For a Career

[Cummins_ISB_5.9]

Well, I've been around Trucking and Forestry all my life, we mostly float the equipment and haul chips. When I was younger I went with my father all the time and when we moved the equipment he gave me the keys and told me to load them on the float, I was around 11-12 when He taught me the basic operations (I learned on a excavator) I fell in love immediately and i knew then i wanted to do something with forestry. I lost my dad in 2003, I was 15 at the time, we still run our business, but since then I have lost touch with the industry. I'm now 18 and currently enrolled in College taking Diesel Mechanics, but when I complete the course I'm looking to get a job operating equipment. I would just be wondering about some suggestions, and what job to apply for (ie: Skidder, Forwarder, or Buncher) Any suggestions would be appreciated..

Thanks.

Jared.

 

[Rick Alger]

Looking toward Forestry

Good question. I wish I could give you a more positive answer.

In New Hampshire the forestry business is seeing tough times. Mills are shutting down, prices at the remaining mills are not keeping up with inflation, pay is depressed, and woodland is being bought up by speculators for resale as camp sites, resorts, prisons and what-all. In the last five years roughly a third of the small logging contractors have sold out and turned to something else. The contractors that are left can't pay equipment operators anywhere near what they'd make operating similar equipment on construction.

Learn all you can about diesel repair. If the logging picks up, you can still go for it. But if it doesn't you'll have those very valuable technical skills to rely on.

Good luck,

Rick

 

[Kiwilogger]

Here in NZ, loader and skidder drivers are a dime a dozen. Learn to operate a hauler. Then you can almost name your price.

Do what I did, my first job in forestry was operating a hauler. I approached a contractor who was looking for a hauler operator, offered him my services for 3 months, no charge, absolutely free! I said to him, "if I am no good, just tell me to piss off, but, if I have learnt enough, give me a full time job." After 2 weeks, I was on the payroll. Never looked back. I have now learnt the hauler, skidder, and am learning the loader at the moment.

Good luck with the job hunting.

 

[Timberjackboy]

What exactly is a hauler? you mean trailer trucks? Forwarders?

 

[Kiwilogger]

Sorry. You guys call them yarders. Heres a couple of pics of the one I operate.

From the back

From the front

The cockpit

Side view

The tower

 

[Timberjackboy]

Yikes

I have never seen one of those in my life lol. Is that how they log the steep slopes basically set that out fit at the top and it sends cables down? Shes quite a big rig.

 

[Kiwilogger]

Yup. Cable logging. Its a series of winches etc that send out a set of chokers or chains on steel wire ropes. The guys down the hill hook logs up to them, then we pull them in. The tower is 70 feet tall.

 

[Timberjackboy]

yesir

yeah h guess we don't got hills around here big enough for that lol. Ive ehard of people using chains but i know ive seen logs where it would be hard to get chokers under, and with a choker you got a lil leverage there to force with where as with a chain you can't do that.

 

[Kiwilogger]

We only use chains, chokers are a pain. If the log is lying hard flat on the ground, you just dig a little dirt out using a stick, and then poke it through with the stick.

 

[slowp]

A yarder from here. Rigged up for downhill yarding in a thinning. Taken last July, 2006.

View attachment 45242

 

[Pacific]

Spar like Kiwilogger posted is rarely used a swing grapple yarder like the old Washington is used for slopes. Hoe chucking is the quickest way of getting wood out of the bush using a log loader like the 3800. As for getting into Forestry its a dying industry in B.C. because the B.C. gov't keeps screwing around. Over the last year there prolly has been 300 plus jobs lost in the forest industry.

 

[Kiwilogger]

Swing yarders are only good for shorter settings, with good height, and not too much steepness or ridges to cross. They are definately faster in the right settings, but tower yarders are more versatile. We often set our gear up without the skyline in creamy settings, similar to what you may use on your yarder. Running skyline, where we use the tail as the skyline. No interlock tho..

Hoe chucking sounds like what we call shovel logging, we just use knuckle boom loaders when we can shovel. I like the pic of the madill, I haven't seen one of those before. We would never get a machine like that on our terrain though. In fact, you wouldn't get any machines on most of our terrain.

Our boss just came back from a trip to the states. He bought 2 yarders. 1 is a swinger, a Thunderbird, but not sure which model, and the other a Thunderbird TTY90, 90 foot tower.

Just wondering, what is it that your govt is doing to make your logging industry die? Over here in NZ, we have no interference from the govt, apart from environmental rules etc, but certainly no regulation of the industry.

 

[Pacific]

I'am from the West Coast of B.C. were we have some of the steepest logging terrian you can get. If its too steep then the forestry contractors heli log.

Hoe chuckers can work on steep slopes it just takes practice. The log diameters are still up to 48 inches and 40-50 feet long.

Here is some pictures of real logging

 

[Pacific]

More Pictures and as for logging dying in B.C. is because it is so regulated the rule books the loggers have to follow fills over 1000 pages or more. There is so many rules and regulations on timber harvesting it will make mind boggle.

 

[Pacific]

Some more pictures

 

[Pacific]

Couple more

 

[BC_Logger]

hey pacific great pic's there

where abouts are you logging in BC

 

[Pacific]

I'am on the Coast

The pictures are from a webite they are close to my area they are West Coast Logging.

 

[sawsong]

i wish you the very best of luck mate. im in the same position as you. i'm 20 and wanting in on arb/forestry. i already work as a groundie but im trying to move up to climber while still studying something unrelated at uni.

hopefully the forestry industry is in better shape in the UK but im not 100% sure on that either. sounds like youve got a good qualification there, so as said, worst comes to the worst, it'll see you right. i'm furthering my study by doing a more related forestry course in a year's time.

all the best

 

[slowp]

This is what happened here. Logging used to be a profession. It paid well when compared with other work available to people with no college education.
Then the environmental movement hit...spotted owl, salmon, etc. The national forests pretty much shut down, the private lands kept going, some at a higher rate of harvest due to a fear of new restrictions. The national forest in this area used to have a cut of about 500mmbf a year, now it is 10, which is an improvement from 0. Logging wages are about the same. Timber is now second growth. The folks who could, found other lines of work or moved away. Now it is hard to get a good crew together as wages are about the same as 20 years ago. So many guys got out of it so there is not the experience level either. A few are starting up, and relearning how to cable log. I work with guys who have just purchased a yarder and are learning, and some who grew up in the business. There's quite a difference safety-wise.
I don't have any digital pictures of the 80s logging. The equipment was the size of the New Zealand yarders and the logs were big--6 foot diameter was not uncommon. Here's a couple more pictures of work here and a today's "parade logs". I take my camera out on sunny days. The first picture is of a landing. The second is guys rigging up an intermediate support. This project has a court order that only cable logging can be done on it regardless of the slope or profile.