Scaling logs

[ciscoguy01]

Guys,
I just read a thread on here about a dude selling logs and thinking he was cheated. I know a little about scaling logs, although I'm not up on latest pricing... When figuring out board footage for logs your selling, this is the easiest method out there. This is called the Doyle Scale, it's not as generous as international scales, but will give you a fair idea of how to scale your logs for selling to mills. Here's how it goes, you take the diameter of the log, in this instance we'll say 24", subtract 4" from it and square that number. I.e. 20 X 20 = 400'. This is the average board footage that would come out of a log, 16' long and 24" in diameter on the SMALLEST end. If your log is only 8', you need to take half that board footage. NOTE!!! No matter what length you cut your logs, 8/10/12/16, you need to leave at least 4" of extra for trimming. This is a standard practice. I hope this helps someone if you've never seen it.

Cheers
Dude

 

[slowp]

Hmmm. I learned the old Scribner method but haven't done any scaling for some time. You do need to know what defect looks like to get the net scale.
Most of the second growth stuff here is sold by weight. A quickie way that I tell people, who come to our office once in a while and demand that we show them how to cruise or scale timber immediately right away, is to visualize the trees or logs on a log truck. Then figure out how many log truck loads there are. Then, figure about 4.8 or 5 mbf per log truck and that is a ROUGH guesstimate of the gross scale they have. Oh, and I'm talking west coast log trucks. Amazingly enough, they lose their look of frustration and go away to VISUALIZE LOG TRUCKS. But I try to stay out of the office as much as I can.

 

[Gologit]

Hmmm. I learned the old Scribner method but haven't done any scaling for some time. You do need to know what defect looks like to get the net scale.
Most of the second growth stuff here is sold by weight. A quickie way that I tell people, who come to our office once in a while and demand that we show them how to cruise or scale timber immediately right away, is to visualize the trees or logs on a log truck. Then figure out how many log truck loads there are. Then, figure about 4.8 or 5 mbf per log truck and that is a ROUGH guesstimate of the gross scale they have. Oh, and I'm talking west coast log trucks. Amazingly enough, they lose their look of frustration and go away to VISUALIZE LOG TRUCKS. But I try to stay out of the office as much as I can.

Excellent idea.