Sectioning logs

[Jhenderson]

Extremely hard to believe considering the amount of sapwood pictured. Picture of check and tally slip with business heading. . Don’t even bother to tell us there’s no slip. The IRS requires documentation of sales and purchase of goods in trade.

 

[northmanlogging]

Extremely hard to believe considering the amount of sapwood pictured. Picture of check and tally slip with business heading. . Don’t even bother to tell us there’s no slip. The IRS requires documentation of sales and purchase of goods in trade.

some of these backwater mills don't run taxes... I get the feeling this guy is either gettin ripped off, or full of ****, maybe both

 

[Jhenderson]

Backwater or not, handing the kind of money he claims to be getting day in, day out, draws attention to the log buyer. On the first day of my 4 day audit years ago, I was informed that a cancelled check is NOT a receipt. The auditor had the nerve to tell my wife and I quote “ for all I know that money you gave them was for drugs”. I had to go to 4 different landowners and get notarized letters stating the money I gave them was for stumpage and that they had declared the income for tax purposes. I was extremely fortunate that I had dealt with honest folks.

 

[woodfarmer]

Well that was 243 bdft, which is exactly what the Doyle scale is for a 22”x12’ log

 

[madhatte]

To be clear: it scaled at 243 bf as measured by two independent sources. That does not mean it will make 243 bf milled. This stuff is always estimates until you have a finished product.

 

[northmanlogging]

Well that was 243 bdft, which is exactly what the Doyle scale is for a 22”x12’ log

is this where I'm not supposed to say I told you so?

 

[slowp]

For Doyle scaled logs, it works out best to cut the butt log short. That gives you a bigger "small end diameter". When old growth large diameter Doug fir was being cut like mad (SW Warshington) and when a certain mill bought an old growth timber sale--not the logs but the whole shebang, they gave their fallers instructions to cut 40' butt logs. Then they paid stumpage to the land owner only for the small end cylinder and got extra wood as a bonus.

 

[northmanlogging]

For Doyle scaled logs, it works out best to cut the butt log short. That gives you a bigger "small end diameter". When old growth large diameter Doug fir was being cut like mad (SW Warshington) and when a certain mill bought an old growth timber sale--not the logs but the whole shebang, they gave their fallers instructions to cut 40' butt logs. Then they paid stumpage to the land owner only for the small end cylinder and got extra wood as a bonus.

see now I knew ya couldn't stay away forever

 

[old CB]

This site has suffered from the loss of a certain voice from Warshington. And I hope the used dog returns as well.

 

[madhatte]

For Doyle scaled logs, it works out best to cut the butt log short.

Surely no forestry type would ever grade that way to plump a cruise. Surely.

 

[slowp]

Surely no forestry type would ever grade that way to plump a cruise. Surely.

A cruise is not a scale. But, if you've done both it is hard not to think scaling whilst cruising. If you do, and you know what you are doing, your cruise might actually work out to be very close to the scale volume. I did that once on an old growth sale and shoulda bought a lottery ticket.
At that time, we cruised timber in 32 foot logs and 16 foot half logs. You cruised it to where you thought it would bust up when it hit the ground. We young 'uns were hauled up to a sale on "broken" ground to see how badly the DF punkins broke up. They were around 9 to 11 feet in diameter and there was a lot of breakage above the butt log. Of course, this also happened on nice ground where it was rumored that the fallers had been told to save out the butt log and then break up the rest. The mill had paid dearly for those logs--it was at the time when sales were bid up extremely high and defaults were in the near future. The mill did not want the smaller stuff. However, "The Contract Says" was quoted to them so they cleaned up their act. Anyway, we entered about 10% breakage into the cruise and then "cut off the top" lower down on cruise trees and our cruise accuracy improved.

 

[slowp]

This has lots of pictures and explanations. I had to buy the book for school.
https://ibsp.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/64/2018/06/IdahoLogScalingManual-online.pdf

 

[madhatte]

We use some fairly bogus tricks to make the cruise and scale as close as possible. I've been fighting it for years but apparently the folks bidding on our sales are happy with the arrangement so the higher ups are not in a hurry to change anything. We all know that a standing tree and a log on the ground and a stack of 2 x 4's are dramatically different things so it's a frustrating and semantic argument to have over and over but I guess money talks and I'm just a technician who doesn't know his place.

 

[rwoods]

For Doyle scaled logs, it works out best to cut the butt log short. That gives you a bigger "small end diameter". When old growth large diameter Doug fir was being cut like mad (SW Warshington) and when a certain mill bought an old growth timber sale--not the logs but the whole shebang, they gave their fallers instructions to cut 40' butt logs. Then they paid stumpage to the land owner only for the small end cylinder and got extra wood as a bonus.

I don't know anything about logging, cruising or scaling - just wanted to say "Hi" and that you were missed. Ron

 

[northmanlogging]

We use some fairly bogus tricks to make the cruise and scale as close as possible. I've been fighting it for years but apparently the folks bidding on our sales are happy with the arrangement so the higher ups are not in a hurry to change anything. We all know that a standing tree and a log on the ground and a stack of 2 x 4's are dramatically different things so it's a frustrating and semantic argument to have over and over but I guess money talks and I'm just a technician who doesn't know his place.

Feel like I've covered this before, but its nice to know the the Cruise report is more then likely low, so you can bid accordingly and maybe make a little more money then you thought.

On the other hand unless the contract is spelled out accordingly, then it does leave room for the logger to more or less steal some of the wood, makes up for the wood the Mills steal from all of us though.

 

[northmanlogging]

and to be absolutely clear, never bid off just the cruise report, get yer damn boots on and look at it yourself

 

[slowp]

It's very hard to follow the rules for cruising when you know that some of the defect can be undone by a good job of bucking. Example: Having to deduct for sweep in that 32 foot log when you know it can be bucked in a good place and made into two real logs with less defect for the sweep.. But, that's just the way it is.

 

[slowp]

Feel like I've covered this before, but its nice to know the the Cruise report is more then likely low, so you can bid accordingly and maybe make a little more money then you thought.

On the other hand unless the contract is spelled out accordingly, then it does leave room for the logger to more or less steal some of the wood, makes up for the wood the Mills steal from all of us though.

We knew that units were over running when the purchaser made no comments on the cruise accuracy. When a lump sum (payment based on cruise volume, not actual scale) under ran, they would be in the office complaining loudly if they hadn't factored that into their bid. The big guys almost always have their own cruisers check out the sales and will adjust their bid to factor in an over run or under run. Or will not bid at all.

 

[northmanlogging]

It's very hard to follow the rules for cruising when you know that some of the defect can be undone by a good job of bucking. Example: Having to deduct for sweep in that 32 foot log when you know it can be bucked in a good place and made into two real logs with less defect for the sweep.. But, that's just the way it is.

I continue to make a career out of cutting the crap wood and making it look like decent logs...

Now that I have the Self loader.... Holy S the crap people send in is amazing

 

[madhatte]

It's very hard to follow the rules for cruising when you know that some of the defect can be undone by a good job of bucking.

The Bell and Dillworth says to deduct 50% at all forks! That's insane! A logger isn't gonna see a 40" butt forked at 6 feet as a badly defective 40" tree, they're gonna see it as 2 20" inchers above 8' of cull. I built a chart for calculating over/underrun vs that rule and got shot down trying to implement it. Add in form factor, local growth model, "unseen defect" factor... we kneecap our numbers like crazy to build market confidence knowing full well that we can only grade what we can see and everything else is guesswork.

What I'd much rather do is measure and report what I can actually see, then note in the cruise report that cruised volume is as reported +/- the average difference between the two compared to the last 10 sales by gross percentage. That would allow for the same margin of error without abject lying to attract buyers. Mathematical trickery does not sit well with me.