when does Axe Men air

[slowp]

I was thinking the same thing... I'm about the furthest thing behind a chainsaw from a professional logger but I can't imagine standing even remotely close to those coils of cable, or being a faller without full (or at least a little bit, besides hard hat) PPE. I was dissapointed there wasn't more falling footage, but the little they did show, the guys were dressed in less than what I wear when I cut my firewood. And I'm only felling hardwoods less than a paltry 100' tall. But as I said, I'm not in much position to judge.

That attire is what they wear out here. The bigger danger is getting your chaps hung up on something when you have to move quickly. A lot of them don't wear eye protection even, because they say they want a clear, unobstructed view of what is going on around them. I'm seeing more wearing safety glasses though. You probably didn't see the earplugs. The fallers (except I know of one who doesn't) wear earplugs out here. The landing guys will have earplugs in too. Those yarder whistles will blow your ears out on the landing. They can be heard miles away. It is a cheery sound to hear them in the distance. Full brim hardhats are preferred--more protection from rain and theoretically more protection from tree limbs. The Warshington safety guys would have fined the Browning kid for having a dented one though. I've heard the fine is around $150 per dent. That's why some companies go with plastic. :greenchainsaw:

 

[smokechase II]

Sales Tax

"have to stop at Fred Meyer and throw their cans in the return thing which will usually then break down. Then they have to listen to the Fred Meyer computer voice echo through the store about Customer Service needed in can deposit area. It drives them mad!"

Have you been spying, Slowp?

*********************

I wish more sales tax on you.

 

[smokechase II]

This time, incorrect

Mr Slowp:

"Apparently Oregon loggers are not only cheaper, but also walk on water."

Is not completely accurate.

Any Oregon Logger is better than any and all other loggers.
But especially ...........

Both Oregon and Warshgington Loggers walk on some water. About 1/16th if an inch is what is on the ground/limbs.

 

[Marc]

That attire is what they wear out here. The bigger danger is getting your chaps hung up on something when you have to move quickly. A lot of them don't wear eye protection even, because they say they want a clear, unobstructed view of what is going on around them. I'm seeing more wearing safety glasses though. You probably didn't see the earplugs. The fallers (except I know of one who doesn't) wear earplugs out here. The landing guys will have earplugs in too. Those yarder whistles will blow your ears out on the landing. They can be heard miles away. It is a cheery sound to hear them in the distance. Full brim hardhats are preferred--more protection from rain and theoretically more protection from tree limbs. The Warshington safety guys would have fined the Browning kid for having a dented one though. I've heard the fine is around $150 per dent. That's why some companies go with plastic. :greenchainsaw:

Huh, ok. Does anyone wear pants with cut protection built in? Seems like a simple way around chap hangups. I thought of that right when I heard Browning say he almost cut off his foot when he was running a saw and his prosthesis failed.

There was a clip from a DVD on YT, I can't remember the name of the DVD, it was some independent documentary about old growth logging on VC island, and all the fallers there were wearing basically the same PPE I wear... Different terrain? Just different culture? Stricter/different safety regs?

If anyone knows the YT clip I'm thinking of and can link to it, I'd appreciate it... YT is blocked at work... If you search for "loggers DVD" I think it will come up...

Edit: I think this is it... www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ52o03B3OE

 

[slowp]

Mr Slowp:


Is not completely accurate.

Any Oregon Logger is better than any and all other loggers.
But especially ...........

Both Oregon and Warshgington Loggers walk on some water. About 1/16th if an inch is what is on the ground/limbs.

I have not, nor do not intend to have a sex change operation. No Mister here mister. I like my pastel clothes and can notice, that the loggers shown in Loggers World somehow look better than the ones working in the woods. I think they must clean up for the pictures.

I lived and worked on the Oregon Coast for a few years and found "The Voices" of Fred Meyer a little disturbing at times. Seems like everytime I managed to remember my cans, the thing would be broke down or a club of some kind would be dumping their pickup loads of donations.

I was only stating what a 3rd generation Orygun logger told me. I don't think he'd be telling any tales, do you? But for some reason, his equipment is still parked up here in Warshington.

 

[blackoak]

Well I watched it twice

First off I'm just a Hoosier Hillbilly and it was interesting to see how the skylines were set up and the landings. We use a skidder to dragem back to the landings here.
I thought it was a good show, BUT I was dissappointed in the size of trees that were being harvested. I was hoping to see some of the real trees that the PNW is known for. Maybe later on in the series I won't be. Please excuse my stupidity, but remember I'm from Indiana, but how is a real log brought back to the landing when cutting on such steep angles in the PNW???

 

[.aspx]

BUT I was dissappointed in the size of trees that were being harvested. I was hoping to see some of the real trees that the PNW is known for.

A lot of the trees being harvested last night were from blow-down sites. A lot were probably already down and just needed to be bucked. These need to be harvested quickly as they stands they grow in will be devastated during the next wind storm.

There was a front-page story in the Seattle Times about a week ago where timber farms in southern Washington had to do an "emergency harvest" due to the impact of last years' windstorms.

 

[Oly's Stump]

Great Show! The loggers in my state sure don't deal with the mountainous terrain. I wonder how many times a yarder or yoder went tumbling down the mountain.

 

[AZLOGGER]

A lot of the trees being harvested last night were from blow-down sites. A lot were probably already down and just needed to be bucked. These need to be harvested quickly as they stands they grow in will be devastated during the next wind storm.

There was a front-page story in the Seattle Times about a week ago where timber farms in southern Washington had to do an "emergency harvest" due to the impact of last years' windstorms.

.aspx,
You are very correct about the blow-down sites, that is how I started in the logging business in 1979, I started out doing salvage logging on blow-down sites, forest fire burns, and bug kill timber. These logs need to be removed as quickly as possible, or the value and merchantability of the timber drops drastically. Logging these blow-down areas also raises logging costs, as mother nature does a crappy job of directional felling, also there are a lot of trees still attached to the root wads jack-strawed everywhere, there is also an elevated risk of danger involved logging these areas.
So to all of those logging those blow-down sites up there in the PNW be very careful and live to log another day.

 

[rmihalek]

First of all, that guy who is the son of the J. M. Browning Co. owner has a really bad attitude. He might be learning the ropes from his Dad so that he has the respect of the crew, but once he's handed the reins, he may have trouble getting anyone to work for him with that pissy attitude.

Secondly, not all east coasters think that timber harvesters are "lumberjacks" who wear black and red flannel shirts and a knit wool cap like Paul Bunyon. What we've got here is a guy making a sweeping generalization complaining about people making sweeping generalizations!

Third, wow! These guys (and gals) work in horrible conditions. I enjoy being out in the forests and mountains, but that's when the tree are vertical. The muddy log landings, steep hillsides covered in blow downs and blanketed in slash is just insane. I can not imagine the difficultly of working in that environment day after day. When the foreman tweaked his back from that little slip it just showed how something pretty small can end up being a big deal. The one guy they said has been a faller for 30 years seems to have the right mix of seriousness and humor. When the yarder operator quit, the expression on the faller's face was like "yeah, you'll be back, sucker..."

 

[wood4heat]

The one guy they said has been a faller for 30 years seems to have the right mix of seriousness and humor. When the yarder operator quit, the expression on the faller's face was like "yeah, you'll be back, sucker..."

That guy was an @ss! Correct me if I'm wrong here but logging jobs are getting far and few between aren't they? I'd say good riddance and find someone who was happy to be working.

 

[HolmenTree]

Up here in the Canadian great white north all I could find on the History Channel was Sands Of Iwo Jima maybe we'll get it at a later date.

 

[AZLOGGER]

That guy was an @ss! Correct me if I'm wrong here but logging jobs are getting far and few between aren't they? I'd say good riddance and find someone who was happy to be working.

If you are referring to the yarder engineer, a good yarder engineer is pretty hard to replace, and yes most if not all of them will have an attitude. Then comes the shovel operators, they will tend to have attitude problems, if you start operating a shovel and don't have an attitude, you will soon get one. I believe I can speak truthfully about that, as I operated a shovel for 24 years. These are 2 of the most responsible and important jobs in this type of logging, remember there is a lot of activity going on at the landing and you are always watching for the people on the ground, that they are out of harms way before you move anything. Logging is not one of the safest environments to be around, although with proper training and alert people, everyone goes home at the end of the day.

 

[gavin]

Huh, ok. Does anyone wear pants with cut protection built in? Seems like a simple way around chap hangups. I thought of that right when I heard Browning say he almost cut off his foot when he was running a saw and his prosthesis failed.

There was a clip from a DVD on YT, I can't remember the name of the DVD, it was some independent documentary about old growth logging on VC island, and all the fallers there were wearing basically the same PPE I wear... Different terrain? Just different culture? Stricter/different safety regs?

If anyone knows the YT clip I'm thinking of and can link to it, I'd appreciate it... YT is blocked at work... If you search for "loggers DVD" I think it will come up...

Edit: I think this is it... www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ52o03B3OE

yeah here on the b.c. coast you have to wear ppe. i've never seen a faller wear chaps, they all wear chainsaw pants. virtually everyone wears the hardhats with flip down pelter earmuffs and a flip down screen visor. you also have to have a certain amount of reflective material on you: front back and sides.

 

[rmihalek]

shovel?

AZLogger, excuse the dumb question, but is a shovel an excavator-type piece of equipment or like a catepillar dozer or what?

What's the role of the shovel operator at a logging site?

 

[windthrown]

Third, wow! These guys (and gals) work in horrible conditions. I enjoy being out in the forests and mountains, but that's when the tree are vertical. The muddy log landings, steep hillsides covered in blow downs and blanketed in slash is just insane. I can not imagine the difficultly of working in that environment day after day.

That is not as bad up there as it can be down here in the central Oregon coastal ranges in the Tyee Core (gelological) area. Here we have more landslides and floods due to sandstone and mudstone and a thin soil covering which does not allow water to seep deep into the earth. It all washes off. So the steeps here can be even steeper than up there (more headwalls), and the run-off can be worse in the rains. I have lived in both areas myself. These mountains get a lot of rain... I measure rain in feet here. We got 6 ft last rain year (July to June), and over 8 ft the year before (rain gauges flooded out that year). We have about 5 ft so far this year.

Also note that the weather in the first show was pretty mild, and the mud was not that bad. Trust me... that was damp earth, not mud that the Sherman tank yarder got stuck in. We get these heavy rains in December and January (one to two feet per month) when the trees are dormant and the water has no place to go. Also, the hurricane that came though here late last year was far worse than the one they are clearning up after in the show (posted here: http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=58901&highlight=PNW+hurricane).

As for the cable yarding and the steep mess and all, that pretty much looks like the way that they do it around here. Blow down or not. Steep conditions, lots of rain, mud, snow, wind, and then more rain and mud, and well, in summer it does not rain very much. But fire season prevents cutting in a lot of areas that time of year, and everyone here with equipment works on roads in summer (if anyone is hiring, that is).

 

[Gologit]

AZLogger, excuse the dumb question, but is a shovel an excavator-type piece of equipment or like a catepillar dozer or what?

What's the role of the shovel operator at a logging site?

Looks like AZLogger is off-line so I'll try to help. It's that old Left Coast terminology again...a shovel is basically an excavator type of machine with grapples attached to load logs. There's usually a serrated butt plate on the boom for one end of the log to lever against while the other end of the log is held in the grapples. The term shovel is a real antique...left over from the old steam-shovel days in the woods.

The shovel operator is responsible for sorting and decking the logs as they come on the landing.

He also loads the trucks....sometimes thirty loads a day. This might account for his sour disposition at times.

He's usually the first one to work in the morning...way before daylight so he can get the first round of trucks out before skidding and yarding start. He's also usually the last one to go home at night...gotta get those last trucks loaded.

A good shovel operator is worth his weight in gold. The smarter truck drivers bring them donuts and otherwise don't bug them.

 

[windthrown]

That guy was an @ss! Correct me if I'm wrong here but logging jobs are getting far and few between aren't they? I'd say good riddance and find someone who was happy to be working.

Most of my logging friends in Vernonia are idle, and have been for over a year now. One guy I know there with perfect, 24"+ DBH low taper Doug fir trees (best I have seen in a long time) is felling a few a week and bucking them up into firewood. Better price on firewood than he can get at the mill (Doug fir is at about $650 MBF). Most mills up there and around here are not taking any logs, except cedar and alder. I have seen no log trucks come out of here in the past 2 months. First year I lived here (4 years ago) timber was booming. Trucks were rolling out of here 4 or 5 an hour. You could hear yarding in the background all the time. Beep beep... beep beep beep.

Quiet here now... very quiet. They marked off an adjacent property to ours for loggng here 2 years ago.. Lone Rock Timber had sent us a note that they intended to cut it this past fall, and they put in a road up there the previous year and boulder'd it off from traffic. No cut though. We were hoping that we could get the 5 acre section thinned below it in the process (trade for lumber) on the same north slope. We do not have the equipment to get the logs out, it is just to steep. They have the property above and behind it, so it would be easy for them to yard it out. Thinning was big 2 years ago too. Huge tracts were thinned up along the ridge above us. Not now. Mills here are deciding if they should shut down (and lose money) or keep a skelleton crew and process just enough logs to stay open (and also lose money).

Dire times for the logging industry. And the economy in general. Housing is in the tank... foreclosures are common. Also banking is in the tank. And the stock market is in the tank. The housing boom is over.

 

[2dogs]

Most of my logging friends in Vernonia are idle, and have been for over a year now. One guy I know there with perfect, 24"+ DBH low taper Doug fir trees (best I have seen in a long time) is felling a few a week and bucking them up into firewood. Better price on firewood than he can get at the mill (Doug fir is at about $650 MBF). Most mills up there and around here are not taking any logs, except cedar and alder. I have seen no log trucks come out of here in the past 2 months. First year I lived here (4 years ago) timber was booming. Trucks were rolling out of here 4 or 5 an hour. You could hear yarding in the background all the time. Beep beep... beep beep beep.

Quiet here now... very quiet. They marked off an adjacent property to ours for loggng here 2 years ago.. Lone Rock Timber had sent us a note that they intended to cut it this past fall, and they put in a road up there the previous year and boulder'd it off from traffic. No cut though. We were hoping that we could get the 5 acre section thinned below it in the process (trade for lumber) on the same north slope. We do not have the equipment to get the logs out, it is just to steep. They have the property above and behind it, so it would be easy for them to yard it out. Thinning was big 2 years ago too. Huge tracts were thinned up along the ridge above us. Not now. Mills here are deciding if they should shut down (and lose money) or keep a skelleton crew and process just enough logs to stay open (and also lose money).

Dire times for the logging industry. And the economy in general. Housing is in the tank... foreclosures are common. Also banking is in the tank. And the stock market is in the tank. The housing boom is over.

Yep. The logging economy has been riding the hot air balloon of home sales. That in turn was created by political pressure on the banks to lend to people who could never pay the loan back. There is a neawly created community called Westin Village south of Sacramento on I-5 where 2/3 of the houses are in foreclosure. There are entire blocks of houses unoccupied where the owners just walked away. In addition many people have upside down loans. An old gf of mine bought a house about 10 years ago for $126k. She refied every few years and now owes$362k and the nhouse is valued at $360k. Homes around here would sell in hours for thousands over the asking price. Now they are for sale for months and sell for less than the asking price. But, I don't see this as such a bad thing. It is the way things were just a few years ago. The market corrects itself periodically but it leaves some wounded. BTW when my parents bought there first house their payments were $11.00 a month and they were worried about making it.


You can't sell any DF to the local mill. They only take redwood. DF is firewood around here too. Why mill lumber that won't be sold?

 

[Marc]

yeah here on the b.c. coast you have to wear ppe. i've never seen a faller wear chaps, they all wear chainsaw pants. virtually everyone wears the hardhats with flip down pelter earmuffs and a flip down screen visor. you also have to have a certain amount of reflective material on you: front back and sides.

Huh, know anyone that appears in that documentary? I'm thinking about buying it. I think it'd be more informative and professional than Ax Men.

Edit: By "professional" I mean the quality of the documentary, not the quality of the men being filmed.