The golden walnut tree.

[JPigg55]

We had limited foresting done on our 64-acres about 10 years ago. Ours were primarily hard maples, a few black walnuts; had just over a 100 trees taken at about $300 per tree. Bruce

This reminded me, about 15 years ago we sold some timber to help pay for some much needed new fencing. Loggers came in and just took white oaks mainly off of about 25-30 acres of timber. Paid us $10,000 for the trees.

 

[Scruffy]

J pigg you,d be lucky to see half that now.to wood tick, yep this is a yard tree can about guarantee destroying 2 if not 3 32 inch chains not dulling them i’m Talking breaking teeth off or breaking the chain. Funny how grown in fence wire a clothes line hooks will do that..
Thanks ron

 

[Scruffy]

Wood tick I saw that video when this all started. Wife’s 2 sisters still didn’t get the picture. I thought it was funny!! Nope i’m The bad guy and love it. They now don’t bring things over for me to fix.
Thanks ron

 

[ACHiPo]

I am a wood worker as well, I too have felled my share of timber, and I chainsaw mill my own lumber for my own use. it is very labor intensive. Then it has to be moved to the side as you mill it, then moved again to load into my truck to bring it home, then moved again to get it into the drying shed, then it has to be stickered and stacked for drying it is very labor intensive. Then I air dry the lumber for a year or more depending on the thickness that I milled it. And that just to get the lumber from the logs to the shed. Do you have any idea how heavy a 2" thick 3' wide 8' long soaking wet board is? Cutting the tree down and cleaning up the debris is another story in itself. and with urban lumber you have to plan on hitting nails and taking time to resharpen your chains. milling with a chainsaw mill itself is very physically demanding, and the equipment is very expensive to purchase and then there is the maintenance, parts, and fuel for the saws. The cost are even higher for a guy with a portable bandmill. Milling lumber for my own use and for my hobby is fun and a great way for me to acquire wood for my own personal use, but it would be damn near impossible to make any money at it with a chainsaw mill, and it would take a lot of logs just to break even with a bandmill. With a chainsaw mill I can mill a log where it falls and carry it away a board at a time, with a bandmill you have to get the 5,000lb or 10,000lb log to the mill to saw it. People never really understand the cost and labor that is involved in milling wood to make a marketable product and get it to market, let alone to use it. Sheesh!........I'm glad its just a hobby for me. That's my old chainsaw mill in my avatar with a couple of smaller boards I milled. The sawmill has a new $1,200 powerhead on it now because milling killed the old powerhead, just flat out wore it out!
I NEVER PAY FOR LOGS!!!!

And don't forget the nails, bullets, etc. that can mess up a saw blade. Nope, unless you've got pretty much pristine forest, you're not going to make any money selling a tree unless you pay to mill it yourself and sell the lumber.

 

[Scruffy]

Wood tick ,did you buy an 088 or a 3120?
Thanks ron

 

[woodtickgreg]

Wood tick ,did you buy an 088 or a 3120?
Thanks ron

The new powerhead is a husky 395. A friend has a 3120 that im trying to con him out of, lol. The saw in my avatar is an old McCulloch pm1000, it was made by partner in germany. it was a 100cc saw that was a lower rpm saw but had very high torque, it worked well for many years (like 20+) I used it in a firewood part of a landscape business for many years, then set it up on the granberg alaskan mill with a double ended bar and roller helper handle on the other end, has an aux oiler as well. ran this set up for many years and milled a ton of lumber. The saw finally had enough and the crank bearings failed and wiped everything out one day while I was milling, by the time I realized something was wrong it was to late and the damage was done. The new husky 395 is higher rpm and does a fine job.

 

[RJSakowski]

Yet another facet to this gem is the risk involved in cutting large trees around buildings, power lines, and public roads. I have felled easily a hundred large hardwoods over the course of more than forty years but hesitate when working around my buildings. We had a large Norway maple in the yard and had once inquired with an arborist concerning felling the tree. I was quoted $5K for the job. The tree eventually came down on its own but pulled down a low voltage power line in the process.

We also had a large weeping willow in our yard, one trunk which was threatening the house. I hired a neighbor who logs to take the tree out with me assisting. He started at the top with me on the ground, using cables and a tractor mounted winch to steer limbs away from the house. When we got down to the main trunk, we still had 40 ft. and the trunk at the cut was 30" x 40". It turned out to be hollow with about 2" of live wood in tension supporting the tree. The tree was brought down without incident but it was the better part of a day and I still had a couple of day's work in cleaning up. My neighbor said that had he known of the condition of the tree, he never would have taken the job.

Hardwoods are notorious for not falling where you want them to go. Much more so than pines which are more symmetrical. I would like to think that I am fairly good at reading a tree but when nearby property is at risk, I would opt for having a professional do the work. We had a number of threatening trees around our buildings and an other neighbor who works for a landscaping firm offered to do the work. He had the equipment and skill but no liability insurance so we passed on that. A summer storm brought down a number of the trees this year, fortunately with minor damage to the buildings and we plan on having the remaining few trees professionally removed this winter.

So I would expect that paying $500 to have the tree removed is probably a bargain. If a logger knew that he was bidding against others, I would expect him to make what he felt was a reasonable offer. The tree may be worth a thousand or more delivered to the sawmill but the work, risk, and responsibility of delivering that tree could easily outweigh that value.