Need info on woodcutters

You'd cut in late summer, if you cut live. But you need to let the wood dry for a year or more to burn right.

We cut just for ourselves; we cut trees and let them lie as logs for a year, then cut the logs to lengths to fit in the wagon to let dry as uncut cord wood (you cut to length and stack in piles; one cord to a pile) for a second year, then cut those logs to fit the stove

Mostly people use chainsaws today for cutting, a maul for splitting. I've seen two men with a two person saw who know what they are doing keep up, barely, with a chainsaw until they had to stop and sharpen the saw.
We burned 4 to 6 cords a year to heat a two story house, and another 4 cords for the barn and sugaring.

For going prices, check out Craig's List.

Note: hard wood burns better and costs more; pine, for example is OK for kindling, but not much else. Black Locust is IMPOSSIBLE to cut.

Where I live most of the people who do this are farmers or people who have land in the country. They do it as a part-time business. They don't use the term "woodcutter" here (they might somewhere else); they don't really have a title other than something like "firewood seller".

They can cut the wood anytime it's not below freezing. The farmers do it when they're not busy with their farming activities, such as fall.

They often sell it by either a full or half cord. Some sell it off the side of the road, others will deliver, some will deliver and stack. The most valuable wood here is either hickory or oak, as they are dense woods that produce a lot of heat and are slow burning.

Also, many people who cut and sell wood here live in the more rural areas. They will cut the wood and then offer it for sell to suburban areas closer to town. The price can vary quite a bit.

I know very little about wood cutting but a colleague gave me a copy of this poem when I moved into my present home that has a huge fireplace. They thought it might be of use to me! There are, I think other versions of it...

LOGS TO BURN

Logs to burn, logs to burn,
Logs to save the coal a turn
Here's a word to make you wise,
When you hear the woodman's cries.
Never heed his usual tale,
That he has good logs for sale,
But read these lines and really learn,
the proper kind of logs to burn.

OAK logs will warm you well,
If they're old and dry.
LARCH logs of pine wood smell,
But the sparks will fly.
BEECH logs for Christmas time,
YEW logs heat well.
SCOTCH logs it is a crime,
For anyone to sell.

BIRCH logs will burn too fast,
CHESTNUT scarce at all
HAWTHORN logs are good to last,
If you cut them in the fall
HOLLY logs will burn like wax
You should burn them green
ELM logs like smouldering flax
No flame to be seen

PEAR logs and APPLE logs,
they will scent your room.
CHERRY logs across the dogs,
Smell like flowers in bloom
But ASH logs, all smooth and grey,
burn them green or old;
Buy up all that come your way,
They're worth their weight in gold.

We used to cut about six trees into fireplace lengths in an afternoon to load in a wagon, and then would split them with an axe at home. I've found that a heavy mallet shaped axe (not sure of the official name) is very effective for splitting logs. We would only cut trees that were dead and still standing or had recently fallen over while still alive, thus killing them. In both cases, the trees would have been dead about six months to a year.

As far as making a living, if they live near a large urban area, they should be able to sell for $60 a pickup load easy. The typical pickup load is about a half cord.

The problem with your questions is a lot of it depends. Most of the people I know who do it, do it as a supplement to their income. But depending on fuel oil and propane prices, it can be pretty lucrative. Other years it just plain sucks.

Chain saws are used and there is a great deal of difference between a 14" and a 20" model. Not only is the bar longer (the length the saw sticks out), horsepower is greater with the bigger saws and the chains tend to dull slower with smaller trees with the bigger saws. But if you're not experienced, a 20" saw is a bitch to handle.

And this is all dangerous. We just had a cop killed in New Hampshire through a kickback, and I've had several friends killed or maimed in the process. Safety gear includes ear protectors, eye protectors, helmet, chainsaw pants, good gloves, and all that stuff does is just minimize the damage. A 70' tree weighs several tons, and doesn't care about your hopes and dreams. Nor do any of the tools that you use.

Once you drop the tree, you trim the useless branches off, then you need to skid it out of the woods. A tractor works (personally I hook a chain onto the bucket and go backwards, but some people use the 3-point hitch on the back of the tractor), but you can also saw it down into the right length and load a pickup in the woods.

Most guys, though, trim the logs into dragging length, and skid them out of the woods. That way you avoid a stacking, as well as being able to take them to a more convenient area to work. With a decent sized tractor, you can drag quite the tree out of the woods. It's always interesting watching the face of someone as I drag a 50' tree out of the woods.

Most guys doing this commercially tend to do this by operations. You might spend one day just dropping trees and trimming them. As long as they're not in your way, why shift to the next operation. Then the next day, you spend it skidding them out, stacking them in a convenient location. These are the high speed operations of the job.

Then you take the logs, cutting them to length. Although some people use cut-off saws (including ones that operate off of the PTO on a tractor), most people use a chainsaw. Here the smaller saw is frequently easier to handle than the big one. (I have two chainsaws, the big one and the little one.) This probably takes longer than anything else, and involves a lot of handling.

Then you split the wood. The longer you wait to split the wood so that it can dry, the better off you are. Splitting can be done by a splitting maul and wedges (not an ax) or a power splitter. Everyone doing this commercially around here uses a power splitter. Even more handling of the wood.

Two person teams tend to work best, with one running the machine, and the other handling the wood.

Working time is usually limited by sunlight, other obligations, and back pain. I know two people teams that do about a thousand cords a year, but the level of mechanization varies a lot. The more you do, the more machines you'll probably use.

Right at the moment, dried firewood is going for $250+ in New Hampshire. This is for a cord, which is 4 x 4 x 8. Face cords are illegal in New Hampshire, and all firewood must be sold as a portion of a cord. But no one actually measures a cord, and most guys go over to avoid any problems.

I do about 4 cords for heating my house. I work at it year round, and just about any time I go outside, I'll split a couple of pieces. It's a lot easier for me than making a week of it. Depending upon the job, a lot of this can be broken down into small chunks to fit around other things.

And a wood stove will warm you in many ways. Once when you cut it, once when you drag it in, once when you split it, once when you stack it, once when you bring it into the house, once when you burn it, and one final time when you shovel the ashes. And you save money on the gym membership.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Jim made some good points. I will add that we are probably going to have to pay about $300 for a cord here, in southeast New Hampshire. That's cut split and delivered, hardwood, seasoned. We are just about done with some free wood we got for the picking up, that was red oak, heavy, although someone had cut it into rounds after it came down last year in the ice storm. We paid $80 to rent a vertical hydraulic splitter and spent a whole day splitting what came out to about a cord and a half. We use about 6-8 cords for the winter, in two wood stoves, supplementing with three hundred gallons of propane in a forced hot air furnace.

Most of the big time firewood operators prefer to go into the woods in the winter, when the ground is frozen. You can't get in there when it's wet. I know some folks that log with horses, that might be just as easy either way, they don't get stuck.

My father used to cut wood, just to supplement our winter heating really. I remember he always took dead trees, or trees that were already down. Small trees he'd cut into burnable chunks where it laid, the bigger ones he'd pull out into the open pasture to deal with. Sometimes, he'd use the tractor to drag it out of the woods, and sometimes, our old stud horse. (I think the horse was offended when we used the tractor)

Dad also built his own hydraulic log splitter that ran off the hydraulics on the tractor. Made splitting things up way easier.

I don't know that this is helpful to you, but it sure was a nice trip down memory lane for me, so thanks!

Tedium said:

I want to know about the solitary person who goes out into the forest to chop firewood.

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Don't. Just Don't. What convinced me to stop was when in an instant I saw the past when I heard the crack. That crack was caused by the shaft of the dead tree cracking 40 feet above me (Thank you termites!). It was a dead tree and so "environmentally safe". I entered the woods with my axe as a young teenager and while chopping suddenly heard the snap. As in slow motion I looked up to the sound to see half a tree coming at me. I had just enough time to get my head out of the way as it hit my shoulder. I laid there for several hours before realizing that nobody knew I was out there. I crawled out of there an old man.

If you looking into this as an occupation for a character in this century--don't.

What might work better is someone with a portable lumber mill, and access to labor.

If you've got acres with forest, part of maintaining it is to clear out the dead trees, the dangerous trees, the trees that are overcrowded/crowding. You'd hire a small logging company to come in every ten years or so (we used to do with) and tag trees with color coded ribbons (one for firewood, one for pulp, one for furniture wood . . .)

My father and I (and often all of us) would walk over the land and check to make sure that the tagged trees were OK to be cut, and also, labled OK (in general, for instance, you don't want cherry tagged for pulp).

The lumber company would do the actual cutting. They then hauled away their trees, and cleaned up after themselves (this is important!).

Sometimes you take cash payment from the lumberer. Sometimes you take wood, or a mix of the two.

There's also a thing where sometimes someone with a portable saw mill will come in after the lumber company, or if they have staff, will do small amounts of tree cutting themselves--and then later, will deal with the trees themselves; saw into lengths for firewood, saw into slabs for building and furniture.

Things to Google:
spalted wood
clear cutting
portable saw mill

Also: chainsaws kill people, and make people go deaf when used improperly, or less than safely, or with hideous bad luck. They can kick back and saw through a leg in a blink of an eye.

You bleed to death.

Using a saw, of any sort, or even an axe on a tree that's been used for anything--say sugaring--and has a piece of metal lodged deep inside it (you might not even see it!) can cause a chain saw to ricochet and do all manner of maiming sorts of injuries.

GeorgeK said:

Don't. Just Don't. What convinced me to stop was when in an instant I saw the past when I heard the crack. That crack was caused by the shaft of the dead tree cracking 40 feet above me (Thank you termites!). It was a dead tree and so "environmentally safe". I entered the woods with my axe as a young teenager and while chopping suddenly heard the snap. As in slow motion I looked up to the sound to see half a tree coming at me. I had just enough time to get my head out of the way as it hit my shoulder. I laid there for several hours before realizing that nobody knew I was out there. I crawled out of there an old man.

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OUCH! Glad you made it out after all. That's seriously scary.

When we were kids my dad did this to supplement our income. He was a pro lumberjack before I was born and so knew what he was doing.

What he did, was get a permit from the state to go in and salvage the logs left behind in the clearcuts after the logging companies cleared out. He had a huge '64 GMC that he put monster truck wheels on and decked out in olive drab house paint, and it had a CB radio inside. When we were little (starting at 4 years old) he'd take us up in the woods with him to cut wood. We would play on the radio and talk to truckers while he drove, and when we got there my brother and I would play and pick berries while he cut logs.

They were already felled and in clearings, so it was a lot safer than felling trees yourself. Once the logs were cut we'd help chuck the smaller pieces into the bed, or stack them once he chucked them up (or hefted, depending on the size of the piece)

Once the wood was home, he used a maul to split the really big pieces into quarters and halves. Then he'd use a hydraulic splitter that he built himself to make it into woodstove sized pieces to cure and sell. Uncured he'd sell for cheaper, just to make room if we were doing a lot of volume. Our biggest job as kids was at home, stacking all the wood as he cut it and tossed us the pieces.

It's also worth noting that one time (at home thankfully) he was sawing a large section of log in half and the saw did kick back and cut his shin to the bone. I remember seeing a LOT of blood and then being inside telling my mom to call 911, I don't even remember running to the house it happened so fast. He ended up being okay, but it could have easily been much worse.

There was a show running on the discovery channel called "Extreme Loggers" or something along those lines. I remember him watching it fairly recently. He got all nostalgic and told us a bunch of stories about how unsafe his crew was.

EDIT: Not sure if it's noteworthy, but we were cutting douglas fir and a bit of red cedar. Hardwood is close to nonexistent here, and really valuable. Dad's most prized wood was madrona. It is so dense that a single piece about 20 inches long and 6 inches in diameter would burn hot the entire night all on it's own. He never sold that stuff when he could get it, it stayed in our shed.

Medievalist said:

Using a saw, of any sort, or even an axe on a tree that's been used for anything--say sugaring--and has a piece of metal lodged deep inside it (you might not even see it!) can cause a chain saw to ricochet and do all manner of maiming sorts of injuries.

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My parents owned quite a bit of land in the country; some farmland, but mostly woods. When I was little my father would occasionally sell some individual trees: red oaks, white oaks, poplars, and sometimes hickories and walnuts.

The lumbermen were not interested in any tree near a yards or house. Too much chance of the the tree having some kind of metal in it--bullets, nails, whatever.

There was a huge walnut tree on the back side of the property (four or five feet in diameter at the base). It would have been worth a considerable amount of money, but because it was on a fence line (someone long ago had actually used the tree as a fence post and nailed barbed wire to it), the lumbermen were not interested in even trying to cutting it. There was just too much chance of injury to either their equipment or themselves.

This is not answering the question you asked but it is about lone craft men who live and and work in small woods.There may be something useful for you.

http://en.wikipdia.org/wiki/bodger`


sorry can't get this link to work, but I'm sure you can find it

I'll also add - there are big differences in everything depending on the time period of your story and location - types of woods, types of equipment used, prices, even the definition of cord (which in the old days was always a full cord, never a face cord).

One caution about current wood cutting, especially in the midwestern US is the threat of the emerald ash borer. It is illegal in some places to take wood across state lines and/or county lines (even for a camping fire).

Second caution about current wood burning, many people won't touch pine of any sort because it gums up stove flues (including in outside wood burner supplemental heating systems).

Third caution is availability of wood. There's no where near as much available wood as there was. Here in central Ohio there aren't too many places you'd be able to cut enough wood to heat for a winter. We have two friends who use wood as the sole source of heat who use our place as one of their sources for storm felled and/or dead trees. They may get two cords from our 25 acres in a year (they'd get a heck of a lot more if they'd take the pine, but they are still taking the ash). If it's a bad year for us (like last year with the hurricane Ike winds), they'll get more.

Around here six sticks of split wood for a campfire sells for $4 to $6 (decent market during the summer). Not sure what a cord is these days. Hope some of that helps. Puma

ETA: Before the days of chain saws, two man, cross-cut saws were also used for felling large trees.

Here in MI it is more often the not a tree service that sells firewood. The collect all the hardwood they cut down and store it in big piles at the company property. Then when there is not enough work to keep all the crews working they have the employee's cut it to length and split it.

A couple of years ago a huge wind storm, maybe straight line winds or maybe a tornado came through about five miles south of my house. A lot of trees came down, many very large and very old. The city came through and cut them into large logs and were going to come through to pick them up. i came through first. I would ask folks if it was OK for me to take a few of their logs (they usually had dozens) and they always said yes. Then I had a friend with a chain saw cut them up for me. I let them dry until last summer. I have enough firewood to last me years. I am not a woodcutter, I'm a gleaner.

For an ordinary guy, it's kind of hard to have a occupation that doesn't require much time or effort and still make much money. I could offer you a few possibilities if you'd like.

If your character was someone "special", then you'd have more options. For example only, some kind of financial wizard who has given up the New York rat race to live in the country and live a simple life (Green Acres, only without the talking pig ;-).

Tedium said:

ETA: A modern day cutter of firewood. And yes, I am describing it just like that in the work.

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I would probably just say "firewood cutter". But that's your choice, of course.

This is helpful to me as I have a wood-cutting scene as well. Thank you all.

burgy61 said:

Here in MI it is more often the not a tree service that sells firewood. The collect all the hardwood they cut down and store it in big piles at the company property. Then when there is not enough work to keep all the crews working they have the employee's cut it to length and split it.

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This is true most everywhere, adds income to the tree service same as selling the mulch from the chipper.

Locally there are a few wood cutters working, almost all are father-son teams. They'll cut and stack your own trees or deliver firewood in everything from pickup load to face cord (only mills here have full cords). Almost all is oak, some pine, and all is split on a hydraulic log splitter. Pricing depends on how close you are to their place, delivery is the major variable. Usually $50-60 a pickup load, about half a face cord. Most will stack for an extra fee, everyone I know just gets it dumped and stacks it in a shed themselves.

Personally, I just whack up some dead tree that fell on the property when I need firewood, it's been decades since I used it to heat, cook or heat water. And then we'd go through at least two cords (full cords) more than we planned for and be out in knee-deep drifts with chainsaws. The person who had the fewest blankets was who had to go out to get the wood for the stove in the morning. For some reason eight blankets was never enough to keep me from having to break some split wood out of the ice pile and bring it in.

Jeff