hand cutters rates tonnage/day rate

[Logrover]

Totally agree with N1ck but it wont change, i ve been a cutter and could nt make money or change anything, too few people now to make much difference. A forest worker is someone who sits on a machine now, hand cutting piece work in the woods machines cant make money in is slave labour, if a machine cant make money then you cant either but these are the scrap woods youl be thrown!

Anyway i ve said it all before when i gave it up so no point going on, all i suggest is the poster of this thread be careful of not earning very little!

[Chris Sheppard]

Maybe the reason why there are no good cutters anymore is that agents and estates still expect guys to work for £100 a day less costs. With the price of petrol and diesel, insurance & PPE going up it is getting harder and harder to make a living no matter how good a cutter you are.

 

I appreciate that new hand cutters have to learn their trade and should expect to get less while they are new, but the other problem we have down south is estates that have not kept up their maintenance programmes and still expect commercial piece rates for cutting when there has been no thinning, cleaning, ride swipping, brashing, cutting fire breaks etc. Commercial piece rates are for commercial production felling, not for maintaining neglected pheasant cover. For that they can pay day rate.

 

If enough good contractors insisted on a minimum rate for hand cutting and at the same time invested time and money training a new generation of cutters we might be in a situation where there was a pool of good forestry workers making a decent living.

 

Maybe if land owners didn't pay so much to agents . . . but don't get me started on that!

 

Good post

[mendiplogs]

Maybe the reason why there are no good cutters anymore is that agents and estates still expect guys to work for £100 a day less costs. With the price of petrol and diesel, insurance & PPE going up it is getting harder and harder to make a living no matter how good a cutter you are.

 

I appreciate that new hand cutters have to learn their trade and should expect to get less while they are new, but the other problem we have down south is estates that have not kept up their maintenance programmes and still expect commercial piece rates for cutting when there has been no thinning, cleaning, ride swipping, brashing, cutting fire breaks etc. Commercial piece rates are for commercial production felling, not for maintaining neglected pheasant cover. For that they can pay day rate.

 

If enough good contractors insisted on a minimum rate for hand cutting and at the same time invested time and money training a new generation of cutters we might be in a situation where there was a pool of good forestry workers making a decent living.

 

Maybe if land owners didn't pay so much to agents . . . but don't get me started on that!

HI MATE your right there mate it i think a good chap is worth up to £200 a day thanks jon

[Matt McAulay]

Recently started into hand cutting myself this year really enjoy it, run a team of 3 myself as well the lads are young and hungry for work just keeping an eye on them until they get the experience to get there speed up. Still getting my head round the tonnage rate reckon were around the 8 to 12 mark but by Christ we graft for it, we fell, stack the brash, and stack the wood that we can track side and roll the bigger stuff. The biggest surprise the estates have had with my crew is we camp on site cooking either small open fire or wood stove. Wouldn't change it for the world can't beat the sound of a biggun coming down.

[AlexB]

HI MATE your right there mate it i think a good chap is worth up to £200 a day thanks jon

 

I'm moving to Somerset to work for Jon!

[mendiplogs]

I'm moving to Somerset to work for Jon!

 

HI FOOT i think a good chap is worth that mate jon

[AlexB]

I agree with you. A 10 hour day on the saw and remaining productive and safe in big timber deserves the reward! Though perhaps £150. Gotta keep a wee bit for the house

[Mark Bolam]

Maybe the reason why there are no good cutters anymore is that agents and estates still expect guys to work for £100 a day less costs. With the price of petrol and diesel, insurance & PPE going up it is getting harder and harder to make a living no matter how good a cutter you are.

 

I appreciate that new hand cutters have to learn their trade and should expect to get less while they are new, but the other problem we have down south is estates that have not kept up their maintenance programmes and still expect commercial piece rates for cutting when there has been no thinning, cleaning, ride swipping, brashing, cutting fire breaks etc. Commercial piece rates are for commercial production felling, not for maintaining neglected pheasant cover. For that they can pay day rate.

 

If enough good contractors insisted on a minimum rate for hand cutting and at the same time invested time and money training a new generation of cutters we might be in a situation where there was a pool of good forestry workers making a decent living.

 

Maybe if land owners didn't pay so much to agents . . . but don't get me started on that!

 

Good post Nick(?).

[Mark Bolam]

HI MATE your right there mate it i think a good chap is worth up to £200 a day thanks jon

 

Good handcutters are worth £200/day Jon, but no one actually gets that.

They're worth it, but it's not happening.

 

I hope the current lack of seasoned hardwood puts prices up for cutters.

[Chris Sheppard]

 

I hope the current lack of seasoned hardwood puts prices up for cutters.

 

On the whole, the increase in roadside prices have just pushed the standing prices up. One of the main problems as I see it is there are too many middlemen wanting a cut.

 

In an ideal world, the Contractor would deal with everything from the management plan to the selling to the producer. When it works like that, everyone does a bit better out of it and aren't lining an agents' pocket