Timber Man

Top money really? Most of the stuff that is shipped to India s bought and sold on an underbark basis which amounts to giving around 18% average of a parcel away compared to overbark. I foot length given free on each stick for drying crack,...it all adds up.

I think a lot of it is more to do with the type of work cutters are doung now,like backing off for harvesters, jobs as described by the op ,cut and winch where different parties are involved. Piece still gets paid to harvesting contractors whatever, but unless cutters are felling the whole site how do you quantify who has done what? It still works in large hardwood on measure, and so it should. There was always a historical problem of cutters not getting settled up for everything on site,.millions of tonnes of timber have evaporated down the years.

Hmmm, I am not sure colleges are the right place to learn production cutting, perhaps they attract the wrong type of person. Certainly the best fallers I have come across in my time learnt their skills long before colleges were teaching it. Piece rate was the best way of learning the trade,..you either learnt or starved. Yes there is a variation in rates , there is also a variation in ability. I have literally worked from the north coast of Scotland to the south coast of England, and to a degree rates seem to be slightly regional, but then again which ever area you work in if the going rate could not support you living in that area then there isn't a job for you.There was a guy on another blog last week who has been cutting since the late eighties getting £100 per shift, felling for the harvester and putting a can of fuel through by 1pm.,,thats just not right. Now heres the crunch, the op asked if there are any skilled cutters able to work unsupervised and productive. The answer is yes there are, but if you were to say to a lot of people asking that question those kind of guys want 160 - 200 if its day rate they suddenly decide they will need to shop around,believe me I come across it on a regular basis.

It was actually me that said I wasn't far behind. I am not sure I fully agree with you , although we have bred a nation of machine drivers, but if that's where the work is who can blame them for that. Just as you work locally a lot of other cutters try to do the same, that's different to saying there are no good cutters. You seem reluctant to answer my point about rates, the truth is £120 a day is not a lot of money for a cutter that can go to a job , do anything and everything, run their own saws etc etc. I certainly wouldn't want to work for those rates unless I was really stuck for work, machine operators are getting more than that with none of the costs.

I agree, and from my experience piece rates were a lot fairer to both parties. Someone telling you how much they are prepared to pay you day rate is like them telling you how much your skills are worth, and I kind of object to that. That is someone else dictating to you how much you can earn.

So are you suggesting you would pay more than the rates I have quoted for the right cutters?

I am not that far behind you, but can still put it down, but I have very little enthusiasm towards contracts where they want to pay much less than what I am worth.

I wouldnt blame anyone for that. Day rates were the worst thing that happened , although understandably a lot of the cutting now couldn't be priced any other way, but far too many contractors think £100-£120 a day is a good rate to pay a skilled cutter....not the way I see it.

Continuity of work in an area is a different matter. Tbh the biggest barrier to someone hiring my skills is rates .

Perhaps that's because there isn't much work for them ?

Yes there is, and its not difficult to work out why. Just out of interest what would you consider a reasonable output?

I cut everything from big big hardwood right though to scrub. You are on piece rate if you are cutting by the acre, but if it has to be piece tonnage would be better. The timber will be getting sold by tonne or meter.

In my book you are doing the burning free. A small digger with grab speeds things up beyond belief,takes the graft out of stacking too,

If you are having to burn its not a great rate,..

What do you think the £1600 equates to per tonne ?

I agree, but one of the problems the south east has always had is distance from end user, particularly for low grade softwood. Its only in very recent years where hauling softwood chip from certain areas of the country has been viable, hence a lack of thinnings carried out. The south east was predominantly a hardwood growing area , they were grown for a reason, to supply local demand, a lot of the conifer that was taken out in 87 was first crop,...I was there harvesting and marketing it. It became a bit of a no go area for a number of years for obvious reasons, and I doubt there ever will be major parcels come to market for a number of years. We have cut a few Oak parcels in that area in the past 5 or 6 years, but not of the volume once common in the area.

Not having a go Elfinwood, but I have just had a quick look at your f b page and noticed one post that was advertising hardwood roadside at £52. I realise you may have dropped prices since then. £52 is quite a strong price considering second grade milling hardwood isn't making much more delivered to mill. Sometimes in hardwood parcels it pays to grade , but a strong roadside price would suggest that a strong standing price has been paid.

There is a lot of kit coming to the market, both harvesting and firewood production, always a sign of the times. The over inflated standing prices in recent years didn't help anyone,word travels, you get one landowner/agent that is getting x number of pounds per tonne and they all want it,but then again you can only sell it once. Conifer and low grade hardwood have never left great margins, ..you don't come across veneer grade Sitka very often hey? Production costs, haulage and a few quid for the owner and agent if theres one involved and you can see where the money goes.

I actually meant the pulp mill at Sittingbourne, not Sevenoaks, thought it best corrected.

In a lot of ways the south east is still recovering from the 87 blow, in timber growing terms its not that long ago . In comparison to some parts of the country there isn't a massive local milling capacity,a lot of the timber goes north. The chestnut coppice market changed drastically upon the closure of the Sevenoaks pulp mill. Hundreds of people made a living from chestnut stands , better quality into fencing, rest into pulp. Another problem facing coppice is winter cutting , then waiting for dry ground in the spring to extract,not many could afford to work that way. Pheasants have a lot higher value to a lot of south east landowners than a few hundred tonnes of timber.

Surprised you say that, the Border country has/had outstanding oak, same in parts of the west coast. Some of the big Scottish mills started off as hardwood mills. Jones were one of the biggest keel oak millers in the country.

Cutting the roots off is the starting point,..theres a lot of shake on sandy banks.

The tree in the picture is only second quality at best. The big knots towards the top of the tree only lend themselves to larger dimensional sawing. If you are talking 130 hoppus its only a quarter of a load, unless its something special the cost of logistics just don't make it worthwhile.

It depends what the sawmills want it for as to whether they want it or not,.. I am an ex sawmill hardwood buyer/ merchant.

Its brown anyway isn't it? Redheart is certainly not a UK term, and I suspect it is partly used as sales pitch for what would be considered second grade timber. Coloured beech never got wasted, a certain amount still ended up in the chair market. The rest for textile bobbins, clog soles, upholstery frames, pallet block, mining timber.etc etc.