For many timber companies on several continents cable logging is becoming the only choice for getting wood products to market. Over the last several decades with the advent of incredibly versatile and powerful log loaders shovel logging has removed most of the easy to get to timber many areas leaving steep and remote sites left again just as decades earlier. With Madill leaving the industry for a time a gapping hole was left for new yarder production and with current new prices of $1.5 million plus US and 1-2 year lag times of getting a machine built most logging companies don't have the capital to put at that kind of risk. Many machines including our own are over two decades old and while a total rebuild is always possible the several months of down time for a expensive refurbishment is very difficult for a company to survive. Some companies have been purchasing machines to keep in the “bull pen” in case of a major failure as a replacement but often these machines are being used for spare parts and quickly become unusable. To make matters worse many yarders have been shipped out of the US over the last decade exacerbating the shortage of viable machines here in North America. Are we quickly getting to a time when aging yarders become a hazard? I have seen a couple of machines over the past few years that had some real issues, I fear one or two machine failures with serious injuries involved may lead to a industry wide inspection/recertification or red tagging of yarders. Is my fear justified? What are your thoughts?
SCOTT S, INTERESTING THOUGHT. FIRST I UNDERSTAND VERY LITTLE ABOUT THE BIG PICTURE OF LOGGING IN THE NORTHWEST LET ALONE THE WORLD. FIRST I AM WONDERING ABOUT YOUR STATEMENT "shovel logging has removed most of the easy to get to timber many areas leaving steep and remote sites left again just as decades earlier" HOW MUCH OF THIS IS THERE SAY IN OREGON? OTHER CONVERSATIONS I HAVE HEARD IS THAT THE "EASY LOGGING" I.E. TRACTOR, AND SHOVEL PAYS FOR THE DIFFICULT LOGGING, IF A LAND OWNER HAS ONLY YARDER LOGGING LOG PRICES CAN'T PAY FOR THE YARDER OR HELICOPTER LOGGING?? SO THEN IT COMES DOWN TO SUPPLY AND DEMAND IF LARGE INVESTORS IN THE LOGGING INDUSTRY SEE THAT THEY NEED (X AMOUNT) OF NEW YARDERS TO REMOVE (X AMOUNT) OF TIMBER THEY WILL BUILD THEM AND HAVE THEM IN INVENTORY IF NOT THERE IS NO "CRISIS". I WOULD BE PRETTY CERTAIN THERE IS A NUMBERS CRUNCHER AT MODERN MACHINERY LOOKING AT A REPORT OF CURRENT "YARDER" LOGGING TIMBER INVENTORY AND IF IT SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THERE WILL BE A SWITCH OVER THE NEXT TEN YEARS TO REMOVE SAY LIKE AN EXTRA 4 BILLION BOARD FEET IN OREGON, THEY WILL BUILD THEM AND HAVE THEM IN INVENTORY SO THEY CAN SELL THEM, OTHERWISE NO CRISIS??????????????? MY THOUGHTS.......THEIRONORACLE
I know what you are talking about Scott. As much as I hate it, I am a grapple yarder mechanic. I hate the darn things but it is what I do. I get away from them, but I always come back for some unknow reason. I'm trying to teach as much as I can to the young guys because I plan to retire in a few more years and there aint too many of us left that can keep this old logging junk running LOL I used to worked for Tmar on Vancouver Island for a while and yarders were one of the things that we rebuilt. Some of those old girls coming in were pretty worn out. Parts are a major issure, if you break a gear good luck finding one. One machine broke a haulback gear, we took the old one off and sent it to vancouver and they used it as a sample to make a new on. Dont even want to guess what that cost. Once you get into a major rebuild, the things you find wrong just keeps growing. The abuse that these machines take and the metal fatique must be taking its toll. Shoddy repairs done in the past, the late night welding repair to get it running for the morning and we will repair it properly later that never happens. All adds up to a recipe for disaster. These machines were build strong to take the abuse but some of them are getting pretty old. Too many 5 gallon overhauls in the past Yes, I think your fears are real. My 2 cents worth
Thanks, anyone else? Scott
With a up to two year lag to get a new machine, all of us are so far behind the curve we will never catch up. From what I understand I could get a new 172 built if I put up $300K and waited for a year or two, how would that fit into current demand changes? Scott S
Me and a buddy of mine were talking about the same thing one day earier this winter. In North Idaho it's mostly tractor ground. All that has pretty much been logged over for the 2nd or 3rd time. There are a few little yarders (98 Link Belts, GT3's and Christys) and a couple yoders some guys are running now, and the Forest Circus is putting out a few chopper sales every year. The State has been putting up some sales the last couple years that require big towers to span out 3 or 4 thousand feet because they don't want to build or rebuild roads because of the enviromental BS they have to go through. Problem is nobody wants to fork out the money for a big yarder because of the short work seasons, lack of help, low timber prices, high fuel prices, and like you say Scott, what happens in a year or two when the markets change again. Like you said. All the big towers and big swingers are getting some age on them. If you really get to looking at them, all coverd in rust and moss and what ever else. What is all that corrosion hiding. Some of the bigger towers that are for sale have been sitting for years. And as everybody knows, once you start running them thats when all the demons will show up.
Scott has brought up an extremely important issue. I started out in Logging when wooden spars were still in use. I have also been involved with the evolution of portable spars to now. I have always wondered with the relatively high value of timber, why the Logger has always had to scrap for enough money for operations with rarely enough for updating iron. I believe the crisis Scott spoke of is already upon us and hopefully the timber owners will recognize it soon. The mills and resource managers are in the mix as well and need to recognize and finance the rebuilding of the long span tower segment in order to fulfill their production quotas. My thought is that there is more than enough value in timber to amply finance its safe extraction with modern and safe equipment.
Scott s, just a thought here don't know if it would work or not, how about calling your bonding company and getting a bond to cover that $300,000 it would cost you only 1% to 3% and if things changed enough according to your contract with your bonding company and the dealer then you can let there lawyers to sort that out? Another question here, can you actually get paid enough to pay for a new $1.5 mil yarder (about $170/hr i think in repiar and maintenance and devaluation)? My quick numbers show that yarder skidding costs 5-7 times as much as tractor or shovel skidding, plus the additional cost of hand falling? I just don't understand how those trees are currently worth removing at todays prices! .............just a few more thoughts..............theironoracle
I received a quote today for a new 124 Madill Current Sales Price: $2 million US Dollars Lead Time: 1 year Gawd..... Scott
Holy cow. Spendy! Is that coming from New Zealand or made in the states? I personally think that the market is set for the next decade or so. There are enough used machines on the market to satisfy demand. The engineering on the machines are amazing and that is what leads them to lasting so long. They also benefit from using mechanical injection motors so they skip the wiring nightmare that many newer machines have. But, they all will reach the point where they are plum wore out. What then? I believe we will see a conversion to mostly yoder style machines, with sales being setup with shorter yarding distances. We will also have smaller piece sizes going into the future, so the need for yarders with huge line capacity will be diminished. I already see this with less sales being setup with landing that support these large yarders, and more benefit the use of smaller yarders such as the 071 or even yoders. Also, with the price of L&I (at least in Washington) for yarder crews, I see grapple yarding probably coming more and more into play. This being said, there still will always be that odd sale that needs a larger yarder. Almost every logger in NW Washington has a big Skagit/Madill/Thunderbird/Washington sitting somewhere, ready to be used when those longer sales do come up, and many are currently using them.
The question I have; what will be used for guyline stumps and tail holds? Every time I see a tower, there is at least one cat and usually more being used a guyline stumps. I was watching a small Koller Tower last year, a 30-foot tower, and he was pulling stumps with it. He ended up using a processer and a small cat for his guylines. He was reaching out only about 550 feet, small wood and small stumps, steep ground. If you start reaching out a couple thousand feet because of roadless requirements, that will call for more even more guylines and some pretty stout tail holds. Machinery costs are prohibitive for something new, but wait until you get to the “extras” like “spare cats” for anchors.
I am not familiar with the logging industry, but I am familiar with the equipment industry. The company that I currently work for will do certified rebuilds on mining loaders, dozers, and haul trucks with really high hours. The price and down time for the machines is substansially lower than buying new. Also the machine that is being rebuilt gets all the updates available if the customer wants them. I may be wrong but I don't see where a yarder could not be refurbished and updated in the same way. I agree though the market has to be there to make it cost effective.
There are only so many hurts that a frame on any piece of equipment can take. Most of the big iron in the woods has tens of thousands of hours on the frame with extensive impact loading. Sure you can throw new components into the frame as much as you can afford. What will be the reaction if one of those components comes loose and decides it will part company with the base machine? You have men working under those lines. Would you want to take the chance of an employee trying to dance away from a run away log with a carriage and a thousand feet of wire rope attached? I kind of agree with all here about the fate of the big yarders. The size of the wood kind of makes them overkill, you have to have so many sticks per pull that it seems the fuel costs would kill the profit. It takes a lot of dog hair to be able to pay a crew, capital costs, maintenance costs, insurance and fuel and then try to put some dollars in your pocket.
isn't this just a basic supply and demand issue? as we have seen recently Madill machines are being built again and Tmar machines are on offer also. While prices for new equipment may be high at the moment as there is still a reasonable supply of viable 2nd hand gear, so not as many new machines needed, the older machines will become obsolete,worn out, wrecked, burnt etc. thereby creating a greater demand for new machines. more yarders needed = more orders placed with manufacturers = better economies of scale = cheaper yarders or more yarders needed = openings in the market for more manufacturers = competition from manufacturers to sell product = cheaper yarders Very basic premise I know but you get the drift. I realise that in the short term it will still cost a lot for new gear but eventually every market place finds an equilibrium.It is just that at the moment we are going through the after effects of too many manufacturers and new machines and no logging work which resulted in many companies (both manufacturers and loggers) going broke....... I hope we never see that again ......but we aren't as smart as we would like to be.
The problem with new is that you have no control over what the buyers will pay for the wood. How many sticks will it take to pay off the machine. With the cost of insurance now days, they will have to have robots setting chokers and doing the rigging. The guy in the cab will be a computer jockey with a screen and maybe a joystick.
Loggers son and john c., i second both of your posts!!! Tio
With regard to operators investing in new iron, here in our area Potlatch (under relatively new mgmt) continues to pay at marginal to near breakeven prices to the point where a local long time operation has thrown in the towel and is now breaking up. That says a lot about why nobody wants to risk investing. Two cents from my area.
Who is it?
I'm new here so I want to make sure it's kosher to drop names - is it considered acceptable? If not I can PM you. The owner employs over 100 if I remember right. Probably small by some standards but a big employer for a small area for sure. The business will be split up and subdivided so there will still be something left but not anything like it was.
I have worked for and had my own outfit in the forest industry for a long time. As some have written about revenue for operations rarely does anyone make enough to finance new iron let alone keeping their heads above water financially. As long as a few companies are willing to work at less that adequate prices we will always have a struggle. In one area of Washington State a Timber Co that I contracted for had a saying among their contract administrators that they were doing their pricing correctly if one outfit a month went broke. Redhorse knows what I am stating as he is experiencing this even now. I have no answers other than to work smart not so much hard. Good luck to all of you true American Timbermen and support personnel.
The story I hear from one of the longtime equipment operators is that Potlatch hired a couple of Plum Creek's officials who stand to make a pretty large bonus when they retire in a couple of yrs - even if it guts the company/business in the process. Sadly, it looks like a lot of guys who supported that company for decades are going to suffer as a result.
I appreciate the sentiment of the thread author. Here is a link to a few pics of the rebuilt 172 that did the Trans-Pacific crossing for a rebuild. http://activeequipment.co.nz/rebuilds/madill-172-2/
Plebeian, that is awesome. Who did the rebuild? ....theironoracle
There is an article on the Company that owns this 172 and the rebuild in the most recent Timber West Magazine.
The following was offered to some timber professionals a few weeks back, your opinions would be appreciated if you care to share. "For many timber companies on several continents cable logging is becoming the only choice for getting wood products to market. Over the last several decades with the advent of incredibly versatile and powerful log loaders, shovel logging has removed most of the easy to get to timber leaving steep and remote sites just as decades earlier. With Madill leaving the industry for a time a gapping hole was left for new yarder production. With current new prices of $1.5 million plus US and 1-2 year lag times of getting a machine built most logging companies don't have the capital to put at that kind of risk. Many machines including our own are over two decades old and while a total rebuild is always possible the several months of down time for a expensive refurbishment is very difficult for a company to survive. In November we replaced the swing bearing under our TSY 255 Thunderbird, which resulted in several weeks of down time and nearly $60,000 in parts and repairs. We had to pre order the bearing 5 months in advance for this planned repair; it's becoming very common to have replacement parts built as the OEM parts are long gone. A few weeks ago we had a engine fan fail, it took over two weeks to get the part built and shipped in from Canada. Some companies have been purchasing machines to keep in the “bull pen” in case of a major failure as a replacement but often these machines are being used for spare parts and quickly become unusable. To make matters worse many yarders have been shipped out of the US over the last decade exacerbating the shortage of viable machines here in North America. I do believe we are quickly getting to a time when aging yarders may become a hazard. We have seen a couple of machines over the past few years that had some real issues, our fear is one or two machine failures with serious injuries involved may lead to a industry wide inspection/recertification or red tagging of yarders. There are only so many hurts that a frame on any piece of equipment can take. Most of the big iron in the woods has tens of thousands of hours on the frame with extensive impact loading. Our company has been in the market for another yarder for some time now and have found the available used machines to either be in hazardous disrepair or ill fitted to suit our needs. There are a few large long line machines for sale but the need for quick mobility and the ever more stringent weight limits for heavy hauling make the list of choices incredibly small. We have found that big swing yarders are incredibly versatile and efficient but the availability of these machines is near to non-existent. Recently we contacted a local dealer about the purchase of a new 124 Madill which is the updated model of our current TSY 255 Thunderbird.(see attached spec sheets and proposal) The offering price of $2 million for a bare machine with 10% down and up to over a year wait time for construction is a incredible risk for even a very well capitalized logging company. The machine would need another $150-200 thousand for rigging and carriage just to get started logging. As of now yarders are failing faster than new construction or rebuilds of older machines can meet needs. We fear we are getting to a point that our industry will become unable to meet market demands with the quickly dwindling supply of safe reliable yarders."
Let me guess, and I will be discrete: I suspect the first 12 letters in the company name are Weyerhaeuser.
I have been in the logging industry for 25 yrs. and cannot help but wounder were the new trainees will come from as well. In wanting to build a yarder with extreme roading/offroading capabilities I came up with the skidder mounted eco loggers. The trick is finding one that isn't rusted in the ground and doing a rebuild or biting the bullet and building a new one(which wouldn't be so bad all decked out with some new Jewell winches). I have almost 3 milllion ft. of yellow pine on hold till i line up the right yarder and then find 3 willing soles that will stick it out till they are trained. That's as hard as this whole equip. issue IMHO
I heard about a 172 that got a major overhaul ($500,000) in Washington that got painted at RBAuctions new facility (at highway 12) this spring, was wondering if anyone knows of this and has pictures or been around it running. Rumors I have heard include, Komatsu undercarriage, and Modern did the overhaul, I took 1.5 years.......theironoracle
There is a company on Vancouver island in the process of building a new yarder, will be finished in spring 2013 It will be similar to madill 123
Sounds like their hooker need to learn how to put twisters on his guyline stumps . Their really is no reason to be pulling stump's , their is alot of ways to tie back stumps or trees , may have too setup a bridle or 2 with twisters on all your stumps. Mainly when stumps are being pull its just someone tryin to shortcut or too lazy to rig it up right , or your operator is mad at you .. Just my thoughts and experience I have had in the bush
Other than having watched as a un-involved but interested bystander (having grown up in Northern Idaho), I have no experience in the timber industry. In other areas involving heavy equipment, rentals have become almost the mainstay where 30 years ago they simply were not available. I wonder if this concept can work for yarders? Could an outfit like Modern Machinery maintain 2 or 3 yarders and lease them out on a job by job basis? The lease rates would certainly be high, but relative to putting up 300K a year in advance for the purchase of a new outfit, and the risk of not having the volume of work required to pay for the new outfit, it seems that shorter term lease/rental contracts may be a viable idea. This certainly works with items like crushers that are quite expensive and high maintenance, so I am not sure why it could not work with yarders. Again, I know nothing about the timber industry, so there may be obvious reasons why this will not work that I am unaware of.
oxbow, I am in about the same position grew up around but never worked in the timber industry until lately when I started repairing logging equipment as part of my business. I agree with your view of rentals working in logging the same as it works in construction, actually I see at as working maybe even better because when a mill gets ahold of a contractor they like doing business with they tend to keep them busy until they no longer need logs, as with construction contracts its over when its over. I have rented some of my logging equipment to my good customers when I had it around before it sold, like a week here a month there type stuff, some times I come out on it, sometimes I do more repairs than the rental rate. this will work it will just take someone with very deep pockets that isn't making a better return on there investment already with less risk.......TIO
Leasing equipment was very common in the logging industry until a few years ago. I don't know if anyone ever had a yarder on lease. There are good and bad sides to leasing. But, we are still back to the original question and problem. Who is building yarders now? Brightwater in NZ TMar in Canada. TMar still has to get one of their yarders built and out logging. It is a new design and unproven. Personally I think that it will be an awesome machine. Jim Mantle designed it.:notworthy, I like Jim's machines. Would TMar consider a lease? I doubt it. They are a small company and they have had bad times in the past because of leasing so it would need to be a third party buy the machine and rent or lease it out. You never know, might be someone out there interested in doing something like this. Just remember the old saying. Want to make a million bucks? Start with 2 million and go logging!:tong The Wrench. PS Going out to help a friend get his 6280 fixed today. He is having a problem and can't find a mechanic that knows anything about them. Jeez, I'm trying to retire
I am finding that even though the timber co. is screaming for yarders they still don't want to pay for it! I find myself telling them that I don't pre bid sales anymore, they buy it I will give them a price then and thats the price take it or leave it!
have just been talking to a fellow contractor who went to the forest tech seminar in new zealand last week, was told there are currently approx. 150 yarders working at present in nz with demand increasing to 300 + within the next decade.......also there were 4 logging fatalities there LAST WEEK!..............Hmmmm numbers seem extreme can anybody back this up?
I was at a seminar last March where a Kiwi professor teaching at Oregon State University said much the same. He felt there would be a need for a new yarder side every month for the next 10 years in NZ. His fear was not only there wouldn't be any equipment but getting qualified help would be a extreme problem, perhaps the reason for the fatalities?
There was a short report in 2012 that stated there were 305 or more yarders operating in NZ. http://www.nzif.org.nz/Folder?Actio... 2012 Survey and European Review - 171012.pdf There were two reported forestry deaths at the time of the conference. The NZ media is not allowed to report details of deaths that are the subject of coronial inquiries and the media only report a few things- name, location. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11164727 (2 deaths) The 'workers organisation' in NZ started a renewed campaign this year for safer working environments for workers in high risk work environments. This is one associated with forestry workers. http://www.whatkilledkencallow.org.nz/ There are nine forestry safety inspectors for NZ . http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9482077/Forestry-deaths-unacceptable-MBIE http://youtu.be/1C173XZZ0do (John Deere 909 leveller with winch assist) A number of these and other various brands are going into the forest now. There will still be places these cannot get to so manual chainsaw felling will be required and other innovations are being developed.
I'll leave this here. ETA for the T-MAR LogChamp 550 is late spring 2014. -Tyson