Equipment & Supplier News

Stihl Inc.’s sprawling manufacturing complex at Virginia Beach, Va. continues to grow, reaching yet another level in mid 2007 with the startup of the company’s new chain saw guide bar facility. With scores of company officials, Stihl employees, local/area dignitaries and local/trade media on hand, the plant was dedicated October 10.

The $25 million, 60, 000 sq. ft. building, eighth manufacturing plant at Stihl’s 83 acre U.S. campus, is significant in that it is very high tech and features a special environmentally friendly (live vegetation) roof. However, perhaps more significant is that now the Virginia operation is making 14 to 20 in. long guide bars instead of importing them from Stihl’s plants in Germany and Brazil. In fact, the highly automated plant—it requires only 34 employees across three shifts—is exporting bars to 83 countries.

‘We Can Do That’ by David Abbott

Most loggers are gamblers at heart, one might say. Some play it conservatively. Others take calculated chances. The family behind Marvin Nelson Forest Products, Inc. (MNFP) seems to live by the saying “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Today producing about 100,000 tons per year of roundwood, chips and biomass, the Nelsons have a history of taking risks and thinking outside the box.

Some of their gambles were successful, others less so. Starting with patriarch Marvin Nelson, the family company has never been one to hold off on trying new machines and concepts. MNFP was among the first in the area to experiment with chippers and feller-bunchers in the ’70s and ’80s. In the early ’90s they decided to give Scandinavian CTL machines a try for the first time. That experience wasn’t a pleasant one, largely because the machines at the time couldn’t endure the punishment dished out by northern U.S. hardwood stands. Once technology caught up with their needs, the Nelsons gave CTL ano

Cost Per ton by Matt Roberts

Total production should not be difficult to figure out because harvesting contractors don’t get paid by the hour. Mills pay a dollar value based on a unit of measurement. Whether it’s tons, cords, truckloads, board feet, cubic feet or cubic meters is irrelevant. We use tons to represent some measure of production.

Determining production for a particular piece of equipment or logging system can be more complex. Let’s say, for instance, that you run two feller-bunchers. To determine the share of total production that each contributes, it’s necessary to observe the machines. Count how many units of volume each produces over a day, or better yet a week or month, and divide by the total number of hours the machine actually worked. This will give you a good idea of what your production per working hour is. The longer the period of time over which you take your measurement, the more accurate your average number will be.

Leading By Example by Jennifer McCary

Two-time Mississippi Logger of the Year (1998 and 2006), Bobby Barrett is a relative newcomer to the profession, having spent the first 30 years of his vocational life as a third generation cotton and soybean farmer. When that industry came on hard times in the late ’80s, Barrett and son Mark turned to logging the family’s timberlands.

“In 1990 we had 600 acres planted in beans and 400 acres in cotton,” he recalls. “They closed the local cotton gins and I had to haul it all the way to Boligee, Ala. Then the elevator where I was hauling my beans shut down. I just got tired of it. I figured we had enough timber to last a while and we could start managing that a little better.”

Perhaps it was the experience of seeing his future threatened that spurred the logger’s complete dedication and involvement in his new profession. And, maybe it’s just his nature to actively support the larger community. Barrett enrolled his company, Barrett Logging, in the then recently formed

Sizing Culverts by Kurt Swearingen

Small streams are often an obstacle to forest management and/or harvest plans. The simplest way to remove this barrier is through the proper sizing and installation of a suitable stream crossing structure. Among all structures available, culverts are the most commonly used.

Culverts have been around a long time. Today, most are corrugated and made out of steel alloys or plastic composites. Corrugation provides a greater strength-to-weight ratio than a smooth surface and creates enough roughness to moderate the speed of flowing water. Although other types of crossing structures could be considered, culverts offer the benefits of affordability and ease of installation.

December Cartoon

Ezell Castleberry: ALC’s 14th President by Jim Mooney

On September 30th at the American Loggers Council annual meeting in St. Augustine, Fla., Ezell Castleberry accepted the president’s gavel from Charles Johns, who served as an eloquent spokesman for the ALC and received multiple comments on his effective leadership and speaking skills. At 65, Castleberry is unique in his own right. He lives on Castleberry Rd. in the southwest Alabama town of Castleberry, (population 590) which proudly sports one blinking caution light. And he is no stranger to leadership positions. He has been a key leader in the Alabama Loggers Council, an organization he joined in 1994.

New Products & Technologies

With 15% more cutting swath and a load-sensing, multi-functioning hydraulic system, the John Deere 700JH series tracked harvesters—including the 703JH, 753JH and 759JH models—deliver greater productivity.

Developments, Meetings

Feric, a division of Canada’s FPInnovations, has announced its association with PREFoRT, a research program on logging and transportation contractors.

Spreadsheets Still Have Their Place by Bob Lucke

In my prior columns, I made the case against using spreadsheet systems such as Microsoft Excel to manage a logging business. In this article I focus on how you can have your cake and eat it too—you can have the structure and integrity of a database system, yet still retain the flexibility of Excel.

Reviewing 2007, Considering 2008 by DK Knight

Across many fronts, 2007 has been a most peculiar year. Some reminders: the stock market hit a record high, the dollar skidded, fuel costs soared, U.S. auto makers painfully regrouped, the housing market stumbled, Boston’s Red Sox swept the World Series after being down three games to one in the AL pennant championship, and the college football season was one for the books. There were natural disasters aplenty: tornado outbreaks in strange places and times, record rainfall in some locales, exceptional heat and drought in others, and wildfire outbreaks in multiple states.

Industry News

The logging equipment landscape shifted yet again with the recent announcement that Caterpillar has purchased Blount International’s Forestry Div., home to some of the logging industry’s most popular, reliable and well-tested equipment lines, including Prentice and CTR.

In a separate transaction, six southeastern Caterpillar dealers agreed in principle to acquire certain assets of Pioneer Machinery, Inc., a large forestry equipment dealer based in South Carolina.

Biomass To Biofuel by Jennifer McCary

Mill closures, indefinite shutdowns, curtailments and a general downsizing of key sectors of the forest products industry—such is today’s reality. But it is only half the story. In the not too distant future, developing new technologies could put the industry at the center of an emerging ‘green’ economy.

Bolstered by government and venture capitalist funding, and fueled by soaring oil prices, now approaching $100 a barrel, the need to restore energy self-sufficiency in the U.S., and growing concern for the impact of fossil-based sources on climate and environment, researchers and process engineers are on the brink of commercializing cellulose-based biofuels.