General Operations

In general, we want a nice straight piece of stem or branch with very few branches, with a uniform thickness for the length of run that will be turned into a log. 

The desired thickness varies depending upon your scale and the style of logging you want to capture.  Old growth harvesting can feature some rather large pieces, while new growth or farmed trees yields a more modest girth.

The desired length is a bit more tricky.  The ideal length is dependent upon a convergence of four variables, the first being the species you wish to model, the second being the operation that you're modeling, the third variable being the size of the mill that will receive the logs, and the final variable being the mode of transportation moving the logs, and the

Your modeled species may be a tall pine, spruce, or other evergreen that grows tall and slender and uniform.  It could also be a deciduous tree such as a maple or an elm or birch.  The type could then have a direct implication for who is logging it, whereas the evergreen varieties are prized by large construction grade dimensional lumber producers while the hardwoods might be headed towards plywood or furniture grade dimensional lumber.  The outfit could then be a large logging company or it could be a farmer and his tractor pulling a log out of his 100 acre woods to his personal sawmill.  A large outfit will likely have a uniform length, while an outfit that is more local may have a variety of lengths depending on who brings in logs.  The farmer would have no qualms cutting up any old length just as long as it fits on his smaller tables.

The size of the equipment is then driven by the species and the mill concurrently.  If the mill prefers 40 foot logs, then equipment is built to handle 40 foot logs.  If the rural mill buys local logs, then those logs could be restricted to the length of the shorter truck and trailers used by those bringing in the logs. 

All of these variables effectively makes it difficult to size logs without preplanning what operation will be handling them and when.

Sizing logs can be done either before or after the actual harvest time, but the cutting must be handled differently.  Fresh green twigs and branches will easily cut in the gardening pruning sheers with ease, but once the material has dried out, it will split and crack producing undesirable results.  If the wood is dry, it would then be better to use a hacksaw or a bandsaw.

Enough conceptual framework - onwards to harvesting some wood!

Species Profile: Oleander

These logs came available when I have to remove this otherwise pesky bush from my front yard.

I should have stated this upfront before getting any further, oleander is indeed poisonous, particularly if you chew on the leaves or eat the seeds or the flowers.  Topically, I personally have not had any issue with it, but I do not sustain prolonged exposure to it.  If it is a concern, gloves can be work while cutting it and it may be best to stick with the woodier sections versus the greener sections.  Any cutting with a saw would likely be ill advised, so this species must be cut and trimmed with the pruning shears while it is still green.

The olenader is still green and cut easily with the pruning shears.  Most of the bush becomes wheelbarrow fodder, but after a little effort, here's the yield.

 This species commonly has a greener hue on the thinner pieces, while the thicker branches have a nice color and appearance of bark.

 All that's left now is to size them to length, which at the moment is not yet set.  The average length of the shorter piece is perhaps 20-30 feet, which will be fine for a number of applications.  The pile to the left might be useful with a smaller sawmill, the piles to the back and right are for a bigger operation.  Many of the longer pieces will be cut to a more uniform length.

Bennny, if you can,

take a walk through a harvesting yard of the operation you want to model - or, watch for truckloads of logs in the area.  Take note of log lengths and diameters.  Locally, red pine is often harvested for pole production; the logs would vary from 12" diameter to 20" diameter at the butt, and up to 50' long; that translates to 1/8" to 7/32" diameter sticks in HO, tapering to half of that.  Too often, I note carloads of sticks that would have been 4' at the butt modeled.  While it's easier to build a pile of those quickly, it's unrealistic for most North American operations in the post 1950 era, unless you're modelling old growth in the Sierras.  An old-growth tree of any species in our area would rarely approach 4' at the butt, and would be an unusual find, to say the least.

Blair

midwest hardwood

I harvest wood for my small mill from Oak Savanna that is in a transition to maple and hickory

Typically, a straight 16' stem is the longest I find, and mostly 8-12 foot logs are straight enough to mill. Some trees may have 4 or 5 of them in the various branches and main stem. I have cut several hundred tie blanks to sell for creosoting. 30 million ties are made every year, still. I have a garage based woodshop so unless I need a longer length I usually limit my self to 12 foot,  and mostly under 10. I try to get a 9 footer out of every stem bigger than 12" at the base, so a tie is possible to saw from the center (8' x 9" x 9'). The best boards are around the sides of the logs. The tie blank has the knots and pith of the tree. A decision has to be made when getting close to the size of the tie, whether the faces of the cant are worth sawing for premium boards, and loosing the tie, or whether common boards have a value (such as farm fences)

Around here, logging trucks carry saw logs parallel to the length of the bed and most carry pulp perpendicular, 100 inches long fitting across the bed.

The pulp mills have robot controlled locos that pull bulkhead flats around the log yard. They use permanent stakes on the sides to  hold the logs parallel to the tracks for their unloading grapples to more easily pick up pulp as they transfer from piles to chipper

Isn't Oleander highly

Isn't Oleander highly poisonous? Something to consider.

The logs in this photo are Leland cypress.

I cut them with pruning shears to scale 16 feet. Dry twigs will split if you cut them with shears. In the past I have cut dry twigs with my mini mitre saw but I have found cutting them fresh with shears to be much easier and faster. If you cut them fresh and plan on using them for something like a pulpwood load that you will glue together make sure they are dried out. I’m sure some time in the oven will do the trick.

General Operations Discussion

Blair, my goal here is a comprehensive blog that covers the full spectrum of operations.  You are indeed correct on all of your points, the most important point being that the era, region and magnitude of the operation are of upmost importance in selecting the right log.

My personal prized prototype species in the region I want to model, for example, is Ponderosa Pine.  This species grows in a base diameter on average between and 2 and 4.25 feet and 90 to 160 feet in height.  Old growth averages out around 6.5 feet and 230 feet in height, while the maximum observed diameter is 8.5 feet and 275 feet.  The thickest, tallest, and oldest Ponderosa pine trees (Pinus ponderosa) (monumentaltrees.com)  The mean, median and mode are of all of course important factors to consider.

It's not the only species that can be harvested, through, hence the discussion including other species like hardwoods.

These prototype species are further but one place, while the species we can select for modeling said species is another place.  The goal is to tie the two places together with species profiles that include the plant, the leaf, and the log after it has been cut.  "But how long should it be" and "How wide is wide enough" are two questions that will have different answers everywhere we go.

Yours is a small but very important piece in log operation modeling because it's right about the size most any person can approach in the more common scales.  I appreciate your feedback based upon your direct personal experience.

I would suppose there's a big difference weight-wise in handling a 16 foot log versus handling a 9 foot or even 12 foot log.

Species Profile Discussion

It is indeed poisonous when you start eating it.  I have not had issues with handling and cutting fresh pieces, but It would probably be ill advised to do it for long extended periods of time or creating a lot of dust with it, at the very least when it's still wet.  I have added your note to the species post.

Species Profile Discussion

Those look rather nice.  When the weather gets better, provided the source is close, would you be able to edit and add a couple pictures of the tree's leaves and the logs while they're still branches?  Either way, it's an excellent species reference.

word to the wise

When using natural trees and shrubs,  I place in sealed container for some time to kill or dry any insects or nests.

read story many years ago of modeler finding insects in all of the layout areas,  lots of webs too.

My logs and such kept sealed at all times.

Boudreaux,  Pest control on the B.C.E.   R.R.

Beer Can Express to some friends!

No problem Benny.

As soon as I get an opportunity I will send some more photos. As Boudreaux said watch out for pests. I stick dirt and sticks in the oven for a little while.

Species Profile: Mesquite

I parked in the driveway this mid morning and I discovered there is quite a bit of overgrowth on the Mesquite tree that is offending my truck.  Tomorrow when I return from my appointment to have my oil changed, I will be whacking off those branches and then we'll fire up the hobbyist sawmill and make some more logs.

It turned out that offending branch and all the branches above it has been toppled by the wind overnight. It was still half stuck to the tree, and if I wasn't here the tree would heal itself and keep growing, hence how the main structure of a Mesquite get so gnarly in appearance.

I loped this off and hauled it to the backyard.

This time through we'll be adding a handy reference, being any truck or freight car that might be handy.  This time we found a pickup truck.

The first note about Mesquite on the cutting floor is how much bigger these branches are compared to the previous Olenader.  And this being Mesquite, I will be taking the majority of this and cutting it up to throw on my wood pile for use in the charcoal grill.  Within the rest there might be some salvageable pieces, but it's readily apparent that Mesquite does not like being straight. 

Here's the initial cut.  And if it isn't a matter of being straight, there this matter of the these little knobs that occur every 1 to 2 inches along the length of the the branch.  I persisted, nonetheless, and cut a small pile into wood stock.

 
Here we can see that the larger pieces won't even be suitable in larger scales.  The piece directly behind the truck might be suitable for an O scale flatcar, if only it was twice or three times as long.  The piece along the top might be suitable for G scale if only it were straight.  The pieces at the bottom show the frustrations that are due obtaining any large piece from the larger branches.  The pieces directly below the truck are the few pieces that are straight enough and small enough for HO scale use, while the piece behind the truck were less desirable cuttings.  Of all the decent pieces, only six might be long enough for a farmer's sawmill operation.

We'll use the handy reference that 3.5mm is one foot and 7 mm is 2 feet, with 5mm being perhaps the ideal log diameter.  I do declare we have ourselves some mighty fine fence posts here, but not much for a mill.  This being said, the smaller stems do provide decent short pieces that would be fine for use building pulpwood loads.

Mesquite Operational Level: Farm outfit or pulpwood.

Species Profile: Arizona Cyprus

This species may not provide much, but it does have some nice color on the outer bark.

We'll cut this up after work tomorrow afternoon.

The limbs uncut have some rather interesting detail to them, and might make useful armatures for tree building.

Harvesting useful timber turned out to be a challenge that made mesquite look easy.  Here's what I found in my small selection.

The coloration is rather nice, but it's clear we're not making much timber from Arizona Cyprus!

We'll relegate this species to Farmer level timber.

Willow

Willow for right now is the wood of choice for my logging operation. I was in the same boat with the plastic logs that came with a Kadee log car kit. Their shape & texture for representing a Ponderosa pine is very nice. My ability to paint them to resemble a Ponderosa log, not so nice. And, for me, nothing looks like real wood, than, well, real wood! Hence I turned to the willow tree in  front of the house.

Limbs are constantly dying on this thing, wind breaks them out of the tree.

 Willow is a tuff one to find straight "logs" for, even for just a scale 40 ft, but it is manageable. You just have to be really selective.

A couple of log loads.....

...

Jerry,

Those look fantastic as a larger old growth log.  They'd likely work well in O scale as 20-25 foot pieces for On30/36 log cars.

One note, and I have been less successful myself, it's reducing the break when the snips cut the wood and the piece opposite the shears breaks under pressure.  The chopsaw featured in last month's MRH may be a sound addition to my workbench.

Thank You

Thank You Benny,  they were a lot of fun to make. These branches are dead and dry when they fall off the tree, I don't use any "green" branches. I used a fine tooth hack saw blade to cut the pieces to length. The hack saw blade also lets me replicate the "butt" cut were the tree falls over leaving that bit of uncut material on the butt of the log as it detaches from the stump.

For some reason bugs don't bother willow, never had an issue with them.  By matching the slight curve in the stick in putting the load together, it hides the fact that there is a slight curve to them. And as you can see in the one picture, every load is detachable, so I can have a string of empties returning to the forest. Here's the entire consist.

Species Profile: Magnolia

This tree I unfortunately cannot get the leaf or even a nice picture of a tree.  My next-door neighbor had one and before I thought to take much picture (though I might have one saved) they took it down and turned it into firewood.  It was already dead, so no problem there.

I did manage to get some pieces of it that were over my block wall, though, the best parts were what would have been fresh suckers before it died.  Suckers are nice, straight, and tend to have good length, and these were no exception.

First, here's what the bits and ends look like that were of no use to this operation:

Next, the logs.  I got a very nice assortment of "old grow" HO scale size, lots of nice O scale and a couple G scale logs from this run.  Note the nice silvery bark.

Another look at the run.  This pile is mostly made up of 20' to 30' with some 40' logs.

I find this selection has a lot of character.

While it may be silly to save that little piece, I could see it in a trailer behind a tractor headed for a small farmer's mill.

This stack is getting a little on the bigger side, being about 30 or even 40" in diameter.  They would make good old growth logs.  Lots of nice character.

That'll do for Magnolia, for now.  Nice logs, easy cutting, though I did throw a good bit to the fire wood stack!

Species Profile: Mesquite Take Two

My previous Mesquite take did not yield a lot of useful logs.  I happened upon some Monsoon victims and found some very nice pieces - albeit, for larger O or G/F scale operations.  Here's the results.

Here's a fresh pile of mesquite. 

The three logs on the end came from a most interesting piece.

Obviously, they would be used with O scale or G/F scale, and likely with a backwoods operation or a farm operation.  They would also be of nice used place at along a road where a dead tree has been cut up to remove it from the road.

The rest of these would look at home on the Bachmann Fn3 skeleton log car.

And yes, we got one nice 20' log for our HO scale operation...

That will be it for our revisit to mesquite.  My other neighbor took down some pieces that will hopefully have the darker coloration on the smaller pieces, whereas thus far I have only been able to gather what is mostly new growth.  Onwards to tomorrow, I gather more!

Pipes and cuts

Dear Scale Loggers,

Out of interest, is anyone modelling the hollow "pipes"
(thinking Argent Lumber swamp cypress, and Aussie hardwoods),

stair-step cuts and "wedge ends" typical of cross-cut sawn lumber

and the "snipes and D's" indicative of logs being skidded/yarded/hauled/snigged thru the bush by highlead or similar machinery?

Happy Modelling,
Aiming to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Prof

 Prof, your ahead of me, I was going to mention that to Benny with some of his Mesquite. Some of those larger logs would look good with "butt cut" detail. Log on bottom, far side, is butt cut, and just visible on the car behind, second log up on edge of pic.  Saw part way thru with a fine tooth hack saw, break it the rest of the way.

Species General Discussion: Hollow(ing) Logs

Dear Scale Loggers,

Out of interest, is anyone modelling the hollow "pipes"
(thinking Argent Lumber swamp cypress, and Aussie hardwoods),

— Prof_Klyzlr

Professor,

Most of what I cut would be terrible for hollow(ing) logs.  However, growing up I used to fiddle around with weed stems primarily from mustard and from milkweed.  

The stems aren't much use while the weed is still alive and growing, but once it dies and dries out (outside in place), the result is a structure that on the outside look like old aged wood and on the inside is hollow, particularly after the soft Styrofoam like heart is removed from the center.

When I was very young (5th grade) I even took a couple pieces of dead dried Mustard, broke the piece down into 2x4 sized boards, and made myself a little foot bridge in the midst of my regularly scheduled arts lessons.  There wasn't much stopping me form pursuing my own projects back in those days...

I'll have to keep my eyes out for some notable specimens and add them to the index.

Post Production Finishing

At this time my focus has been on production, namely identifying species that offer suitable material.

Once harvested, though (and even mid production) these finishing touches would be ideal just so long as they look like the marring effects as stated and desired and less like "someone took a giant clipper to the twig."

Having a nice big pile of cutoffs after harvesting the useful material offers a handy place to practice the effects.  I have thrown most of my cutoffs in the barbecue wood pile, but luckily there's lots of material gathered or locally available for further practice.

So far, I've mainly made mid cuts made by something like a large two-man crosscut saws.

Nicely done, Jerry.

I got you...

"Wood'n'Days" wood-railed tramway

"Nine Mile" log loading scene
(Note the "D's" sniped into the ends of the logs on the loading ramp in the background.
The "D" in every log is visible at the same end as they lay on the ramp... why?
Because that's the end that was dragged in by the Highlead Winch just out of shot at bottom left.. )

Longworths Tramway prototype shot over "Pig Sty Pier" trestle

the model of same...
(NB both the ends of the logs on the train, and the ends of the logs used in the Pig-Sty cribwork...   ).

...and the Photographer who took the original image

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr