Osage harvesters

[BowEd]

Harvesting hedge logs is hard on the body.I use a tractor with a bucket for large logs and that being able to drive up to the tree also.Dumping log onto a trailer or onto the yard.
Luckily I don't need to drive very far.

[Badger]

Harvesting hedge logs is hard on the body.I use a tractor with a bucket for large logs and that being able to drive up to the tree also.Dumping log onto a trailer or onto the yard.
Luckily I don't need to drive very far.

   Ed, if you were going to build a complete mobile station for harvesting and processing staves what would it look like?

[willie]

complete mobile station for harvesting and processing staves what would it look like?

Steve, define mobile.

Travel to different locations to process the logs into staves? in which case you would set up your splitter at a log landing and have to move the log some distance to the landing?

Take your splitter directly to the tree? In the same fashion one takes a Lucas Mill to the tree?

[BowEd]

The long distance pick me up trailer Clint showed should work for large logs like that.There are electric winches with an extended arm that could be mounted into the back end of a pick up if one was serious about harvesting hundreds and hundreds of staves.Winch would get paid for itself in a month I imagine Steve.
I've found there's really no way to get around the work it takes to harvest a lot of staves at a time.I'm not one to be selling staves myself as I have other income,but I still like to keep 70 to 80 staves around anyway.I accomplish that by harvesting 6" to 12" logs at different periods of time.Handling them is easier.Replenishing the inventory periodically.
Dating staves with a magic marker.
The fencing companies in my area are always harvesting posts also showing huge piles of logs of various sizes for sale,but the old wood wasp can find those if laid around too long in warm weather too leading to more work to get to one ring.
Splitting them I keep a half dozen steel wedges around with a large sledge hammer.
Thing is when I walk away from my staves for good I'll have the bark and sapwood removed and have them shellacked back and ends.Even have them trimmed up using the band saw.That's where most of the work is anyway on collecting staves.
Getting them to the yard is only a fraction of the work.

[TimBo]

It doesn't contribute anything useful to the discussion, but I keep thinking of the Super Axe Hacker when I read this thread, and I just can't resist saying so anymore...

[osage outlaw]

Ed is right,  there will be a lot of physical work involved no matter what equipment you have.  I figured I'd pick up and move each stave that I sold at least 10 times.

[Badger]

Ed is right, there will be a lot of physical work involved no matter what equipment you have.  I figured I'd pick up and move each stave that I sold at least 10 times.

 That would be exactly the thing we would need to talk about. Let's suppose we had a very well-designed flatbed trailer equipped with a splitter, a saw, and grinders for sapwood and bark. Also winches for dragging out of the woods and cherry pickers or hoists to lift them. It may even need a chipper for cleaning up the mess. It is fully processed before ever leaving the field.

[willie]

That would be exactly the thing we would need to talk about. Let's suppose we had a very well-designed flatbed trailer equipped with a splitter, a saw, and grinders for sapwood and bark. Also winches for dragging out of the woods and cherry pickers or hoists to lift them. It may even need a chipper for cleaning up the mess. It is fully processed before ever leaving the field.

a well designed trailer with all the processing equip mentioned would be nice if one anticipated traveling to different areas for harvesting.

the trailer that large would not be very handy for getting too close to the tree though.  you might consider skidding the log to your trailer as a separate operation?  perhaps the truck that pulls the trailer could load the skidder on the truck bed and also mount the crane?

are you visualizing a F250 sized operation or a Kenworth?

[BowEd]

An operation like that would take some brewing of thought.An investment as well.I'll admit it would be nice to leave the organized mess in the field before leaving.You would maybe need to take a tent with you possibly to stay overnight if it was too far away....ha ha if there was too many staves to process from a large tree or make a couple trips to seal the deal.
I've seen the mess on other peoples land that loggers leave after harvesting oak trunks for pallet wood.Not a pleasant site at all.No clean up at all.Plus their equipment tears the woods up hauling out trunks.Mess of a pile of limbs left in the woods too.Speculative nonfarmer land buyers buying land on pure commission profits and land hike prices that do this are a detrement to the woods IMHO.They'll get around $200.00 a trunk.Cut hundreds of mature 50 to 70 year old oaks.The good loggers leave a few parent trees but the bad ones take everything.
Watching fencing companies harvesting posts they come with a trailer with a skidster on it.A couple of men with chain saws.Then later a bull dozer to clean the mess up and smoothen out the prior fence line.They'll take out a 1/4 mile of hedge growing along a fence line.Piling what they don't use for the land owner to burn.Those piles set there for years before getting burned also.
Using a hydraulic splitter I think might leave a lot of waste opposed to wedges and a sledge hammer..I'd say it would be hard to beat a draw knife to get to a ring too.Some hand work would need to be done I'm afraid.
Cutting a large tree down will leave a large mess requiring equipment horse power to handle....crooked limbs etc. not worthy of being a stave.
I find by being opportunistic harvesting 6" to 12" handleable trees getting 15 to 20 staves at a time is doable for me in a day leaving with the staves in the bed of the truck.Cleaning them up on the yard to get stored away.
Maybe someone else can figure something out.

[Eric Krewson]

The McGuire's had the biggest osage operation I had ever heard of, two people working full time around Nashville, Mike said they sold 30K staves over time. A good part of their time was spent traveling all over the country to tournaments so they could market the staves, this in itself is expensive. They sold some online but then they had the packaging and shipping. They weren't getting rich in the osage business and appeared to be just scraping by. There was also the physical toll that this kind of work does to your body; Mike's shoulders, arms and hands were a wreck from drawknife work.

I don't think an operation of the scale that you envision would be profitable, the market just isn't out there, most of us serious (in my case former serious) osage bow builders cut our own wood.

[BowEd]

The good news is osage is a very prolific tree.No fear of exterminating the species here....ha ha.Volunteers pop up all over the place on large sections of hilly land left fallow.The deer help out with this process eating the hedge balls after freezing takes the acidity out of the hedge ball and transferring the seeds through their droppings.Thousands of seeds in those balls.
The thing about osage or any tree really is that it'll grow straight and tall better in congested areas of other trees leading to longer straight trunks for more and better staves.

[Badger]

The McGuire's had the biggest osage operation I had ever heard of, two people working full time around Nashville, Mike said they sold 30K staves over time. A good part of their time was spent traveling all over the country to tournaments so they could market the staves, this in itself is expensive. They sold some online but then they had the packaging and shipping. They weren't getting rich in the osage business and appeared to be just scraping by. There was also the physical toll that this kind of work does to your body; Mike's shoulders, arms and hands were a wreck from drawknife work.

I don't think an operation of the scale that you envision would be profitable, the market just isn't out there, most of us serious (in my case former serious) osage bow builders cut our own wood.

  Yes, I had to quit making bows because I could no longer afford the staves but I don't begrudge the guys selling them because I know how hard they work. I did a little breakdown on how income might be distributed. Vehicle and travel expenses including equipment is a big one. Marketing, sales, and distribution is other big one. You would also have to find pay a finder's fee to those who turned us on to the sight where we could cut. I think the trick would be to have them sold before they were even cut sight unseen just based on our reputation. Someone would be sitting in their house taking orders and send the orders out to the truck which was equipped with a label printer. It would take some planning because it would be a real operation. I guess it would start with designing a mobile unit and then figuring out what it would cost to put it together.

[IdahoMatt]

Damn Clint.  Looks like you’ve got quite the set up.  Seems to be the best I’ve seen without too much Heavy  machinery.  Cutting staves is a tone of work no matter how you spin it