Stump to Sticker

Course date/time:

The class begins Friday evening at 6pm and ends at 5pm on Sunday.

Course Description: For those considering harvesting logs for lumber on a small scale, building with materials from their own woodlot, or purchasing a sawmill, this course will provide an overview of methods and options for small scale harvesting and wood production. The bulk of the course will be live demonstrations with emphasis on the variety of considerations at every step of the process. Methods of felling, skidding, and sawmilling will be presented. Discussions will include everything from woodlot assessment and management to building with fresh cut green lumber.  

Instructor Bio: Nick Zandstra is a self employed carpenter, sawyer and small scale logger. He has experience with horse, human, tractor, and pickup logging; has sawn over 500,000 board feet of lumber with his portable sawmill; and has over nine years of carpentry experience including timber framing, green wood construction, and finish carpentry. He lives, and occasionally gets to work, on his 43 acres of FSC certified woodland in East Topsham , VT.  

Course Outline:

I. Introductions  

II. Hike and Discussion in Woods

•  How to look at trees with harvesting in mind; matching goals with actions
•  How to look at landscape with harvesting in mind
•  Forestry plans- what do you really want?  

III. Tree Felling
•  Choosing the tree(s)
•  Reading a tree for felling
•  Assessing dangers
•  Working with lean and landscape
•  Safety
•  Ground dangers
•  Overhead dangers
•  Escape route
•  Hang-ups  

IV. Limbing and Bucking
•  Safety- spring poles, logs under tension, tired body
•  Maximizing use and/or value of sawlogs by good bucking
•  Sweep, knots, lengths 

V. Skidding Logs
What to consider:
•  How many logs?
•  What do you have available?
•  Cost versus return
•  Enjoyment versus need

How to skid by hand with a hand arch

How to skid with a pickup, ATV, or small tractor
•  Possible demonstration of pickup powered skidding

Skidding no-no's
•  Damaging log
•  Damaging landscape

VI. Sawing Logs
•  How to look at log faces
•  Dealing with knots and sweep
•  Weighing what you want with what you can get from a log
•  Sawing for grade versus sawing for dimensional lumber  

VII. Stacking and Stickering
•  Stickering and spacing
•  Good shortcuts and bad shortcuts
•  Protection from elements