Green Horizons

Mark Hadley practices sustainable forestry on his Iron County property, harvests trees in an environmentally friendly fashion, and processes the resulting logs to yield the most profitable value-added wood products.

Since 1978, Mark Hadley has been a logging crew of one; not only on his 600-acre forest outside of Annapolis, Mo., but throughout Iron, Madison, Reynolds and Wayne counties. He added a Wood-Mizer band saw mill in 1986, and a Nyle 4,500-bd.ft. electric dry kiln in 1996. The experience he gained operating his Wood-Mizer and his entrepreneurial spirit has led him to provide customer support for Wood- Mizer in forested regions of the Amazon, Eastern Europe, Asia, Indonesia and New Zealand.

Hadley considers his small-scale logging relatively easy work. But, even small-scale logging can be extremely dangerous. Don't try this without proper training and building experience with a logging professional.

He uses a John Deere 5300 4X4 tractor to skid and load his logs at the logging site. Landowners like Hadley's smallscale equipment and the personal attention he gives to felling and skidding timber to the log deck.

Hadley classifies the logs into three categories: top logs, tie logs and grade logs. He sells finished products only to the wholesale markets of flooring, pallet squares and cross ties. The exception is dried lumber which he markets wholesale to local furniture and cabinetry manufacturers. Occasionally, a friend will bring Hadley a log for custom sawing and drying for a personal project.

Top Logs
These are the straight, small-diameter logs from the top of the trees, from 10 down to eight inches in diameter on the small end and 8'8" or 10'6" long. Hadley brings them to his mill and stacks them aside to be used like a savings account in times of bad weather or between harvests.

He can square 50 of these logs into 4"x6" and 6"x6" cants for use in the local pallet mills. An occasional top log might even yield a few 4/4 (pronounced "four-quarter") flooring boards. But don't let sawing 50 logs a day lead you to believe he makes a ton of money processing these small logs. Hadley says it is the worst income per hour, "but in times of bad weather is a nice alternative to being broke."

Butt Logs
A butt log is the first log above the stump. They are 11+ inches in diameter at the small end and up to 8'8" long. The very best logs are placed in his grade log pile at the sawmill and the landowner is paid an additional premium for those higher-grade logs.

The remaining butt logs are tie logs (as in railroad ties) and are sawn into either 6"x8" or 7"x9" square cants. "This is our money maker," says Hadley. "One person can saw 30 logs in a six-hour day and with good tie logs get several hundred feet of flooring lumber."

Quarter Saw Grade Logs
"These are the logs we paid a premium for to the landowner when we were sorting the tie logs," explains Hadley. They need to have a minimum diameter of 16 inches on the small end and be perfectly symmetrical with no blemishes.

As the name indicates, these logs are quarter-sawn to achieve the highest value-added product. Hadley's daily board foot production drops significantly, but the value per board foot for kiln dry quarter sawed lumber is remarkable. A grade log 18 inches in diameter scales out 110 bd.ft.; 100 bd.ft. of which is quarter sawed lumber. There are four triangular slabs left from quarter sawing that are processed into 2"x2" turning squares. There are always a few nice 1" square garden stakes from the log as well.

Hadley usually logs one week and then spends the following week processing the logs and marketing his end products.

For more information on quarter sawing, band saw blade sharpening and sawmill operation visit www.hadleysawmill.com