Firewood

[*bfine32*]

(11-19-2019, 05:06 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I know all about that.  My dad claimed that I could turn ax handles into kindling faster than anyone he ever knew.

Seriously though, have split a good bit of wood with a maul before.  It is actually 10 times faster than using a splitter.  But my shoulders can't take that anymore.  I can't even throw anything very hard overhand any more.  Plus some wood (elm, pine) is almost impossible to split. And even good hardwood is tough to split when it has a lot of limbs and branches.  

A maul is not so bad as long as it's alaska cold. 

[XenoMorph]

2 years in and I haven't gotten to splitting yet... just still chopping and stacking... Although most of the wood I have is from honey suckle. Some of it is thicker than small trees.

[Bengalfan69]

 I have lived in my house 19 years on 7.6 acres. All open Horse field. I have propane but burn a lot of would. I would always find it free on CL or from friends that had a tree fall or whatever. Go and usually cut it up. Sometimes it was cut but I would haul home and split and stack myself. But I never paid for wood. I'm getting to old for that anymore. But as someone else said. Nothing beats a good wood fire for heat.
 Now I have found a few Amish saw mills. I get wood that is cut, seasoned and ready to go. $20 a truck load. All you can haul. Drive there, load up truck, drive home and stack it. I picked up a load about every other week the last few months. I'm loaded for winter. I have a F350 with 8ft bed. I get a pretty good load for $20. Its worth that to me than spending time to find, then cut, then split.

[fredtoast]

(11-20-2019, 08:49 AM)Bengalfan69 Wrote:  
 Now I have found a few Amish saw mills. I get wood that is cut, seasoned and ready to go. $20 a truck load. All you can haul. Drive there, load up truck, drive home and stack it. I picked up a load about every other week the last few months. I'm loaded for winter. I have a F350 with 8ft bed. I get a pretty good load for $20. Its worth that to me than spending time to find, then cut, then split.

There is a small sawmill just a couple of miles from my house. We get piles of "slabs" that they cut off logs to make them square. If a log is a lot bigger on one end these slabs can be a few inches thick. We cut up loads of that and use it mostly in the spring and fall when we start fires at night but let them go out during the day. That little stuff is easy to get started.

[jfkbengals]

(11-19-2019, 05:06 PM)fredtoast Wrote: That is what we have.  But at times I was working with pieces of hickory more than 24 inches across and 20 inches long.  They had to weigh over 80 lbs.  So even rolling and twisting them onto a vertical splitter was a lot of work.

Gotta be creative.

I put a 48" OD by 3 foot long piece of oak on mine by digging a small rut in the ground at the end of the log where I wanted it to be stood up, then set up the splitter 4 feet from there.  I choked a 30 foot chain around the other end of the log, running it past the splitter to the back of the truck.  I slowly drove forward to make the chain taught.  After verifying the chain was clear of the splitter, I dropped into low gear and inched forward.  The log was dragged backwards and dropped into the rut, which basically chocked the bottom so it slowly stood up as I continued to inch forward.  Once it was close to the point of tipping the remainder of the way, I parked the truck and verified the splitter was in proper position for the log to land on its bottom pad.  After finishing that line up, I just needed to put a little bit of pressure on the chain to pull the log up the pad.  I started the splitter first, so that I could extend the ram to the log as soon as I pulled on the chain.  That held it in position so I could back up the truck to slacken the chain and remove it before proceeding with splitting it (talk about a loud crack!).  I repeated the same process with the split pieces and the remaining logs of the tree until the pieces could easily be moved manually.  I wish the ability to take good time lapse video that is easily available today was available back then, as I would love to watch the whole process and show others how I pulled it off.

[reuben.ahmed]

How much is that land worth nowadays? 50 million!!!? You need to purchase us all a around in a bengalsboard invite game we have next year.

[fredtoast]

(11-21-2019, 11:21 PM)jfkbengals Wrote: Gotta be creative.

I put a 48" OD by 3 foot long piece of oak on mine by digging a small rut in the ground at the end of the log where I wanted it to be stood up, then set up the splitter 4 feet from there.  I choked a 30 foot chain around the other end of the log, running it past the splitter to the back of the truck.  I slowly drove forward to make the chain taught.  After verifying the chain was clear of the splitter, I dropped into low gear and inched forward.  The log was dragged backwards and dropped into the rut, which basically chocked the bottom so it slowly stood up as I continued to inch forward.  Once it was close to the point of tipping the remainder of the way, I parked the truck and verified the splitter was in proper position for the log to land on its bottom pad.  After finishing that line up, I just needed to put a little bit of pressure on the chain to pull the log up the pad.  I started the splitter first, so that I could extend the ram to the log as soon as I pulled on the chain.  That held it in position so I could back up the truck to slacken the chain and remove it before proceeding with splitting it (talk about a loud crack!).  I repeated the same process with the split pieces and the remaining logs of the tree until the pieces could easily be moved manually.  I wish the ability to take good time lapse video that is easily available today was available back then, as I would love to watch the whole process and show others how I pulled it off.

Ver ingenious, but what type of firebox do you have that takes 3 foot long pieces of wood.  Sounds more like a furnace than a stove.

[XenoMorph]

(11-22-2019, 11:42 AM)reuben.ahmed Wrote: How much is that land worth nowadays? 50 million!!!? You need to purchase us all a around in a bengalsboard invite game we have next year.

we could build a whole village of tiny homes out there....

[jfkbengals]

(11-22-2019, 01:36 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Ver ingenious, but what type of firebox do you have that takes 3 foot long pieces of wood.  Sounds more like a furnace than a stove.

I don't have a wood stove.  I gave the wood to friends who would cut it to appropriate lengths for their own fireplaces.  One guy left it long for a fire pit.

[grampahol]

If you feel creative and don't own either an axe, splitter or maul you can always cut wooden wedges (hardwood) with a table saw and use a sledge hammer to split wood. I do that all the time here. Anything I need to split I leave outside for a year or so till it begins to dry and split anyway. A wooden wedge and hammer almost always does the trick, but I only cut enough to cook outside when the mood strikes.
You guys wouldn't believe how much fun it is to cook over an open pit here when the outside temperature is about 98 degrees. There's nothing like the taste of sweat flavored steaks or whatever you're cooking outside in the summertime.. Yes, dinner is fantastic after a bout of heat stroke! 
Hey, if you live in the south cook with crape myrtle wood. It burns real slow and hot and also great for making your own bows and arrows if you're into that kind of thing. I have a nice long piece well suited to make a bow if anyone wants it. it's about 12' long, about 4" wide and split down the middle. Crape myrtle is great bow material.. (It's been dried for about 3 years out of the rain.) It has great bending characteristics.  Anyone ever make a homemade bow other than the little kiddie bows we all used to make playing cowboys and injuns?