Steve NW WI
Unwanted Riff Raff.
Yesterday I got outside for a bit after a few days of 90°, torrential downpours, lightning, etc. I've got a bunch of those 4x4s from work to turn into campfire wood, so that's what I went after.
2 seconds into my first cut, things got ugly:
How a doubled up 2x4 got in there without me noticing is "somebody"s fault. I ever figure out who that guy is, I'll give him a piece of my mind! A quick chain swap and it was business as usual. Pretty quick I had this load ready to take to the stack:
To get good airflow with square pieces of wood, I split about 1/3 of it, and mix it into the stack. Normally I do this with the big splitter, 5-6 chunks at a stroke, but I was about outta gas. I grabbed the trusty Fiskars, and found that splitting on the trailer deck was much better than on the ground or a low stump. I very soon realized that my nice treated deck wouldn't stand this abuse long, so I went and found a "cutting board":
It's not really long lasting either. That knotty pine takes a hard swing to shear through the knots instead of just slivering off a corner. I've got an old 3x12 bridge plank I saved when I redid the trailer last year that I'm gonna cut down into cutting board 2.0. We will see how that stands up tomorrow.
It didn't take long to make a bunch of kindling. Most all the split pieces stayed on the trailer, which made it even easier on me. Bending down all the time is becoming one of my least favorite activities.
That was as far as I got before I got rained out again. I'll finish up stacking that load and get a couple more pics tomorrow. I've got probably another cord to process after this load yet, may get more from work later this week or next as well.
I've also got plans drawn up for a bucking jig I'm gonna start building tomorrow, mostly out of these 4x4s, but I'll make that another post. (See the bending over comment above - if I'm gonna do a lot of this, it might as well be easy to do!)
2 seconds into my first cut, things got ugly:
How a doubled up 2x4 got in there without me noticing is "somebody"s fault. I ever figure out who that guy is, I'll give him a piece of my mind! A quick chain swap and it was business as usual. Pretty quick I had this load ready to take to the stack:
To get good airflow with square pieces of wood, I split about 1/3 of it, and mix it into the stack. Normally I do this with the big splitter, 5-6 chunks at a stroke, but I was about outta gas. I grabbed the trusty Fiskars, and found that splitting on the trailer deck was much better than on the ground or a low stump. I very soon realized that my nice treated deck wouldn't stand this abuse long, so I went and found a "cutting board":
It's not really long lasting either. That knotty pine takes a hard swing to shear through the knots instead of just slivering off a corner. I've got an old 3x12 bridge plank I saved when I redid the trailer last year that I'm gonna cut down into cutting board 2.0. We will see how that stands up tomorrow.
It didn't take long to make a bunch of kindling. Most all the split pieces stayed on the trailer, which made it even easier on me. Bending down all the time is becoming one of my least favorite activities.
That was as far as I got before I got rained out again. I'll finish up stacking that load and get a couple more pics tomorrow. I've got probably another cord to process after this load yet, may get more from work later this week or next as well.
I've also got plans drawn up for a bucking jig I'm gonna start building tomorrow, mostly out of these 4x4s, but I'll make that another post. (See the bending over comment above - if I'm gonna do a lot of this, it might as well be easy to do!)