Less of a man?

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If in good wood my son and myself can cut and limb a cord then load it up and still make it home before lunch dump the trailer in the yard and do it again before dinner. On a side note I only hand split the stuff that is too big for me to chuck into the trailer by myself so only 20-and up get popped in half to lighten the load for me. We have done this 3 weekends in a row every Saturday and 2 Sundays. My production went through the roof when I brought my boy to limb and buck the limb wood for me. I never realised how much time that took me untill I didn't have to do it.
 
I sell 30 to 40 cords a year and use/give another 20 cords away. I feel like I am always in the woods. You guys are doing fine. I have truly cut for 8 hours straight with big sharp saws and have never came close to 10 cords in a day. If 10 cords in a day were possible that would mean 6 days in the woods for me. I think I spend more like 60 to 80 days in the woods. I limb the trees down to really small logs, I think the only way someone could do 10 cords is if they fell large trees, only bucked up large logs and left the tops behind.
 
I almost forgot, people often ask me what I make an hour on selling firewood, so I tried to figure it out. I had to quit before I got to the end of the equasion because I was afraid it was gonna be less than minimum wage. :cry: :cry: :cry:
 
I can cut, split and stack about one cord in 8 hours, but no more than that.

Now if I'm just cutting I can do quite a bit more, it just depends on the size and species of the tree. For example I cut down a good sized Hickory last week and the main trunk produced about 1.5 cord, it only took me about 15 minutes to buck up the whole trunk, so if I had 7 trees like that one, I could see myself cutting 10 cords in one day, the problem is I don't have 7 nice trees like that one to cut down.:cry:
 
Yesterday, I felled one dead pine, limbed blocked and split and on the truck loose, short box, heaping full in twenty minutes flat.It's all in how close you can get to the wood and how fast you are with a saw and splitting maul. I did have help throwing the pieces on the truck, otherwise it would have taken 1/2 hr to do that 1/4 cord. So a good man should be able to do 1 full cord in 3 hrs., with good wood, without stopping for too many rests.
Having a flat, unobstructed working area helps. You just have to make every move count.
John

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v639/sunlover3/ed543832.jpg">
 
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tech,your doing alot of bull work there, a cord cut and split by hand is a lot of work for a day,my hat is off to you!!!
I love it when someone tells us they can cut,split and stack two,five or whatever,we laugh at them.

I guess it helps that I haven't had to bring a tree down for several years; I just pick a part of the land, and clean up the dead wood on the ground. Get my 6 cords a year from a single area, maybe the size of a football field. Next year, I move on to a different area. In 10 years or so, I'll be back in the area I'm in now.

I guess it also helps that I only have to swap chains; I'm no good at sharpening them in the field. I carry 4-5 chains with me, at all times. Usually dull one or two over the weekend with cutting. Sharpen them sometime through the week, in the evening, after work.

When I head into the woods saturday morning, I go with a full gas can, at least 1/2 gallon of bar oil, a full tank of gas in the truck, something for lunch,a full case of beer, and a gallon of iced tea. Iced tea is usually gone before anything else. Usually have a beer with lunch, then share the rest with the guys from the hunting camp.
 
I didn't mention it but we didn't split anything. Just cutting and loading in the trucks. It really couldn't have been much better set up than it was. I think it would have been a lot more if the wood we were cutting would have been bigger. I think either the 5100 I was going to get when I got my 7900, or a 346 would have been about perfect. A 7900 in 12" wood is aweful forgiving of imperfect technique though.
 
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