What tools and methods do you use for firewood?

Well I guess I forgot to mention a few of the extras. Log roller aka timber jack, pickaroon, come a longs, choker, lots of chain, some nylon tow straps, ladder for attacking chain to tree, kindling axe, splitting axe, two mauls, felling wedges, splitting wedge. I'm sure I'll think of more later.

 

Ha, ha! The truth finally comes out. Seems to be very few bare necessity firewood cutters on this site.

 

http://www.liftpluswheelbarrow.com/carry-all-wheelbarrow

 

If you have too many tools with you, you are more likely to fiddle around trying to use them. The only activities critiCal to your objective are cutting, splitting, and loading.

Winching, wedging, skidding, prying, and pulling, and whatever else, are all activities you want to minimize because they eat up time without directly getting you closer to your goal.

I love cutting wood. But there are a lot of other things that demand my attention, so I like to get the most bang for my buck timewise. So in a nutshell, Don't waste you time or money on things that unnecessary.

Well.......at least that's one point of view.

 

Very true. I love being outside and running a chainsaw but I'm also very pressed for time. My scrounging tool list has been growing slowly and I'm starting to minimize my packing list to what I really need. The thing that's hard to figure out is what actually is necessary and what's considered unnecessary. A rope pull/come-a-long may be considered unnecessary until you run into a situation where it becomes necessary. Same goes for a cant hook/peavey. Will I ever get to the point where I'll be able to say I have everything covered? lol. Man, I really hope so. I don't like having to covet so many things. "That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest."

 

Agree about not wasting time but if you are cutting yard trees or anything standing that could potentially fall in a bad place or hang up, these extras are necessary.

Another thing that can make big difference is who is helping you. Case in point: Last summer I cut at the children's camp with the help of someone who shall remain nameless. The guy was much more interested in talking than working and as a result we dropped/bucked 25 trees in 8 hours. On the flip side, this last week I cut/bucked 21 trees of similar size in significantly less time, BY MYSELF, and did it all (including a couple of 20+ inchers) with only a 35 CC saw. Last summer I had my 65 cc saw which made bucking much faster.

 

I've found bucking to be the absolute easiest and fastest part of scrounging lol. It's the other part involving dragging/carrying rounds, loading, unloading, and splitting that all individually take up far more time. Also, I do all my scrounging work by myself. A one man Army.

 

How do you like the ground force saw on your bobcat?

 

http://gizmodo.com/this-soft-upper-body-exo-suit-could-boost-your-strength-1687672080

Check that out. I would really love to have that along with the pants or a full suit. Could load whole logs onto a trailer with that and just buck it up at home.

 

Holly cow, how tall are you 7 foot?

Nice setup.

 

6' 05" Not quite 7'0"

 

hi y'all I have been cutting wood for over 35 yrs. over the yrs. got a little older an fatter, yes I said it. I live in the middle of a nat'l forest. I buy a com. premit from the forestry, for 50.00 for 50 cord, yep a buck a cord, I have devised a little boom trailer with a electric winch, so I can pull length wood.. I use my atv to pull the wood to the truck an trailer, I use a brave 32 ton splitter, which I worked on a little, changed out the single blade to a 4-way. saved some time there.. have 2 husky saws, 262 xps, also some wedges, 4 lb, mini maul, dbl bit axe, an a old henry hatchet, never leave home without it, I cut my firewood to size, at the truck an trailer, no carry there, my truck an tlr. is a ol chevy 4x4, tlr, 8x14 tandem axle. use it for everything, I do sell firewood, so I avg. 100 cord a year. this year I have made me a new trailer, to haul pallet cants on, I have it set up with a boom loader, 10 hp. gas eng. with hyd.system to run 5 ton cable winch, yep, trying to save my ol back, the cants avg, 12 to 20 inchs dia. length 52 inchs, too much for this ol boy to hump. I bought a 5 ton rearend with duals, for 200.00 had all the other stuff, hyd's from a ol splitter, cable an pulley, flea market, ol tlr, traded for, got maybe 500.00 in it, have had lots of people asking me to fab them one, hah, who knows maybe u do get a little wiser, a little older.. y'all have a good one u2bwolfb4

 

Howdy! Sounds like a good setup! 100 cord a year ain't nuthin to sneez at either!

 

These are some of my hand splitting tools. On the left is my main implement. It is a maul that weighs 11 lbs. (5kg) and comes from a company in Austria caller Muller. The hickory handle was originally 34½ inches long. I secured the end of an axe handle to it with a 6 inch screw and wrapped some red tape around it, which now makes the handle four inches longer. It adds a fair bit to the power of the strike. I have to say that it is the best maul that I have ever seen or used, by a distance. It wont split everything, but then I can make use of an assortment of wedges and a 16 lb. sledge hammer.

In the middle is a splitting axe from the same company. I bought the head and handle separately and hung it myself. The handle is 100cm long which is over 39 inches. The head weighs 4kg. This translates to 8.8 lbs.

For comparison, on the right, I have a 3½lb. felling axe with a 33 inch handle, which is used for splitting light stuff.

The maul and splitting axe have wire/cable wrapped tightly around the handles, adjacent to the heads, to give protection in the event of overstrike, and any other calamities that may arise. The job is finished off with red insulation tape.

 

As you can see in signature I have several saws , most of the time I use the Husky 450 and 372 Xp.
Getting the wood home with my old Massey orchard model 158 (I live Armagnac wine region).
Splitting , x 27 and tractor splitter