Bucking big rounds

[JJ3500]

I have to ask...

I can buck logs no problem with my saw and the way I sharpen (by hand file).

Lately, I've been running into large rounds(30" +) that I have to quarter to be able to move with ease. My saw labors and the cuts go squirrelly. Difficult for me to get my cuts to line up.

Is this typical? Am I asking too much of my saw? My chain is sharp. Cuts through reg bucking no prob.

Thanks for input!

 

[mikefunaro]

Are you creating noodles or fine dust when you cut? Are you ripping with the direction of the grain? Or cutting down as if you were cutting a cake or pie?

 

[kevlar]

how big is your saw? what kind of wood?

 

[super3]

What saw? Noodles plug up the cover fast on some. As for the cuts not lineing up, I assume you mean cut is crooked, this is when if your cutters are off left to right that it will really show up.

 

[JJ3500]

quartering

When the round is sitting flat (like it won't roll), it will cut decent untill about 3" into it. Then it starts to labor. I'll be getting not noodles but similar to dust...little bigger than that. But def not chips.

If I lay it on its bark and quarter it up that way. I get noodles. But then my cuts are way off.

Help.

 

[JJ3500]

MS 361 stock with 20" and 25" bar both with chisel.

I'm cutting just downed Beech.

 

[mikefunaro]

Does the chain cut at all crooked in normal crosscutting?

Also, perhaps it would be possible, if you cut parallel to the bark, to cut most of the way through one side, and then trace the cut in from the end of the log and repeat from the other side.

If the cuts are that far off your chain or bar must also be improperly sharpened; if you have some vernier calipers or something maybe you can check cutter length. Otherwise, one rail of your bar may be higher than another...

 

[JPP]

When the round is sitting flat (like it won't roll), it will cut decent untill about 3" into it. Then it starts to labor. I'll be getting not noodles but similar to dust...little bigger than that. But def not chips.

If I lay it on its bark and quarter it up that way. I get noodles. But then my cuts are way off.

Help.

Cutting the round across the top like cutting a cake will give you dust.
Cutting across with the grain will give noodles.If the saw is cutting crooked, most likely the chain is not sharp or some of the cutters are dull.
Could be your bar is bent too.

This is what I do.
I cut into the top of big rounds until the saw's bar gets buried.
I cut cross hairs, so the top of the round looks like a rifle scope or an X across the face of it.
Then I take wedges and a sledge, pound them into the cut near the edges and the rounds usually pop open easily.

I have ripped the rounds with the grain as well. Same technique. Bury the saw's bar, get wedges and sledge and pop them open.

I like the first method better, it works quickest for me cutting the top and pounding the rounds open.

Not hard to do at all, I do this with oak, hickory, maple, basswood, birch.

 

[mtngun]

I deal with fat logs by cutting them into into cookies about 4" - 6" thick. I can lift the thin cookies into the truck, and they are easy to split with a maul.

Only problem with cookies is they don't stack like normal cordwood. Stack them like poker chips, or lean them against something.

 

[SteveH]

You'll fall asleep trying to cut them from the face ["won't roll"], as everyone said cut them on the bark, lengthwise.

I have hand filed for years, and no matter how well I think I do, and it's pretty decent, eventually I get one side or the other cutters different length and cut crooked. Time to have a grinder give it a go once, get them equalized.

I, too, cut part way thru and then split with a maul. Usually takes me one or two swipes.

Any gnarly stuff in them, these days I cut the cookies short, save my muscles and skeleton a bit. You end up with shorter chunks of wood which burn as well as any other chunks. In fact, even with no gnarly junk there if the tree is 30" I have gotten to where I cut them short anyway. One winter I spent many hours cutting some "regular length" cookies from a stand of four thirty inchers and did some damage to my arm tendons at the elbow, I swung that maul so much, many hours, which took four months to clear up. No more.

Anyhow, it's almost certainly your chain(s) and cross-cutting you don't see much deviation but with the bar buried in the round, you do.

 

[elliott]

My saw labors and the cuts go squirrelly. Difficult for me to get my cuts to line up.

it will cut decent untill about 3" into it. Then it starts to labor.

Most likely it's simply a tooth and/or raker problem, angling the bar as it moves through the cut. I bet you reach a point where it simply won't go any further without you having to put a lot of effort into it even if the chain is razor sharp.

The solution:

Time to have a grinder give it a go once, get them equalized.

Or use a hand file. Either way, get all the cutters the same length and rakers the same height. You'll notice the improvement immediately!

 

[yooper]

Most likely it's simply a tooth and/or raker problem, angling the bar as it moves through the cut. I bet you reach a point where it simply won't go any further without you having to put a lot of effort into it even if the chain is razor sharp.

The solution:


Or use a hand file. Either way, get all the cutters the same length and rakers the same height. You'll notice the improvement immediately!

all this and perhaps check your bar, might have to file it a bit to get the burs off the sides.