just realized im old {or is it old school}

[zogger]

Well, I didnt start cutting with a chainsaw until 1970..but I remember quite clearly that people who HAD better equipment, used it. Ya, a lot of guys were one saw, one pickup cutters, but I worked with people who used tractors, crawlers, home made splitters, front end loaders, and assorted whatnot.

Same back then as it is today.

If you want to go older school, do what I did for five winters, all manual powered, bowsaw, axe, drag wood out by hand. Oh, also lived no electricity, no running water during that time frame, and grew most of my own food. Thats much closer to true old fashioned.

Working for other people, back then, I used fuel burning equipment, for myself, all me powered. It was fun and surprisingly not much work once I got used to it. Firewood was a year round process, never wasted a day, walking back to cabin (walked or rode my bicycle, no motor vehicle, although sometimes I would hitch a ride), I would drag another branch home. That was mixed with purpose cut. I had no lights of any note besides home made candles, so I just learned to work in the dark, including going to woods, felling, human skidder action to get it out, bucking and splitting. Anyway, I consider that, plus one full year and change just hiking and foraging, just walking and exploring and learning about nature, to be my college education... Now that got to be hard, Ill admit to more than a few pretty scary situations as in freezing or starving, etc., permanent living situations and gardening and a better shelter is MUCH easier to deal with.

Steel tools rock, and the most important thing for survival the old fashioned way is clean potable water availability..my opinion...you can deal with anything else, but no clean water that is easy to get, you are gonna be going down, and fast.

If you are using gas and diesel powered equipment, you arent really old fashioned. To me, old fashioned is at least early 1800s style living, and no steam power or elctricity or telegraph, just human power, animal power, and some iron and steel tools. Anything newer, is just modern tech of various cost or worth, but still modern.. And if it is just a chainsaw and truck and however you split, thats just low budget, but not really old fashioned.

Right now, myself, I am low budget, cut with a gas saw (and sometimes my battery electric, and yes own a lot of saws now), but split by hand. Not old fashioned, just what I can afford myself or borrow in good conscious and take as best care of borrowed gear as possible (getting away from borrowing real soon now) Haul out with tractor currently, but soon with my own truck. I am also 40 years and 12 blown spinal disks older...I could still do it all by hand, just I know it would be a lot harder now.

 

[Fred Wright]

Well, I'm no spring chick neither but I believe I have enough good sense to make my work easier when I can.

We grew up around Depression-era folks who did everything the hard way because they were too tight with a nickel to buy a device that would make their work easier and faster. They had the money, they just wouldn't part with it.

That was until they were so old and broken down that they had two choices ~ quit or buy something that did the bull work for them.

One old boy down the road, he swore by his ancient utility tractor, even though it wouldn't start most of the time. And he was all the time tinkering around with it, to keep it running. But he refused to replace it, even with a used one in better condition. I've never understood that kind of thinking.

I still bust large rounds with a maul so I can lift 'em into the cart. If they won't part after a few swats they get noodled. I ain't gonna wear myself out over one or two asinine rounds. I don't need a skid loader and probably wouldn't use one if I had it. Loading rounds out of the woods is good exercise. But if I can't lift and load 'em anymore, I'm gonna find something that does it for me.

Ain't nothing wrong with being old-school. Ain't a thing wrong with making the job easier before my body is worn out either.

 

[allstihl]

Me thinks you have spent some time there recently....first you like my response, then you come back with this. Hard to argue with a guy who has been drinking and wants to argue with himself first. LOL

i was just wondering if anyone would know what i meant

 

[Bushmans]

I'm gathering the pieces I need to make a log arch, not because I need it, but I kind of like the idea of making one.

Ha! love it!

 

[Hddnis]

As was mentioned above real old school is a hand saw and an axe.

That is how we got wood when I was growing up. Dad sold his saw when I was little to pay some bills so that left the bowsaw. I can file and set a bowsaw pretty decent because we cut plenty of wood and they get dull. From ten years old on I was in charge of putting up all the wood the family used, as my little brothers got older they would help. Some years we put up six plus full cords all by hand. For a few years we had permission to take all the broken limbs from a plum orchard a couple miles away and I hauled most of the wood home in a cart behind my bicycle, about eight trips to a cord. Plum grows in such a way that it makes a cork screw look straight.

When I was seventeen I bought my first chainsaw, an echo, that is still running strong and putting out wood today. It has seen alot of use. My brother has it now and keeps it on his truck for a storm saw because it is trustworthy, just always starts and goes.

So I guess I have a fondness for doing with the very basics, I'd do it that way again if I had to, but I sure like having machines and getting new stuff.

This reminds me that I was looking at that bowsaw hanging on the wall in the shop the other day and thinking the blade needs to be oiled to keep the rust in check.



Mr. HE

 

[dave_dj1]

I never chopped wood with an ax or dragged logs out with my bare hands but I did start cutting firewood at the ripe old age of 13. My father was injured, we had electric heat, 6 kids and couldn't afford to run the electric heat. We had a F100 2wd pickup, an old mini mac and a couple of acres. Once I got old enough to drive I worked on the landing for a logger cutting up pulp, in exchange for a load of firewood to take home for our family.

I only have 2 saws, a MS310 and a small Husky, a half maul half ax and a dump trailer that I built and am now in the process of building a splitter.
Sometimes it's good to get back to your roots.

I still like to do some old school carpentry from time to time but with today's tools, it does make life a lot easier.

 

[spike60]

This discussion takes place every year or so, and it's fun to read how different members approach their wood gathering. But reading closely, you can sense some under current of tension between the "no toys" and "lots of toys" camps. Doesn't need to be there IMO. The guy with one saw and a maul isn't a hardier soul than anyone else, and the guy who has every toy imaginable isn't smarter or more clever than anybody either. And in the same way that we have different tools for splitting wood, we also each have the right to draw the line between "need" and "want" where we each see fit.

IMO, how much stuff you have isn't always about money saved vs money spent, or "need" vs "want". It's often making a choice based on making life easier or better for yourself. Obviously, we each have to live within our own finances. But if someone thinks they'd like to have a splitter or a second saw or whatever to make their life better, then go get it and don't look back.

My favorite firewood "luxury" is the woodshed I built for myself about 15 years ago. Hated dealing with tarps and the boards and rocks that held them down. Yeah, I could have done without it, as I had been doing for the first 5 years in the house. But I had enough of that and decided to build the woodshed. Now I just turn on the light and grab nice dry wood without having to uncover and recover a woodpile. Am I saying everyone has to go out and build a woodshed? Of Course not. But for me, I decided that a woodshed was as sensible an idea as the stove itself, so I built it.

 

[stvnshnn]

Young Old School...

This past year I started cutting and splitting to heat my home. I have a new chainsaw that I bought while on sale at the dealer. A Husqvarna 137 I picked up for $50 before my friend moved out of state, an axe I picked up at a garage sale and a 8lb maul, the head of which I found in a field and then I put a hickory handle on it myself. I drive a Toyota Tacoma and pull a trailer made out of the back of a pick up truck bed that I pulled out of the long grass at some property I lived on...
I can honestly say that at 27 years old, I sometimes like to do things the hard way, because it is the hard way.
A friend of mine told me that a strong back means a weak mind, but I would like to point out that he is also trying to lose weight and I don't need to...

 

[TreeGuyHR]

This past year I started cutting and splitting to heat my home. I have a new chainsaw that I bought while on sale at the dealer. A Husqvarna 137 I picked up for $50 before my friend moved out of state, an axe I picked up at a garage sale and a 8lb maul, the head of which I found in a field and then I put a hickory handle on it myself. I drive a Toyota Tacoma and pull a trailer made out of the back of a pick up truck bed that I pulled out of the long grass at some property I lived on...
I can honestly say that at 27 years old, I sometimes like to do things the hard way, because it is the hard way.
A friend of mine told me that a strong back means a weak mind, but I would like to point out that he is also trying to lose weight and I don't need to...

Sounds like your friend needs to learn about Arete, the ancient Greek term for excellence in both physical and intellectual abilities, a goal the Greek philosophers thought that people should strive to achieve in order to lead the must useful and fulfilling life. The Army essentially borrowed the idea with: "Be all that you can be".

Arete - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[allstihl]

i didnt start this to pick a fight .i do what i do by choice . i could have bought or borrowered a splitter years ago. i chose not to.splitting by hand keeps me young i hope to be able to do that for many more years.not saying that having a splitter or anything else makes you any lesser in my eyes.

 

[zogger]

i didnt start this to pick a fight .i do what i do by choice . i could have bought or borrowered a splitter years ago. i chose not to.splitting by hand keeps me young i hope to be able to do that for many more years.not saying that having a splitter or anything else makes you any lesser in my eyes.

I like splitting by hand as well..most of the time! hahah, sometimes you get them ornery ones that deserve a full nuclear response! I wasnt able to the last two months or so, but just this week I have been easing back into it, a little more every day.

Now I dont miss hand sawing, but I could do it if I had to. I have three backup bowsaws now, for just in case action... Its not hard once you get a good rhythm and learn your saw, its just slow.

 

[Blazin]

i didnt start this to pick a fight .i do what i do by choice . i could have bought or borrowered a splitter years ago. i chose not to.splitting by hand keeps me young i hope to be able to do that for many more years.not saying that having a splitter or anything else makes you any lesser in my eyes.

So you still hand drive every nail right?

 

[stihl sawing]

So you still hand drive every nail right?

Uh.. yes. No nail guns here.

 

[allstihl]

So you still hand drive every nail right?

no. i use a hammer

 

[zogger]

no. I use a hammer

hahahahahaha

 

[kmcinms]

no. i use a hammer

well played sir :msp_biggrin:

 

[stihl023/5]

no. i use a hammer

 

[allstihl]

well played sir :msp_biggrin:

thanks

 

[Blazin]

Uh.. yes. No nail guns here.

The Mad Dog nailer

no. i use a hammer

That's almost funny, 50 says you have a stick or coil nailer....probably a paslode with expired gas :msp_rolleyes:

 

[Hddnis]

Hand nailing!


I like those new cordless nailers. That is the way to go if you arn't using screws, which are best driven by a battery operated device of sort or another, corded driver if needed.



Mr. HE