Rolling Really Large Firewood Rounds

[Scottnc]

Ground is too soft for a dolly. My Frankencant needed a little hammer provided on-site hook put into the spike. Glad I left the off end long, it provided a handy place to hammer the spike into the rounds. The bark is so thick and gnarly the spike will pull out if not driven into the sap wood. In the end though, a ratchet strap around the round hooked to a Harbor Freight hand winch (boat winch) worked great. If the round would roll, fine. If not, shove it on its side onto what ever short limbs are available and winch it to the cross arm ramps and into the trailer. At 40" X 16" thick they are freakin' heavy! An online source said green oak weighs 60-70lb's per cubic foot. I came up with 11.63 cu. ft. per round. Using the median of 65lb's they weigh 757 pounds each. Three rounds sitting just to the rear of the rear axle of my trailer had the tongue tying to pull up, off the receiver. Stopped loading at five and shifted the rounds to the front/middle of the trailer. At an estimated almost 3800 pounds that's about one cord (2600lb.) split and dried. Most I've hauled in one load.

Thanks to all for the suggestions!

 

[Billhook]

 

[Billhook]

 

[Billhook]

And sometimes the log is too big even for the 2.7 ton lift of the Matbro Telehandler and Daisy Etta is called, 1956 Caterpillar D7 17a named after the story "Killdozer" by Theodore Sturgeon {the book not the film!)

 

[fields_mj]

On rounds that are too big to lift, I tip them over on their side and noodle them down small enough that I can lift them. I use a large saw for the job. It eats a lot of 2 cycle mix, but it doesn't take very long and it keeps me from slipping a disc or wearing out my shoulder with a maul.

 

[Stoneguy]

I used one of those dollies when I got a job cutting stone. Move all sorts of blocks & slabs with it. The boss referred to it as a “Monument Dollie”.

 

[cookies]

screw a eyelet into the log and use a come along or several snatch blocks to pull it where you want. I prefer to quarter with a saw and dolly it...if the ground is soft put scrap plywood down to load on.

 

[Billhook]

These grapples from Wiltec are quite good for very heavy logs up to one and a half tons. Can be used with front end loaders, cranes, lift trucks and Teleshifts

 

[Philbert]

Try driving a cabin spike into the round, if screwing in an eye bolt is too hard.

Try a rope or strap as a ‘parbuckle’:

Extend your Peavy / cant hook!


(Seen at @heimannm s )

Philbert

 

[Ted Jenkins]

Wowy I am very impressed with the hard work you guys are willing to go through to provide wood to your customers. I have a minimum of two cords a day to be cut split and ready for delivery. If I am working with Oak I give myself a little more margin of error as it sells for $600 to $800. I am still working on making my winch 100% automated. I started with a eight channel remote control and am thinking of adding another RC control unit or going to 16 channels. I fabricated a four wheel cart or trailer to go up or down hills with up to 20,000 lbs of wood on it. I steer it by positioning the cable to one side or another and it turns slowly but good enough. It is as crude as I can think of. It is just a square frame about 4 X 6 with some square tubing reinforcement and four wheels no tires. Tires just go flat and I only have about 12'' of ground clearance so it occasionally bottoms out on obstacles. I have some round pipe welded on the sides to insert side boards. I think it will move about 3/4 of a cord at a time as long as I do not go side ways on a hill side. To use arm strength is just not feasible and get much production in a day. I sit on the load to go up or down a hill which increases production a lot as I do not get as tired. For going down hills I finally decided my winch needed a disk brake. It takes two channels alone to apply brake and let off brake. Yes it is kinda fun to ride the cart around at maybe a half mile an hour because you can just sit back and day dream. I gave up splitting by hand over fifty years ago so the wood and splitter has to get together ASAP in my operation. Thanks

 

[djg james]

Wowy I am very impressed with the hard work you guys are willing to go through to provide wood to your customers. I have a minimum of two cords a day to be cut split and ready for delivery. If I am working with Oak I give myself a little more margin of error as it sells for $600 to $800. I am still working on making my winch 100% automated. I started with a eight channel remote control and am thinking of adding another RC control unit or going to 16 channels. I fabricated a four wheel cart or trailer to go up or down hills with up to 20,000 lbs of wood on it. I steer it by positioning the cable to one side or another and it turns slowly but good enough. It is as crude as I can think of. It is just a square frame about 4 X 6 with some square tubing reinforcement and four wheels no tires. Tires just go flat and I only have about 12'' of ground clearance so it occasionally bottoms out on obstacles. I have some round pipe welded on the sides to insert side boards. I think it will move about 3/4 of a cord at a time as long as I do not go side ways on a hill side. To use arm strength is just not feasible and get much production in a day. I sit on the load to go up or down a hill which increases production a lot as I do not get as tired. For going down hills I finally decided my winch needed a disk brake. It takes two channels alone to apply brake and let off brake. Yes it is kinda fun to ride the cart around at maybe a half mile an hour because you can just sit back and day dream. I gave up splitting by hand over fifty years ago so the wood and splitter has to get together ASAP in my operation. Thanks

Wow! $600-800/cord? Pics of your setup?

 

[Ted Jenkins]

Wow! $600-800/cord? Pics of your setup?

We here in Southern California had a pretty intense winter where as FIREWOOD sold for more than any one can imagine. $500 for a quarter cord was nothing. I have few competitors but there are some businesses that sell wood. They are currently advertising Oak at $700 a cord. I often get more because I have very nice Oak and I have been selling for a very long time. Because Oak is pretty scarce it sells quite high. Pine averages about $400 to $450 which is much higher than it used to be.

My Winch started out forty years ago as a simple aid to move stuff around. Now it is getting more refined and more useful. The first engine was a 3 1/2 HP engine that was not so special. Now I am using 9 HP electric start Tecumseh. I have a pretty large spool that will handle up to 1000 feet but am using 600 feet of aircraft 7/16''cable. Thanks