Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[mountainguyed67]

A load I brought down yesterday for our 4WD club’s annual fundraiser.



That‘s the 4th load I brought. Others will participate at some point. One year I skipped splitting day, they handled it. Plus they handle sales and delivery.

 

[muddstopper]

Can you mount a bar scabbard type to the roll bar?

I could probably put a mount somewhere on the tractor. I usually dont try piling brush with this little tractor. The loader only lifts 14inches. The brushpile was only about 100ft from where I store my saws. The tractor articulates in the middle and aint much bigger than a good riding mower. I think my biggest needs for saw placement on this tractor is to find a cure for CRS, (Cant Remember Sh1t).

 

[Jeffkrib]

I like the way Ash burns, and when straight grained it generally splits very easily, but I like the way Black Cherry coals up better than Ash even though Ash may have more BTUs.

I have also learned that the wood you prefer often depends on your stove and flue setup. Ash is one of the easiest hardwoods to burn and does not require much draft.

Conversely, if your draft is "too good", Ash will often not last as long as you wish.

I'm running the same air tight 55 gal drum stove, but the flue setup in our new cabin (mostly vertical with lined pipes) is 10X better than our old set up (uninsulated pipes with a lot of horizontal). Our two primary sources of fuel up there are Ash and Black Cherry.

For the overnight, we used to prefer Ash in the old cabin, in the new cabin we usually choose Black Cherry or a mix.

You don't want to get up in the middle of the night, and you always want coals in the morning!

Mike, that 55 gal stove of yours, whats the inside lined with. Surely the 1/8” drum i basically only for looks, I would imagine a drum would only last a few years without some plate lining.

 

[mountainguyed67]

Not been around much lately. Been busy scroungin' and ridin' in this beautiful sunshine!

View attachment 842669View attachment 842670View attachment 842668View attachment 842667View attachment 842671

Great scenery!

 

[djg james]

Haywire, if you don't mind saying, what part of MT are you from? My Dad and I use to visit Glacier almost every other year. I miss it.

 

[mountainguyed67]

I haven’t been on here the last few weeks because I’ve been helping the Forest Service get 4WD trails ready to open. I scouted two on foot, and drove in on another with a group.

This was on June 12th.



June 28th. The trails aren’t suitable for hauling firewood, we just get it out of the way.


The last trail I scouted July 2nd had a tree someone cut with an axe, probably late last season. Probably cut it to drop it all the way to the ground so they could drive over it. The dates on the pictures are wrong.

 

[MustangMike]

Mike, that 55 gal stove of yours, whats the inside lined with. Surely the 1/8” drum i basically only for looks, I would imagine a drum would only last a few years without some plate lining.

NOTHING! My brother and I both heated our houses with them, and they would last for decades unless you let them rust in the off season.

They were the Sotz kits, and the air intake was designed not to let the barrel get hot enough to burn itself up.

When Popular Mechanics tested them, they beat the Vermont Casting stove in both efficiency and total BTU output. After that, the Gov went after them and put them out of business. I guess you can't have a $35 stove kit beating and $800 wood stove!

The owner of the company was furious, as the Gov had NO EVIDENCE that the stove was a polluter, but he did not have the money to fight it and comply with their testing.

I heated my house with one for 20 years, then brought it upstate and put it in the hunting cabin (after I built one). Unfortunately, it was outside for a while, so the barrel eventually had to be replaced, but I was able to re-use the entire kit.

So I'm on the second barrel, and it has been used every year since the early 1980s. I think if it were not left outside before the cabin was built, I would still be on the first barrel.

 

[mountainguyed67]

My brother and I both heated out houses with them

That’s a lot of heat for an outdoor toilet...

 

[H-Ranch]

Couple more loads of not highly valuable English walnut last night.

 

[JustJeff]

Talk about humidity, welcome to Ontario's great lakes region. 80% outside, 55 inside with the air-conditioning running.

Mike, I'm pretty sure I've seen those barrel stove kits at Tractor Supply here.

Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

 

[svk]

You still see barrel stove kits now and then. I’m tempted to grab one but I don’t have any place to use it.

What I really like are the “double barrel” stoves made out of the heavier tanks, usually 30 gallon size. Those things scavenge heat like crazy and are thicker so they won’t burn out.

 

[svk]

I think I’ve mentioned that in addition to saws I also collect cast iron cookware. Now that I’ve got enough of both, I only buy saws and iron when the price is right. I’ll often “watch” items on FB marketplace for weeks and reach out to the seller if stuff hasn’t moved.

Scrounged these two up yesterday. A BSR Dutch oven and a Lodge combo cooker that can be used as a Dutch oven or the bottom is also a chicken fryer and the top is a skillet.

 

[MustangMike]

My brother used the 55 gal double drum kit, and I have the hardware to make one.

I prefer the single drum for the following reasons:

I cook on top of it, tough to do with a double.

The single has a flue control, the double does not (you must leave the pipe wide open for it to draft properly).

The only was to clean out the upper drum is to disassemble it.

They do produce more heat due to the increased surface area.

The most efficient shape for a stove is a sphere, the second most efficient is a cylinder. This is why pot belly stoves were so common back in the day. Corners are very inefficient.

 

[husqvarna257]

I could probably put a mount somewhere on the tractor. I usually dont try piling brush with this little tractor. The loader only lifts 14inches. The brushpile was only about 100ft from where I store my saws. The tractor articulates in the middle and aint much bigger than a good riding mower. I think my biggest needs for saw placement on this tractor is to find a cure for CRS, (Cant Remember Sh1t).

CRS happens. Last year I got a load of wood down the dirt road, loaded it on the pallet forksand put my saw, chaps in the loader. I dumped the wood on to a pile and watched as the saw went with it. Got lucky, no damage to the saw.

I am loving the new husky 562 XP. Lots of power and it sips gas compared to the 257 skitter beater.
Home Depot sells the 55 gallon stove kit, I got one and made my maple evaporator . The kit is banned in some states, don't remember what states.

 

[MustangMike]

I'm sure they are all good, but the Sotz stove kit was air tight, made of stamped steel, and had some unique "patented" air intake features built into the door.

They also made tools to go with it (rake, poker and shovel), a temp controlled air inlet, log rollers and splitting mauls (Monster Mauls - all metal - no more broken handles).

In addition, they sent all owner a newspaper (quarterly?) that was real "folksy" and had ideas from other members on how they used the various tools, etc. Before these websites existed, it was a really good communication tool.

 

[mountainguyed67]

(Monster Mauls - all metal - no more broken handles).

The one with the big triangle welded to it? I broke the handle off mine. I still have the handle, I use it as a cheater. I’ve never broken a wooden handle off of a maul.

 

[Philbert]

They also made tools to go with it . . . (Monster Mauls - all metal - no more broken handles).

The one with the big triangle welded to it?

Someone gave me one for free. Got rid of it as soon as I got my first Fiskars.

Philbert

 

[cat10ken]

I broke the handle off my Monster Maul also. Had it welded up with a metal collar and it got a bow in the handle after a couple years before it broke too. I think they are the reason my shoulders are shot now.

 

[MustangMike]

I'll bet the ones you guys broke were "imitations" and not the original Sotz Monster Mauls. The originals were orange (so you did not loose it).

I used the Sotz Monster Mauls for years and NEVER broke one. I broke so many wooden handles I stopped using them. (The last one I broke, the head came back at me and I just barely slipped it, it skinned my face as it went by, that was the end of wooden handles for me).

But, as Philbert points out, once I started using my X-27 I stopped using the (much heavier) Monster Mauls. I still have the Monster Maul, as a back up, up at the cabin.

Trust me, if you could break them we would have. I have only had a hydro splitter for 5 years, everything before then was split by hand. My brother had a Monster Maul also, and he likes swinging a 20 lb sledge, so I'm pretty sure not too many folks swing harder than he does.

My favorite hand splitting device is the X-27, but the Monster Mauls worked a lot better for me than the old 6 and 8 lb wooden handle splitting mauls that used to be quite popular.

 

[MustangMike]

I'm going up to the cabin this weekend with my daughters and grandkids and a few others. I'll try to take some pics of the stove and the tools and the orig Monster Maul.

If Matt ever returns to the site, he can tell you about what my brother did. His house was much larger than mine, so he use the double drum kit and had temp controlled fans for circulation through the ducts. He also put bricks along the walls for fire protection and to hold the heat longer.