Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)
- Thread starter mainewoods
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Cool. I really dig the old saws. I want a super 2.
Looks like a mini GTG waiting to happen, sorry Wood Nazi you will need to stay home away from us
.I see
in there, someone will need to bring refreshments
.In all seriousness I hope you get better quick, that "man cold" ain't no joke.
Busy day tomorrow. Going to buck the last ~2.5 cords of aspen in the woods and let my helper start hauling it out. Lots of projects around the cabin to get it ready for my first guests next weekend. Then having parents in law over for dinner for early ma's day. To add a degree of difficulty our cooking range is out and new one being installed next week so I'm confined to cooking with crockpot, grill, and camp stove. I'll figure it out.
Going to christen the Dolmar and if time allows, try and start the blue Homie.
Going to christen the Dolmar and if time allows, try and start the blue Homie.
hardpan
Addicted to ArboristSite
No but I should!
Bucked up 6 good sized aspen this morning with the 562 and did tops with the PS-32. The little Dolmar performed well. I didn't expect to be able to dig into the dawgs on a 32 cc saw but this little thing impressed me. I'd say this will cut circles around my 361 and I think it cut better than a 4218 as well.
Swapped the 20" to 16" on the 562. That was fun until I rocked my good Stihl RS chain. Even cut well with a loop of Oregon safety chain I scrounged to finish the job.
Swapped the 20" to 16" on the 562. That was fun until I rocked my good Stihl RS chain. Even cut well with a loop of Oregon safety chain I scrounged to finish the job.
You guys like my "new" scrounged work table?
Erik B
ArboristSite Guru
Not worried. The thing was missing trim and has a broken wheel.We don't want you maring up that beautiful top on that work surface
mortalitool
ArboristSite Guru
JeffGu
Antagonist/Heckler
Went to the CT GTG today, and ended up getting all my saws dynoed. They all did well, but a few of them did VERY WELL. I'm waiting to be sent the official results.
It was a real good time!
It was a real good time!
KiwiBro
Mill 'em, nails be damned.
Found one. You can see where I haven't a nice line on the face cut for the hinge, and have undercut the far side of the hinge heaps. Also, on the near side of the butt, most of those kerf marks are when the bar was bouncing/kicking back when I was trying to plunge cut. I was cutting at about shoulder height on that side and couldn't get stable enough to get good pressure on the 'good' quadrant of the bar nose when plunging.
It was the first time I have used a bottle jack and I have tidied up my technique allot since then. If you have never used jacks for lift, I recommend you give it a try. I'm really surprised by how much lift I can get compared to bashing wedges. Still use wedges when using jacks, but more for holding or small lift and to back up the jacks in case they fail.
Most of the time I'm using jacks, it's because the tree is big and leaning the wrong way. As such, I often place the jack in first and take some load before cutting the face. I had one like that this morning. It also highlighted my need for a larger saw because the hinge was twice as long as the full length of my saw (from end of handle to end of 32" bar!). I would have needed about a 40"+ bar to get the cuts to connected when coming from both sides. I recall when I thought a 32" bar was big. It was woefully undersized this morning.
That's always a concerns for me when using jacks. I don't know enough to know how far might be too much for the hinges so generally leave 'em quite fat if there's heaps of lean to overcome, and a fairly shallow face too. But I don't really know what I'm doing so maybe I'm just doing it wrong. That said, I actually find pine here (mainly what you'd call Monterey Pine up there I think) has quite pliable fibres that hang on and are wonderful for swinging the trees rather than having to use jacks or really beating on wedges. That is, if there is room to swing them and no real hazards to worry about. I've achieved well over 90 degrees of swing with our pine, but because red gum fibres seem very brittle, my best is only about 20 degrees.Seems with pine being brittle you could pop the hinge wood if trying to "persuade some trees off their lean" as i have seen this happen before on smaller trees and the tree ends up going right where they didn't want it to
Sure does suck when the wood is too soft to rely on. When in doubt, I try to get a line up the tree to at least hold if not pull it over if I strike too much rot. This morning, I had that but had tried twice to get a line up there and failed both times and because there were no hazards, I went a head and dropped it anyway. Was lucky the 1/4 of the hinge wood that wasn't rotten was on the side of the hinge I needed it, and I found enough not-soft wood for the jack to press against.
Cool. Yes please. So often, it's hard to find the time for pictures. I wish I could take more but am always under the gun and focussed on not killing myself or worse, anyone/thing else.
Thanks for sharing the pictures and what you've learned KiwiBro, 100% proper or not it's all part of learning, like I always say "there is more than one way to skin a cat"(sorry cat lovers, I'm sure you get the point, and realize I've never done it lol).
When dealing with very large trees in comparison to the bar length I have done a very open face cut then a plunge cut into the center of the notch and swept from the inside of the tree out, then you connect to the inside sweeping cut from the outside(this leaves a slot in the hinge and can get you in trouble on a weak tree). You can use a fairly small bar to cut a relatively large tree. I have found it easier to meet(or at least get close) to matching the cuts than starting on one side of the tree and working all the way around the tree for the back cut, and you will also be able to achieve a hinge closer to 80% rather than somewhere in the middle.
I also like a thin(top to bottom)tip on the bar I use for doing plunge cuts as it doesn't hardly chatter. Make sure you don't take your rakers down to far if you plan on doing plunge cuts as that will also make it chatter, all the more on hardwood to.
I need to go over to my buddies to help move his chicken coop to a different location(it's right where I plan to drop a couple of the trees).
I will get some pictures of the before. This is one of the larger ones out of three I already took care of, my hinge was a little off as well, but the power lines were still in the air when I was finished lol. Directly behind the stump is another one of the larger ones that I will be cutting, you can see it is missing a lot of bark already, perfect for this winters wood. To me this is the perfect sized tree to work with for firewood.
I think I may have already posted these, but couldn't find them.
My buddy is borrowing my splitter next weekend so I figured I better "pop the cherry" before I brought it over to him.
Yes. Also some sort of guard to protect the engine from road debris. The recoil is full of dirt everytime I drive down a gravel road.
Well I couldn't do it, I couldn't stay off the saw. So I cut about 3/4 cord and now I'm pooped out. Wife is giving me what for.
JCMC
ArboristSite Member
Got a load of Sycamore yesterday, miserable splitting wood
