Somewhere here I have a post on several renditions of it. Iirc I believe I ended up with a variation of one Flamestead showed me. You can see my imaginary triangle there. Working smarter, not harder is becoming a non option.
It is an M8560 (85 hp). We were shopping for a new M7060 this spring, but couldn’t get the dealer to take the time to sell us one because they were so busy. We switched to another dealer but then saw this on CL with only 250 hrs, being sold by a new widow. It is quite a step up from our 50 hp open station Kubota, and is a lot more tractor than I truly need. But it is awful nice!
[QUOTE="Flamestead, and is a lot more tractor than I truly need. But it is awful nice![/QUOTE] No such thing
Here’s the firewood rack plans. The author was a close friend who died too soon. https://petersonsawmills.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/press_articles_general28.pdf fuelrod, I was just pawing through your posts last night, trying to find your fabrication of the plow frame. I got a 9’ plow with the new tractor, on SSQA mounts, and a loader-mounted plow scares me with respect to tweaking the loader arms. I didn’t find your thread, but I know it is here, somewhere!
When I looked at the plans I’m a bit confused. Are the rack 18”or 36” deep? It would seem if they were 36” deep like I read there would be no support for the ends of the firewood pieces in the center of the rack & they would fall in making it impossible to get under them with forks. Maybe I’m missing something.
I cut my wood 26" and my racks only hold 1 row of splits. I did make it much taller and they hold about 80 cu/ ft @ 26". I liked the way they fold flat and are the least amount of lumber involved seeing that I'm using them for drying and the resulting long term storage. I'm up to a dozen of these but would like to get to about 20.
Flamestead if you'd rather pm me with your email I'll send a bunch of pictures of that frame mount. Of course this is your thread also. Either way. I like the frame mounting over the loader arms. Much more rugged, shorter machine length and better steering.
If you don’t mind me asking what brand? What is your average annual cord consumption? We have a Central Boiler OWB heating 3 separate structures & it does a great job but it certainly burns ALOT OF WOOD. That’s why I like your rack idea. Anything I can do to handle wood less is a bonus.
It's by Alternate Heating Systems built in PA. I have the "Woodgun" and it's a wood gasification unit. We use about 6 (128 cu/ft) cord heating our small house and an attached shop 66x38 with 16' ceilings. All radiant with most of it in the concrete slab. The boiler is an attached space that's just outside the house "envelope" with a door to the outside at grade level where my racks are moved to. We have a little bin just inside that door that holds 1-3 days worth of wood depending on the temperatures. That separate room generally stays at 100* all winter long, we dry out laundry in there! The mistake we made was not realizing the latent heat "thrown off" by the boiler that makes it way into the house. It's enough to fool the t-stats and in extreme cold, the slab can feel cold (radiant not circulating). The house also is at temperature that keeps me & Mrs fuelrod barely dressed all winter long. I'll take that as a win.
I'm at the computer with a better selection of pictures now. I wanted single row for drying, so I went high. You can make them any size you (or your tractor) likes. Here are a few pointers that make folding them work that I found out. I repaired 2 of them today. In case you didn't see how they fold. I just used a 1" emt conduit for the hinge. A lot cheaper than black pipe. These 2 points keep the "arms" from falling out from the loaded wood. In this pic the top situation is a little short, I've made both of these circled contact points a little short on a few of mine (I usually make 2-3 at a time and really need a detailed drawing) have collapsed (open). The top circle is determined by the "hinge" location from the end of the bottom boards, and the bottom circle is determined by the "foot" location. They need to contact both points at the same time. I like them to open a little past center so that they stay there on a little slope. If they were 90* they like to self close, possibly on your head. I've also found that they need to be stacked off the ground on a block of some sort, we had some rain on about 20" of accumulated snows, that froze those suckers to the ground to where even being gentile, I split one of the bottom rails. Having a block (I cut up some of those junk "landscape ties" that are treated and about 4" thick. They separated nicely from them last year even though the block was frozen to our planet. ^^ You'll notice that the placement of these cross ties need to miss each other when it's closed. There's not a 2nd one in this pic, but I usually have one at the middle point on both verticals. For reference, I used 2x6 (full rough sawn) for the bottom rails and uprights. That taper on the uprights is because I'm a cheap bastard and that cheats me about 3 extra feet cutting that long angle on a 10' board yeilding me 2 6' uprights. These racks are about 44 sq/ft filled to the top, multiply that by your length and you'll have the cubic ft. At my 26" they hold about 90/95 cu/ft. I ONLY use good exterior screws to assemble these. Nails in this application will loosen in no time with all the jiggling around moving it loaded with a tractor.
