Amazing! You say the small, cutoff wood got more popular... is this of uniform length and size? My cutoff pieces are what I call 'uglies.' All sorts of shapes and sizes, including a bunch of super gnarly stuff, lol. Just curious what your people like to buy. If it's gnarly, do you toss it or do you have a boiler that all such gets used? Is there stuff you just toss?
My cutoff stuff is anything that is roughly 12-13" in length down to about 4" in length. They are all nice splits, just what's left when I come to the end of the log. The 4" stuff gets split larger so they are more like blocks of wood than anything else. Anything that doesn't fit in that criteria goes into my owb to heat my house.
The Countyline/TSC stuff you are using, is it still as thick and tacky as it used to be? Have you noticed any thinning of it over the past couple years? Just curious, as I stopped buying it as I read they changed suppliers and it's no longer an thick/tacky as it was and it's really thin now. It used to be tacky/thick as all heck.
I haven't paid that close attention to be honest but I haven't noticed a difference. Bar still looks the same after each tank and I don't see a decrease in the life of the bar nor do I notice it getting any hotter than usual.
This may explain things a bit on why the reviews vary greatly from being great tacky oil to being like water.....from a guy who uses a gallon a day! from the reviews. These are the bottles I have currently from years ago and have really thick and tacky oil. It pours out like molasses in cold temps. These are your bottles, which seems to be the thinner stuff. So at least I know what to look for now.
Interesting. The ones I just bought have the 45* handles. Thought it was a redesigned bottle by the mfr.
If you have a chance, take a peak and pour a little out. It should be thick and tacky, much more-so than the other version. The TSC stuff that I have always used is the thickest/tackiest stuff I have seen, and it had the 45° handles. I'm hoping they have this "good stuff" by us yet. I'll have to stop by and look. I'm hoping this still is true today, three years later....as that review is 3 years old.
I don't remember noticing the shift in the handle design. Do we know that is when/if they made the change? I'd venture to say they probably have multiple manufacturing/processing plants. This has me thinking and I will definitely be paying attention as I look when in different TS stores.
I was thinking the same thing. Maybe certain markets get them from one plant(s) while other markets the other plants(s)......? I only stopped buying the TSC stuff due to some reviews stating the product had changed and it was like water now. I never noticed any change myself. The last time I bought the TSC stuff was around late 2019 to early 2020 and it was still great stuff with the 45° handles. It's good to know the 45° handle stuff is still available, assuming it's still the tackier stuff.
I just called two of our somewhat local TSC stores (one 15 miles away and one 30) and they both have the stuff that has the handles at 45°. I may have to pick up a bunch. They are $7.49ea right now.
Have made a good dent in the tree company log pile. Picked out just about all of the larger diameter stuff and got quite a bit of that split.
Well, apparently some people don't know what 45° is. I took the 25 minute ride to TSC to see what they had. When I get there I see the bottles don't have the 45° handles and also don't have the horizontal ones either! The bottles have vertical handles. So I buy one and when I get out to the car I open it up to check it. As soon as I dip my finger in I could tell it was not the good stuff. Glad I didn't buy multiples! So I am now on a mission to try to find something that was like the old TSC stuff, that I have one bottle left of. I stopped by Menards and picked up a gallon of Poulan Pro "Professional" (red stuff) and stopped by Farm & Fleet and picked up some Oregon stuff. I get home and compare it to the old TSC stuff (which, BTW, has the same damm vertical handle bottle like the one I just bought and not at 45° that I thought it had!) and none of it is even close to the tackiness of the old TSC. -THIS- is pretty much how the old TSC stuff behaved in colder weather and what I'm looking for. It's not so much how thick it is, but it's the tack...just look at how stringy it is when he tries to stop pouring. This is exactly how the old TSC stuff behaved. I'm on a mission to try to find some Bel-Ray stuff now. If I knew then what I know now I would have bought cases of the TSC stuff back in '19 when I got it on sale. Sorry to send your thread off on a tangent, just wanted to post an update. I'm not sure the good TSC stuff exists anymore, regardless of the style of the bottle.
No worries. It's always good to hear about what has happened to our consumables such as bar oil. Now that I think of it, I can see a difference in how stringy bar oil used to be when pouring compared to now. What I'm not sure of though is how much cutting I can do with a bar now vs a bar a few years back.
