Dang big oak tree has been winking at me for six years. Fell down in a terrible location I have no business going into with the tractor. Enough was enough. This morning I decided to make one run in there and at least get the main trunk out. Bark fell right off and it was wetter than an ice cube in a cocktail but the wood is still good. Dog and sister supervised.
The camera lies a little. Reddest oak I've ever seen, all water. Might not be ready to burn till 2020 but I just had to have it. Couldn't stand watching it out there getting old. I have an abundance of red oak on the property. Makes it tough getting three years ahead. Plenty of wood to burn three years from now but not much for next year. Nest step is whack a bunch of maple and black birch down.
no it wasn't that big Probably a 32" base but most of it averaged 24" for about twenty feet. Heavy stuff, tractor wheelied almost all the way home. There's some sticks from a black birch that just had to get out of the way.
Thanks NY. It's made out of red oak too. White oak may be better but red was free. Rebuilt it about five years ago with lumber that was outside getting old and beginning to rot. Used to dabble in woodworking but moved on to other hobbies. I actually came up with what I thought was an ingenious design. In the third picture you can see it. The side posts have a 2x6 just under and over the frame. There's a 5/8" rod dadoed into the top piece. Just crank those nuts tight and it keeps the side posts rigid beyond compare. Works very well. The side panels in the front lift up and off for ease in loading rounds from the side. That's why there's a pipe clamp on top. The clamp wasn't part of the design but the front posts can be stressed forward enough where the slats will fall out. There's no rod running through the front posts. Can't remember why I didn't use one. Eventually someday when I lose all my pipe clamps in the woods I'll gusset up those front posts better. Oh yeah, last rebuild I made a low rider out of it. Lost ground clearence by flipping the frame upside down and getting the axle on top but less height to lift is always a good thing.
Jo, your woodstack is very impressive! You have a ton of wood there, good job for sure with those loads of oak. What's up with the long rounds you have stacked up? Just waiting their turn to be cut up? If you keep finding, hauling and cutting like your doing lately, you will eventually have more dry wood you can burn.
Yeah the long sticks are awaiting the old belt fed cordwood saw to be hooked up much faster than chainsawing. Some folks don't bother with the branches but I take almost all of them. The women would give me hell if I didn't. They're big on keeping the forest clean. Stacks of twigs all over the property. Three houses with four stoves. Five if I count my wood furnace but I'm hoping not to need that again this year. It goes fast. I think we have seven mason dumps of wood in the cellars already. Quite a few more to go. Everyone's got new Woodstocks this year. Hoping they take a big chunk out of yearly usage.
Holy cow. Buck those trees split them rounds stack that wood. Gotta love it. It's like a real tangable asset that's free.. aND u get a free workout too..
I would get em too, lot of good firewood ya got stacked there . Nice job on the oak Don't know if I said it yet but, Welcome to FHC
Jo, I figured when seeing the pictures you had a buzz saw. Good for you and yes, it does speed up the work a lot. When my 2 sons were still home we'd stack up the wood then the 3 of us would buzz together. One brought the wood to me and the other took the wood from the saw and threw it into a pile. Not really trying to brag but I think we made a good team. But, now they have their own families and we no longer have a buzz saw. But then again, we don't need as much wood as we used to after we bought the Woodstock Fireview.
Yes the buzz saw is a family affair. One of the few things over the years where the entire family would get together for work purposes. Fond memories but not always the safest memories Once my father passed on it was my turn to sharpen that saw. It was then that I looked for a little guidance online. Not much info out there but the same concepts apply to all circular wood blades. I realized that somewhere along the line someone had switched out the original blade for one that probably came off a sawmill, a ripper instead of a crosscut. The old original has been hanging high up on the wall of our oldest barn since I can remember. I reset the kerf with a mapp torch and crescent wrench. Very crude but amazingly worked quite well. In small increments every year I'm getting the teeth to the same height, squaring them off and reducing the rake. Major improvement over the old dinosaur toothed blade. No longer need to run the tractor at half throttle to cut through the big stuff. Much less grabby. I wonder how many of those old saws have had blades switched with sawmill blades? I added to the bed on the cutoff side. I can now use the saw by myself when needed. Straight onto the dumptruck and down the cellar. Probably safer than using a chainsaw on little stuff as long as the belt doesn't break. Used a fireview last year as my sole means of heat. Paid $204 on eBay, what a steal. Not quite big enough but for the money I couldn't pass it up. Turned around and sold it for $500 which is still a good price. PH this year for me. Mom and sis have IS.
Fireview to Progress. Super big change! Not good to use rip saw when bucking firewood. Those saws take a lot of time to sharpen and I really don't miss that either. It has been a long times since I've done one and don't figure to do any more either.
Well I cheat on the sharpening. A 4" angle grinder with a paper sanding disc. 800 grit if I remember right. So much faster than the files I first used.
