After taking care of my chores and errands, I finally got setup by 2pm this afternoon to work on the pile. Here are some pics: Note the Electric saw in the second pic. My dad bought it a while back. It came in handy with the smaller limbs in the pile today. In fact, I only used my Stihl on the one log my son left not fully bucked in the top photo on the left side. I took the old sawbuck last weekend and rebuilt it. This is the result. Worked really well today. Was able to get my youngest daughter to help. Shows how much we were able to clear. Tomorrow I should be able to clear the rest of the smaller stuff and get to the larger logs on the ground. Jason from RI
It does fold up. Funny thing is that when I built it that was not the intent. Getting it back in the shop, I maneuvered it all around to get it through the side door. Yesterday my son was helping me get it out and he just collapsed it and carried it out. Palm to head. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Worked on the pile again today. Before I started cutting, I sorted through the logs for what my daughter could put on the sawbuck, and what I'd have to put on the sawbuck. At the same time, I found a bunch of shorter pieces that I either put right into the truck or added to my pile to be split. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the pile I needed to split. That was on the other side of the driveway. Between what I left from yesterday to split and today, that is what filled the truck. My plan today was to get the logs that had slid down the hill hooked up to chains and pulled up on top of the other logs. I just ran out of time. All that is left is to pull that two logs up, buck those larger logs, and split them. After that, I'll be able to start working on the woodshed. Based on where I am in the wood, I'm going to get the woodshed sketched out and iron out all of the wood I'll need to build it. The next task will be rounding up the remaining pallets I need for the walls. I'll have to bring in some material to do some leveling for the skids. Otherwise, I'll have an interesting list to the east for the shed. Can't have that. All in all, I feel pretty good where I am finally. It's been a bumpy road to get here, but with no team to coach for softball, no sick parent to tend to (though I miss him every day), I have the time to put towards the projects I need to get done. Here is the sorted logs. Full truck after all of the splitting was done. Picture of the area after cleanup. You can see the two logs that slid down the hill. Next Saturday before I start bucking logs, I'll have to hookup chains to them and my truck and pull them up onto the other logs. Jason from RI
After last weekend, I was at the point where I needed to pull the two logs up that slid down the hill. On Saturday I was able to get to that using my truck and chains. Below I have a pre and post pic. I didn't get pics during the process. The process: In the first picture I parked in this spot as I had planned to use the come-along to pull the logs up. I attached a heavy chain to the anchors in the back of the truck, wrapped another chain around the first log, and connected the come along to both chains. After working the come-along taut, it was clear that this method would not work. At best the cable on the come-along would snap. Scrapping that idea, I had my youngest (14) daughter back the truck up as far as possible to the logs on the ground. The chain I wrapped around the log was long enough to connect to the chain in the truck bed. Once attached, my wife watched the log from a distance and my daughter watched the front of the truck as I pulled the log up. Once I was at the wall in front of the truck, I backed up a little to put slack in the chain. Thankfully the log did not slide back down. My youngest backed the truck up again to the logs as I repositioned the chain for another pull. This completed pulling the first log up onto the pile. The second log did not go as the first one. I went through the same procedure. When I backed up to let some slack in the chain, this log slid back down the embankment. It was clear, I'd have to pull this log up in one go. Instead of pulling towards the wall, I'd have to turn down the driveway, and the log would end up wherever it ended. The other thing that happened with this log is the chain kept slipping. I had my daughter get in the truck and put it in drive while I held the hook on the chain. She let her foot off the brake slowly until the hook took a purchase point and the chain went taut. Now I could get in the truck and pull the log up. With Meg watching the front as I turned to miss the wall and my wife watching the log, I slowly inched forward. Missing the wall by about an inch. The log pulled up and landed in the pile nicely. Mission accomplished. As I was using one of the smaller splits as a fulcrum to lift the log in order to get the chain off, I stopped to realize that everything I just did to get those logs up I learned from my dad. I had done things like this a bunch of times with him through the years. Most times just helping with the chains. Never realizing that I had learned a great deal. Until now that he's not here to help and I had to do it on my own. It made me appreciate just how much I did learn from him. Even if he didn't let me do as much as I wanted to do. Getting ready with the truck. At this point, my truck is as far forward as possible. That will give you an idea of the amount of space I had to work with once I backed the truck up to the existing logs on the ground. The logs after I was all done. After the two logs were up into the pile, I bucked one of the logs. The chain needs to be sharpened, and I have not picked up the sharpener. Plus they have two chains waiting to be picked up. I'll go today at lunch to get the chains and the sharpener. Next weekend I'll have those logs out of the way and ready to level the ground for the woodshed. In the meantime, I have a smaller woodshed that I built for our back deck that I am going to put outside our front door. Jason from RI
Nice work. I've got the same Troy-Bilt splitter and going on 11 years and countless cords with no issues.
The one issue I have with it is the oil. On the motor, there is no oil plug to remove the oil. I had to purchase one of those pumps to remove the oil from the fill spout. Not the way I like to do it. Outside of that, everything has worked well. I'd like to build a side table for outfeed. At least on the side to cover the motor that I could remove when I want to work on it. Jason from RI
I purchased a log cradle for mine last year but have yet to install it as it won't work with the cover I use. If I recall, I purchased it from this guy: LOG SPLITTER CRADLE/ TABLE, THE ULTIMATE BACK SAVER. | eBay
Lo Love those moments. Especially when it is someone younger and "inexperienced" who does it to you. Been happening more as I get older.
Will that cradle attach to the wings on the Troy Bilt? It's hard to tell from the picture on Ebay where exactly the cradle attaches to the Ibeam. Jason from RI
If I remember, I'll dig the cradle out of the shed and take a couple pictures for you showing how it mounts.
Picked up my sharpened chains today. Unfortunately, they did not have the sharpener size I needed. They were due to get it in today, but I did not get a call. Hopefully tomorrow. Bringing the small woodshed down and putting it right out the front door. That takes about 2/3's of a cord.
Got this small woodshed down with the help of my son. I built it out of Douglas fur 2X4' and they had rooted a bit. Not surprised. After going to the dump, I dropped by the lumberyard's town location and picked up two pressure treated 2X4's to replace the feet on it. At home, my two daughters helped me put the unit up on sawhorses. I cut off the old legs with my saws-all measured 6 shorter legs and cut them on the radial arm saw. With the new legs glued and screwed my two daughters helped me put the unit back in place. Tomorrow I'll get a picture of it in place. One last thing I need to do is put a new roof on it, but that can wait for now. My youngest is going to help me load up a pile from the backyard into the truck and bring it down and load the unit with that wood. I have a stack down front that I cut about a year ago that will go in last. With that wood in place, we can start mixing splits with the blocks. My goal is to end the season with blocks not splits. The wife is not thrilled about the unit being right out off the front step. However; I think she will be happy not having two large rings of wood in the house at all times. With that wood right there, we'll only keep a small amount in the house. That will reduce the mess and any chance of bugs. All in all, I think this is a good plan. This year I'll only fill this unit once, and partially fill it. Since my plan is to only burn 1 cord of wood. It might be more depending on the year. Next year I'll burn two cords of wood, and that unit will get filled three times. Now I know that some are going to say that is a ton of movement of the wood. Yes and no. This year it's being moved more as I make room to build the woodshed on skids. The unit by the front door is hopefully going to replace the two rings I use to keep stocked full in the house. With both rings full, I could get a full week out of them. Plus there is no room for the larger ring as that is where we have the blocks stacked. Hopefully, the unit outside will keep the wood dry enough to bring it straight in and burn it. If rain is forecast, we'd either use the blocks or bring in a couple of days worth of wood. This is going to be a learning experience as we move back to wood and get our routine settled in. One thing about keeping the wood outside that I'll be happy about is not bringing an overloaded wheelbarrow into the house. However; if this doesn't work the way I hoped it will, then we can always go back to the one ring in the house, and bringing in a loaded wheelbarrow. You know what, I enjoy being out in the cooler temps. In the am I get dressed in a short-sleeved T-shirt and a long-sleeved shirt. Depending on the temps, I'll swap out the long sleeve shirt for one of my two L.L. Bean fleece flannel shirts. They are great for lower temps. If it's really low, I'll just put the fleece flannel shirt over the long-sleeved shirt. My point is that I like it. Jason from RI.
The small wood rack by the front door is loaded up. Today the girls helped me load a pile from the backyard into the truck and we brought it down to the unit. That load filled up the back row. I split a bunch of rounds that were stacked from a while ago to add to some other wood I had stacked in the front to fill the rest of the unit. With the small wood rack full, I'll let that sit for 3-4 weeks before we start using that wood. We'll mix in with the current blocks. These are the rounds I had previously bucked. I stacked them neatly at the end of the bed. That almost equaled the amount of wood from the backyard. Here is a picture of the wood rack full. You'll notice the crapy roof that needs to be replaced. When I built it, I ran short on plywood, and just used what I had at the time. Next weekend I'm going to replace that. Finally, is a picture showing how the wood rack is in front of the door. We have a large granite stone that it sits on except the front-rear corner. I had to put a block in the mulch for it to sit on that.
Lookin good! I still get help from my soon to be 18yr old daughter carrying wood across the basement to the furnace area. I’m guessing wife and I will be alone next year. Enjoy em while you have em.
Love the racking right outside the door. Just burning a few splits here or there that were split last year. Rained hard yesterday. Already this morning I was able to use splits from the rack in the stove. Two blocks lasted the day with 5 splits. 3 splits in the am and another 2 this afternoon. Overnighter tonight we'll go back to blocks. The vast majority of the splits in the rack were split this year. I want to let them season as long as possible. What will be even better is that when I reload the rack, that wood will come from the woodshed to the rack. This will extend the blocks.