The title pretty much sums it up. I thought I was so smart this fall, filling my pallet sized racks with all that dead standing split elm and ash of varying lengths, 15-20". My thinking was that as I unloaded them into the basement furnace room I'd have enough time and room to sort them and have plenty of the shorties to burn upstairs, basically anything 17" and under. Apparently I over-estimated the accuracy of my eye for cutting 18-20" for the furnace as I've got a whole mess of those pieces and I'm almost out of the shorties. I really really should have sorted by size as I loaded the pallets, which I started to do at the very end but I've already burned through my one pallet of sorted shorties! The solution...it's ugly. I'm going to move two of the full pallets and one empty into the shop and start sorting. If I don't end up with another whole pallet of shorties I'm going to start cutting down the longer pieces to make up the difference. Anyone have any other ideas?
I guess sort em first then make an h buck or get out the chop saw and start halving pieces. Maybe you should cut to length in the woods. Ie, every other tree gets cut long or short for each stove
Yeah, I really need to put together a better method for cutting to length in the woods. Two problems I had there; first I was cutting with a good friend that hadn't cut in a while and we ended up with some goofy lengths and second, the land-owner who I was going 50-50 with needed 18-20" pieces. Probably just going tree by tree at the two different lengths would be the best since we divided the wood up basically by the tree.
I have a Remington electric saw that I cut down too long stuff inside the furnace room. No exhaust fumes. Works good. It ain't no 066 MAG but it gets done what I need without having to throw the wood back outside. I think they are $30-$40 on amazon/eBay. There prolly are better models but more $.
I've got a little craftsman electric. Maybe I'll touch up the chain on it and put it in the furnace room. It's nice and toasty in there so I could work in a t-shirt at least! Combine that with a small purpose built sawbuck and I'd be set. I contemplated just moving the compound sliding miter saw down there too, for the time being, but that creates a lot of pretty fine sawdust unless you hook the vac to it then it gets to be too much hassle.
Depends on how long sorting takes. You've already done one huge sample size and know you are short. Odds are the rest are represented by that sample. It might be less time consuming to just cut a good sized supply of shorts and add to it as time goes by as you have been doing. Maybe sort for a half hour and then cut for a half hour and see which nets a bigger pile. Kinda sounds like you know you are gonna have to cut anyway.
I've had this problem too, built a 18" deep 4 foot tall rack. Anything too long gets put on the rack and then I run down the 2x4 edge as a guide to re- cut anything that's too long. I sometimes I have an over zealous run of some overly long pieces if I am running the 24"/ 28" or 36" bars. I think my eyes are starting to lie to me more about how long the piece of wood is, as of late the pieces are coming out shorter!
I'm glad that both of my stoves take the same size splits, for the most part. But the NZ3000 does accept longer ones that I get from stumps from time to time. I like the idea of a chip saw or old miter saw or even an electric chainsaw in the garage work basement for those that need to trim a little. My advice for future cutting would be to find a happy "medium" that fits in both stoves and cut all the wood that length so you ain't wasting time sorting.
There's just no way around how bad the sorting and (re) stacking is going to suck so I think you're probably right Bill, I could just as well cut as I un-stack, sort/cut, and re-stack.
You've spelled out my exact dilemma Scotty; one stove takes up to 17" and the other will take 22" comfortably. Last year I cut everything to 17" or less (completely by eye, big mistake) and I ended up with stunted burn times in the Daka. Fast forward to this year and with mostly 20" wood going into the Daka I'm getting good burn times but I'm left with REALLY short wood (not quite short enough to load n&s which is even more frustrating) and not enough of it, for the Answer. I did "convert" my old Monkey Wards radial arm to a firewood cutting saw since I utilize the compound sliding miter for normal woodworking. The electric chainsaw used with a small buck or vise of some sort is a viable alternative as well.
I changed out fireboxes this year, and a lot of my wood is too long for my current set up. I'm dealing with it, although it's a pain. My method is that I have an old chop saw out there by the "active" stack, and I just have to lop off little 3" chunks of each load I bring in to the stove. Every day or two there is a basket of chunks that I burn as a quick hot load during the evening warm up. It's a pain, but I am using all the dry fuel I have, in order. It's a good reminder too, as I'm out processing I'm much more careful this year to get my lengths just right.
Sort, chop to length or get a bigger wood stove upstairs Like someone mentioned above, in the future I'd aim for everything to be cut around 16" and the odd longer end cuts can go to the furnace downstairs. My $0.02.
Next year it would be a simple thing to make yourself a marker. For example, we have a 4' stick and we spray painted at 16" and 32". We simply lay that down on the log, mark 16, 32 and at the end (48"). We usually mark the whole trunk before cutting. But for you, you may want to make 2 sticks; one for 17" wood and the other for 20 or 22". Then when you go back to cut, the marks are there and you don't even have to guestimate. Along with the measuring stick, we like to use these; the crayon and a wooden holder, which keeps the marking crayons from breaking. When we were logging, we simply used a 4' stick and had a notch at 2'. We simply drew a line with the axe as we were measuring then took a chip out where we wanted to saw. So it was easy meauring 8', 10', 12' etc.
1st thing to do is recalibrate your bionic eye. My first year I made a marking stick. It was a dowel cut to length, painted a awful neon pink so as not to lose it and guarantee nobody walked off with him. I just went along and put marks end to end along the tree took a few minutes but I had real consistent length rounds and for like $2.50 I used a big box of driveway chalk for kids, worked great and was cheap and plentiful. After my 1st year I became good at guessing length in relation to the bar from the first year having been pre measured.
Great ideas for getting the length right the next time I cut. Believe me, after splitting the mess of lengths this fall that's one of the first things I researched when I found you guys here! I used the "length of the bar" method most of the time but then I'd get cocky when it was going good and mess up a few. My buddy on the other hand used his eye and things went a bit awry, but I was really thankful for his help nonetheless! I think I'm going to take a crack at making a couple of those magnet length sticks or even bolt one onto the 025 and use that strictly for marking the trees. Then grab the 036 or the 044 or if my buddy is with they other guy can follow right behind and go to town on it. I like that method because it's one-manned, it's something (the chainsaw) that I'll be sure to have along anyway, and I can also go ahead and cut up some of the smalls as I'm marking.
Believe me XXL I'm already looking for something bigger for the upstairs. I've heard great things (on this board) about the IS's, BK's, and the NC30's now all I have to do is convince SWMBO to unlock the fundage! Plus a hearth relocation is in our future so that should facilitate the new stove conversation, if you know what I mean. I imagine it will go something like this, me: "We can't put that ratty old stove up on that nice new hearth". SWMBO: "Take it out in the shop and spiff it up a bit". Me: "When, in my *spare* time??" End of conversation!
I made a stop so my splitter will only open 19". If a round doesn't fit in the splitter I keep a saw with me and cut it on the spot. No splits that are too long in the stacks this year.
This is a great idea! I thought about adding a couple of painted lines on the I-beam of the splitter to gauge the length as well.
Sam ... I guess I'd re-trim splits only as I needed them, if possible, instead of turning it into a PITA project doing the entire stash. Your elec chainsaw and chopsaws should make that possible. Here's what I've been using to mark bucking lengths at 20". The short handle made it perty easy to move right along with a spray paint can putting down spots along 4-5 logs at the same time...
