Buckin' Them Branches...Jus' Whatdayado ??

I know all you guys get branches along with your tree trunks...they kinda go hand in hand, but how do you process yours ?? Do you dice it up in the woods and toss it in the truck/trailer or haul it home and process it at home?



I just hate doing all the bending over in the woods picking up the small pieces and in somewhat rocky terrain, dicing them in the woods can entice the tip of the guidebar and a good old rock to have an intimate relationship in which one or the other suffers a tad bit of damage.... and I too hate damaging relationships....so I try to avoid them.



We had a rig similar to these shown here mounted on the front of a Massey 101 Jr. and driven off the pto pully from the brake side of the tractor. It would hinge up and lock in place for transport and hinge down for sawing the pole wood or slabs off the saw mill. My older brother still has it.



So about twenty years ago, this one was was selected to be adapted for three point duty because it had a frame designed to be pinned to the ground on four corners as a stationary machine and belted to a tractor. It really was basic and did not resemble what you see here except for the arbor, blade and two triangle frame braces...and a crowned drive pulley.



First order of business was to fab an adjustable mounting bracket for a right angle drive (with slip clutch) off of a John Deere haybine to serve as power transmission directly from the pto to drive the saw arbor via a flat belt. Next was cutting and welding slotted brackets on the four corners adjustable by use of the (4) 3/4" allthread rod.



Next up was bending some 2" x 1/2" into a semblance of a three point lift frame.



Wanting to maintain a 1:1 ratio on the power delivery, I didn't have another 8" flat belt pully so a pair of dual belt 8" sheaves were selected to attach to the driveshaft out of the slip clutch of the JD gearbox. I suspected there would be enough friction to drive the flat belt on the outside of the sheaves but if not, something else would be done. Twenty years and its still working fine.



A little different perspective showing the adaptions. It will fit on any Category 1 tractor and I use it on an 800 Ford, 8N Ford, MH 30 with Saginaw 3 point and both Kubotas. However, the 16 Hp Kubota B7100 and its fuel sipping ability is the tractor of choice for versatility and economy of operation.

Sporting a 32" blade here, because I did not have a 36" which is the maximum size for this machine.

Sixteen ponies is plenty of power and it is ran with the throttle hammered back and it zips through just about anything we toss to the teeth. Well, except 60d ring shanks and an occasional railroad spike ....



Gullet depth and tooth angle are almost as important as sharpness of tooth when it comes to ability to cross cut quickly, not bind and generally just zing through round limb pole wood OR slabs from the sawmill. It's needing a touch up here.

Keep a mental pic of this tooth shape for the next time you see one for comparison because some of the miss-shaped teeth will make you cringe. It's almost like looking at all the wide open grins you'd see at a meth-head convention....

You may be interested to know that I used my dad's own technique for reshaping these teeth and cutting the gullet depth on a wood lathe...and he learned it from the old blacksmith on the home place back in the 30's. Uh-huh, yep, you read it right....a WOOD lathe. Inquiring minds may want to know....

Now... ya'all are gonna raise your eyebrows and say "uh-huh, sure it will" with this comment....BUT believe it or not, unless you have a hopped up Stihl 026 (or comparable) OR a bigger saw, this setup will give you a run for your money when it comes to flat-ash ripping through this branch wood...AND its much easier on your back.

So.... who else out there gets their jollies dancing to the tune of a singing saw blade ....or am I the only rooster in the wolves den..... c'mon lemme have it !!!

 

Do those teeth have a negative hook angle, or are my eyes worse than I thought? Good idea to keep that big blade from being too "grabby".
Very entertaining post tman, but those things give me the heebie-jeebies.

 

Oh, and I don't have a way to transport or handle "logs", so I buck it all up in the woods. Gotta handle it at some point.
Ideally, I'd then bring it home and it would go straight into the splitter from the Jeep, but I haven't gotten that efficient yet.

 

Wow is that the same blade? That's a great cleanup job. I'd like to get my hands on one of those someday, even if I only use end up using it for display. Awesome fab job as well.

I know a lot of you have probably seen my system already. I buck branch sized stuff into 80" lengths in the woods, then haul them to my wood processing area and cut them down to five 16" rounds on my sawbuck.

 

Reminds me of when I was a kid , we ran a saw like that with a flat belt running off one of our old tractors. The hardest part was lining up the tractor with the saw.

 

Preferred method : Every hoarder should have a couple | Firewood Hoarders Club

H-buck for the smaller ones, and the Curr-dog buck for the bigger guys.

 

I like to fall and buck my wood right where it lay, and leave most of the work and mess behind me in the bush. If it's a push down pile that other people have access to, then I cut lengths and buck it at home on the bucking stand.

To save my back a bit, I try to directionally fell trees across each other at some type of angle and when it works, it works well. It makes limbing a bit harder because the whole works looks like beavers gone wild, but it keeps a lot of the wood off the ground.

 

I saw this video a couple years ago and went back and found it. Pretty slick guards and set-up if you have AC power...

 

I know I posted this before, but this is what I made some time ago out of used odd sized pallets for cutting up branches and kindling. The kindling pictured is a couple of Rose of Sharon bushes and I had recently cut up some rhododendron. Whut? It's all wood, it'll burn! The uprights are placed at 16".

I will be using it for the branches of the pines I'm working on.

I love the similarities mine has to some others people use in the Every hoarder should have a couple | Firewood Hoarders Club thread.

 

To save my back,keeping the chain outta the dirt & time I cut 1" to 4" branches/poles/saplings etc into lengths of roughly 3 to 9 feet out in the field..

Hauling them back to processing area,cutting them to final length with older Delta 10" cast iron Miter Saw/40 tooth carbide blade combo.Much faster than any chainsaw with its 1/8" kerf.This works for small starter wood/kindling in addition to Hickory,Cherry,Mulberry,White Oak used for the smoker or Weber kettle also.

Bigger stuff from 5" t0 8" is also left in 3 to 9 foot lengths,hauled back & stacked on my very sturdy sawbuck,where its cut roughly 16 to 17 inches.

I just hate bending over & picking up/carrying several dozen or a hundred small rounds.A real pain,literally.

 

Papadave, I think what you're seeing on the face of the teeth is a bit of a build up of sap or moist powdery dust. The tooth hook angle is exactly (well you know) 45 degrees upon finish of the grind,then an ever so slight angle is filed to the front of the teeth, every other one in the opposite direction. Its probably not the exacting and proper way to shape/form the teeth, but its what I learned from the old man many years ago in the blacksmith shop. It seems to work well with the arbor speeds these operate within. The teeth are in fair need of a touch up too.

No heebies OR jeebies in this neck of the woods .... I started offbearing for my dad before I was ten years old, so its kinda second nature. All 3 of my kids grew up offbearing for me also....but with a continual reminder of safety. Its like anything else, there's an accepted risk with any activity that involves what we do....its just gotta be done with your head on straight.

Shawn, I've never used a buck like you and Star Gazer are sporting, though I can see that as a viable option to keeping branches off the ground. Thank you guys for showing the setups you use.

I agree it can be intimidating standing inches from a 32" blade if you think about it, but like you, I've never had, seen or heard of a serious accident in the 60 years association with these set ups. Though my kids are gone from home, occasionally they still get to help out a bit and the SIL has fallen right into the group doing his share of work on either side of the sawblade. Just a couple weeks ago we worked up a pile about the size of one in the above pics.

I used to do this, but now I like to place a couple good sized rounds about 4' long in the felling path to keep 'em up...it works most of the time anyway. I got tired of my feet getting tangled so bad in the overlapping branches. For some reason, its harder to pick up my feet at 65 than it was at 45......

That's one heck of a rig Stinny..... and thistle, you listed some main reasons why I too bring then back to process them. One other reason is speed....Its much faster to get them out of the way on clearing sites because they'll get pushed into the burn-pits as soon as the trees are topped. You can haul one heck of a pile on a flat deck trailer bound down with chains and binders whereas with them diced up, a fellow just about has to have sideboards.

So thank guys (and gals) for contributing to the thread !!!

 

I bought this little thing from northern tool to work up branches 3 inch minus. Not the heaviest built thing, but the saw holder and mount saves a ton of work with little stuff. Branches are BTU's !!!
Sawhorse with Chain Saw Holder | Sawhorses| Northern Tool + Equipment

 

Sometimes I cut it up in the woods, but mostly, cut the limbs and poles up in my processing area.
Cutting a bunch all at once is the way to go.

 

Cool !!! Great idea with dropping them right into the tub ready for transport en masse.

Yeah, I got pretty good at lining up those flat belts...we ground feed for the dairy cattle weekly, a combination of wheat, barley, ear corn and alfalfa. Our flat belt rolled out better'n 60' and we ran it with a twist to change pto rotation to be compatible to the rotation of the hammer mill. We also used the same belt on an old Hall and Brown 36" planer right next to the sawmill and another belt that rolled out over 80' for the silage blower. It too ran with a twist. The longer the belt, the easier to gain alignment, which is why we had such long lengths.

There were a few other pieces of equipment we ran on flat belts, but you're already making my brain hurt remembering these tid bits. My dad was the epitome of non-forgiveness so I had to learn quick or bear the brunt...or a good 'belt' so to speak.

Sorry I missed your post earlier sir.

 

I usually cut 'em up where they fell.
Split when I have a chance.
Then decide where I'm stacking it.

This I'll probably stack right there in the woods as it is probably the only green red oak I'll cut this year and only aboout a third of a cord.
Winter snow damage.

Big branches I'll pick up with the tractor forks, smaller ones I'll plop on the firewood sawhorse.
I don't like cutting on the ground any more if I don't have to.

If it were a whole tree I might move rounds with the bucket to where I was going to stack it then split the big ones.

 

I cut everything in the woods. When I get it home I prefer to be done with the saw and can just dump it in an area to be split. If it's a real rocky area I'll just leave the tree because there are plenty in the woods and I don't like to work with a saw where the footing is not good.

 

I drop my culled trees in the woods, then drag it out to my logging/staging area near my pole barn. What I've been doing lately is cutting the tops of the trees off and then tossing the remains between the gravel road and my woods road as a visual and physical barrier. At the staging area, I'll start at the small branches and cut them off as I go. It's sort of a pain picking up all the small rounds/branches, but having the tractor bucket near by helps.

Some pics of my logging/staging area:

 

Used to be I processed everything down to 2" in diameter. But because of the EAB I've got more wood than I can burn for my remaining years on the Mother Planet. Now, the small stuff now's goes into a big pile to get burned like a big bonfire. That's an awful thing to do but there is just too much big wood to worry much with the small stuff. Not only that, but I'm every bit of 5 years ahead on fire pit wood as well.