New to the site, just checking in

Yep your making us all look bad. Nice toys. Your almost professional we’re all a bunch of hacks.

 

Good eye Felter, that is a slab of honey locust that I use for sharpening the saws on the tailgate of the truck. a thin foam pad under it would be nice to keep it more stable, but I just never get 'round to it... The mill will handle a 26" log if it is pretty straight and up to 16' long. For a little perspective, a 55 gallon drum is about 22" diameter. The biggest log we did so far was a honey locust that was 22" at the big end and 20" at the small end and was 16' long. We are still figuring things out cuz handling a log that size it right at the limit of (or a tad beyond) what we can handle safely. That one took two tractors to get up the hill to the mill and was everything we could do to get it up on the mill. We are setting up a ramp and winch to get logs up on the mill and a rear dolly to pull them with instead of dragging the logs behind the tractor. We're pretty low budget here so sometimes it takes a little time to "engineer" a solution, but we like a good challenge.

Thank you all for the compliments. The wood shed was put together with mostly leftovers from other projects or trades of my junk for your junk deals. The wife put her foot down on the siding though and I had to buy siding that matched the house... Happy wife, happy life... I added a 2' awning on the front this fall to keep out what little rain blew in on the wood from the front. It sets so the prevailing winds are at its back and blowing up the hill and up through the floor to dry the wood although I don't really put much green wood in this shed. Every once in a while we get a rain coming the other way that prompted the adding of the awning. It's 16' long and 8' high and I can get 3 rows of 22" splits in it. With the two 8' x 6' racks in the basement, it is right at what I use each winter with the newer stove.

I'm liking this Ponderosa stove cuz it uses a little less than half the wood I used with the old air tight stove before and get about the same heat out of it. It is a bit of a trade off though. I only had to load the old air tight 3 or 4 times a day and had pretty steady heat, but the new EPA stove requires much more attention to keep it up in the high output range on the really cold days. If you keep on top of it and check it every hour or two, it will heat the whole house down to about 10* without the furnace kicking on. I'm gonna try putting a corragated roof panel behind the stove and pipe to try to reflect the heat out into the room better instead of getting absorbed in the block wall behind the stove. That wall stays pretty hot and I would rather have that heat up in the rest of the house instead of in the basement wall... It's all still a work in progress, there's always a better way. I like to tinker and "improve" things whenever possible as long as it's practical. Again, the roof panels are old left overs a neighbor picked up for next to nothing and I traded for some of them. The sawmill roof may end up a calico mosaic, but the wife can't see it from the house and there' always silver roof paint. LOL

Ralphie, every sandbox requires a unique set of toys and the grass is always greener on the other side. I'm sure you have plenty of cool toys too...

 

cre73, I'm not a pro, just a hack. Trust me, for every cool picture or neat toy, there is 20 or more failures or goofball ideas.

 

I'm liking this Ponderosa stove cuz it uses a little less than half the wood I used with the old air tight stove before and get about the same heat out of it. It is a bit of a trade off though. I only had to load the old air tight 3 or 4 times a day and had pretty steady heat, but the new EPA stove requires much more attention to keep it up in the high output range on the really cold days. If you keep on top of it and check it every hour or two, it will heat the whole house down to about 10* without the furnace kicking on. I'm gonna try putting a corragated roof panel behind the stove and pipe to try to reflect the heat out into the room better instead of getting absorbed in the block wall behind the stove. That wall stays pretty hot and I would rather have that heat up in the rest of the house instead of in the basement wall... It's all still a work in progress, there's always a better way. I like to tinker and "improve" things whenever possible as long as it's practical. Again, the roof panels are old left overs a neighbor picked up for next to nothing and I traded for some of them. The sawmill roof may end up a calico mosaic, but the wife can't see it from the house and there' always silver roof paint. LOL

[/QUOTE]

Yes I can attest that the corrugated panel behind the stove works very well.

 

Thanks Mitch, you have inspired me, there will be panel back there this weekend on mine, why I never got to it yet is a reason for me to kick myself in the ... (shin)... I'll just prop it in there for now, but after the heating season is over I'll use some copper tube and long screws to mount it to the wall but space it out a couple inches so air can flow up behind it and it can sink any heat it absorbs into the cooler air that it will pull up from the floor. Reflective and convection...

 

cre73, do you have pictures of your homemade log arch. That is a project on my list although we may be able to get by with a cradle axle / dolly set up at the rear of the log and use the carry all on the 3 pt hitch of the tractor to pull em out of the woods and across the creek. I'm still pondering ideas on that one... any suggestions or pictures would be appreciated.

 

If I don't have any I will get some. I haven't used it in a few years. Once I fabbed up a jib pole for the tractor I quit using it.

 

I have a jib pole too and it works good on firewood size logs, but the bigger stuff that I like for on the mill is just too heavy for the TO-35. It's hard to steer with the front wheels pointing at the clouds... I used to steer with the brakes, but they are shot and I need to spend a weekend working on those... another project that I think will take 8 hours that will end up eating 3 weekends with all the Murphy's law crap that happens... Reach for the torch, NO GAS... Grab the jack, the handle is missing... dig in the toolbox for the torque wrench and look for it for 30 minutes before I remember it's over at the other farm... Jump on the quad to run over to get it... FLAT tire... You get the picture... LOL

 

You've worked at my place? Not sure if I remember lol!!

 

I was thinking the same thing. At least we aren’t alone

 

Here are the pics.

 

Here is Some info you might be able to get some ideas from a link a PDF file at the bottom, and a Picture I had in my files.
I thought I had some other stuff but I can't seem to find it

https://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/log-hauler-zmaz85sozgoe

 

welcome to the club sir! Im just curious if you compare your STIHL bars the ones made in Germany or USA, is there any difference? Around here you wont get any made in the USA ones so i just wondered. I came across this little clip about the STIHL USA plant and it seems they are doing it the German STIHL way so standards should be similiar but maybe theres varities in steel.

 

I don't have enough experience with different Stihl products to know the difference.. The ES bar on my 391 is the only part of mine that is marked Made in Germany. The Chains I have no clue where they were made, but I know they are the best chains I've ever used.

The clip is interesting. I already knew of the German trade apprenticeship programs. I learned of that from German friends back in the early 80's when I was stationed remote site Hohenbogen (all gone now) near the Czech border. Since then, I've always been an advocate of vocational schools and trade appreticeship programs. One of my German friends was telling me of a machinist's program where the first few weeks were just spent using various files on various steels / materials to get to know the materials' traits. One of the objectives was to file a block down to a cube within certain specifications. They all said most of the programs were pretty rigorous and thorough, and if you make it through, you knew what you were doing.

 

Just wanted to update everyone. I had to modify the muffler mod on my MS391.

After using it a few times after the muffler mod I noticed the plastic of the bar oil tank just below the muffler starting to get charred a bit from the hot exhaust. When against a log bucking, the hot exhaust going down doesn't have much room to escape and is kinda getting trapped right at the bottom of the muffler. BAD PIZZA!!! So I reversed the louvers and now the exhaust points up. I put some metalized reflective tape over the plastic oil tank and it is not a problem now. It doesn't look quite as neat now and the louvers pointing up are WAY more noticable now, but I'm more of a function over form guy anyway.

I was worried that the exhuast would be blowing up into my face, but I don't notice anything. I re-tuned the hi jet since the openings may have changed when re bending the louvers, but there was no change. Sitll runs awesome, way better than stock. I wish I had done some before and after testing before doing the mod to verify the results, but the performance increase was very noticable.