Hi all - haven't posted on here in a while, been busy with other hobbies/chores/etc. A couple months ago I had 10 willow oak logs dropped off in my driveway by a tree company doing work a few blocks away. They range in diameter from about 12-16 inches in certain areas, and I'm guessing are around 10 feet long. Needless to say, I was not able to roll them by hand in order to cut all the way through the log. I've been putting off buying a log cant hook when it dawned on me that I might be able to McGyver something together with a ratchet strap and a 6 ft steel digging bar. I placed the strap around the log, wrapped one end of the ratchet strap around the bottom end of the digging bar a couple times, hooked the strap together, and tightened it down. Seemed to work well enough for what I need. I could see why having a cant hook around would be really handy, I will likely pick one up at some point, but for now, saved myself a few bucks and got the job done. I'll be curious to see how much cordage I get out of these logs, seems like it'll be enough to last me a while (once it's split and dried, of course), we only burn about a cord per year in an open fireplace. Anyway - thought I would share my little bit of redneck engineering. Happy cutting!
A lever is a lever. When you buy your first real can’t hook or peavey, you will wonder how you got by without it. Good ingenuity!
I'm only taking a guess here but I'm thinking a cord and a quarter to half a cord. Give or take. I'm honestly bad with photos in terms of judging their actual size. What I picked up earlier this week looked like a pile of limb cuts of oak not much wider than 5 inches or so. Instead overall came out about an F 150 truck load... half cord-ish. .
Great improvision. Did something similar a couple years ago on a big gnarly oak chunk. Ive Come a Long Way in my Hoarding Career!
I have a similar come-along, I thought about doing something like that, but didn't have a good place to anchor the location to pull from since the logs were parallel to my driveway. If logs were turned 90 deg could have used my tow hitch to do the same thing - good idea.
I didnt actually use the truck to pull it, just as a weight. Can you move your vehicle so its slightly diagonal and hook come a long that way? I screwed in a clothesline hook.
Right I got you - just as an anchor point of sorts. My driveway is pretty narrow, not sure it would work very well that way. If the logs were turned a bit to be more perpendicular to the driveway, perhaps. Although, one of the logs is almost all the way on the side of the driveway, running parallel to the length of the driveway, might be worth trying it out with that one actually.
Having a cant hook is most welcome for logs like that. Another excellent tool is a good pickeroon. You can stab the log and pull towards you, rolling said log. If you want to slide the log then just stab the end.
