I would like to find some type of pallet but with my bigger wood size for my boiler, (26") 2 rows are 52" min. Every now & then I come across a big pallet at the lumber yard, but not often enough. I have seen some real nice box set up's here and other places, but they're all for normal 16" wood. As it is with the std. pallets I use for my stacks, the wood hangs off each side about 6-8" with a small gap in the middle for air movement & drying. These I built are 5x6w x 4 'h, it works out well waste wise splitting 4' 10' & 12' materials in half with no waste. My boiler also likes larger wood, like about 6-8" across, this makes a 3 sided "box" necessary for stacking & unloading the pretty heavy splits, a 2 handed job. Flamestead, that is a very simple design, I like it. Before I go on with what I've got, I might just try a few of them. I often complicate things in my mind, sticking with a certain "vision"
I LOVE your set up Fuelrod! Think I'm going to have to build mine smaller. I don't have a skid steer but a tractor with a FEL but it doesn't have the lift capacity of that baby you've got, plus the weight is a lot further out in front of the machine. I am really enjoying this. Keep up the good work!!!
fuelrod I am drooling over your toys I mean tools again... the place to find larger pallets.. is your local roofing wholesaler.. I can get then in 6 to 8 foot lengths easy however my equipment cannot lift it loaded with wood!
I process my wood about a quarter mile from the house, and driving a lot of smaller pallet loads up with the tractor would take some time and add quite a bit of wear and tear to the tractor. Plus having it all on pallets for a 3yr plan is a lot of pallets. I've thought of making a sled-style pallet that I could tow home on snow the year it was going to be burned; maybe a double-row for stability (at the cost of slower drying). Or a sled that I could place multiple racks onto sideways so I could bring up a couple of cord at once. Handling it less is clearly the way to go - it is great to see what others are doing and trying.
Flamestead would a dray.. work for you? thinking if on pallets build dray to hold x number have tractor drag back and forth... I'm on my property but probably close to quarter mile from processing drying to wood deck.. I just hate.. unstacking wood I am going to use transporting it to deck to re stack it!
Yes, sled/dray (wooden runners - probably pole trees rather than sawn lumber). Probably 4 poles bolted together with cross-members, to hold a double stack. Stack right on it to dry, then drag it home after 2 or 3 years. One of my woodsheds would allow me to push a couple of those into it, so no re-stacking. Currently I skid to the processing area, single-stack to dry right there, and then toss into a trailer, and re-stack into the woodshed.
yeah that's what I do also... next year's wood Winter 2017) is single row stacked.. but 2018 and 2019 is stacked on pallets.. worse case scenario I will plastic wrap them and put whole pallet on deck If we don't get some cold I will have a cord left over that I will unstack bring back to processing area and restack Again As my wood deck is my wife's wine and sunset deck when spring arrives
I am still burning what was supposed to be "last years" wood. If we keep this pace up mom nature will put me a full year ahead of what I had planned. I'm gonna build a couple of flamestead's example. I just like to take advantage of what my equipment will move so I'm thinking 8' wide, add an additional "sleeper" in the middle, maybe 2, and go 6' high. At 26" (wood length) that give's me like 104 cu/ft, about equal to my $80 box's but prolly for 1/3 the cost. I just wonder about stability with that high of a stack.
Thanks for that link Flamestead! Here's my version of it. Very cheap and simple to build. 2 2x6x10 - 2 2x6x12 - 3 2x4x8 (pt) & some const. adhesive & screws. They hold 6' x 6'9" x my 26" cut length that gives me about 70 cu/ft per rack. Now I need to fill them and see how stable they are.
It looks like you really went overboard on building those racks. They are very nice but I just can't imagine me taking the effort to taper the top part of the ends like that unless it let me make 2 ends from a single board.
Not yet, spent a few hours in the woods yesterday with the winch dropping & hauling some Beech. Pretty much sucked, while the snow will support me & a saw, it won't support the tractor. Then (with the deep snow) the tree you just dropped so the butt end is facing out has the stump directly in the way and is mostly burried in the snow and won't roll with a peavy. Snow's too hard and I'm too lazy to shovel out enough room for a saw at ground level to cut it. That's OK, the weatherman is calling for 1'-2' "with more locally" for Tuesday into Wed.
Flamestead's version will fit about 70 cu/ft (cutting @26"), add your typical hardwood weight per c/f. It's the end of summer and those facts left my memory a few months ago . The first version "crates" need a pretty heavy machine, that SS's 'roc' (50% of tipping load) is 3750#. My longer 26" split length makes a typical pallet or "tote" impractical, but I like to fill the boilers firebox front to back. These are pretty stable and cheap to build, fold down to a small pkg. and is what I think I'll be building. (Flamestead's version)
My wife's place of work was running a processor during mud season for a few years, and one things they tried was dropping split wood into a mesh bag on a pallet. They aren't selling firewood any more, and I have their setup to play with. I tried a pallet of uglies, and was surprised it held together for a couple hundred yards to the neighbors house for their fire pit after I removed the frame. I'm not sure the mesh would survive the sunlight over 3 years of drying.
