View Cutting Wood Hints
An article by eernest4.
Cutting down & splitting your own wood.
Its so easy that a cave man could do it & they did.
So why is it beyond so many of us.
Perception,prehaps. You don’t need any more strength than the average woman has, & I do it with even less strength, at 60 yrs old.
BEFORE I GO ANY FURTHER, THE TIME TO START CUTTING DOWN TREES IS IN MARCH or early april if march is too snowy.The time to buy wood in the round ,(unsplit) ,is in early april.
THE REASON for this is that wood needs to season a whole year, to be really good for burning, but 8 or 9 months is considered about ok, the moisture content my be a little high but not bad. Its 8 months from april to nov & 9 months from april to dec ,but if you want wood ready for nov, then you have to at least start cutting & splitting in march & seasoning should start in april.
DON’T DISPAIR— THERE IS A WAY TO FULLY SEASON WOOD TO 1 YEAR QUALITY IN ONLY 3 SUMMER MONTHS.
the wiki article by me TITLED ; THE NOT SO E-Z ,TRIED BY TRUE,SOLAR WOOD DRYING STILL.
LOOK AT WIKI TITLE LIST ON MENU ON LEFT & click & find article name in list & click.
Step by step instruction on building your own solar still for around 300.oo or less. Maybe 200.oo depending on the cost of the clear see thru greenhouse covering.
Wood Cutting & Spliting equipment is not very expensive. The whole proposition is less than the cost of a 10 yr old used car in average useable condition.
An electric chain saw, 120 volt, start at 35.oo up to 79.oo & the 35.oo remington ain’t too bad. If you are only going to buy one , the 14 inch size is handy & only 45.oo to 50.ooBut where to buy without paying an arm & a leg. I tell you now.
I HAVE TO SAY THAT THIS IS NOT INDUSTRIAL GRADE EQUIPMENT, BUT THAT IS TOO EXPENSIVE & THIS MORE THAN GOOD ENOUGH TO GET STARTED WITH. You not a full time logger, this stuff fine for the homelite weekend warrior. 4 years later,I still using same stuff , so nuf said.
Don’t go nuts & buy high end equipment, low end equip is fine.
www.harborfrieght.com
www.tractorsupply.com
www.cummingstools.com
www.homier.com
www.northerntools.com
Cheapest gas chain saws at cumminstools.com also large selection of 120 volt electric chain saws & 18 volt ni cad rechargable chain saws & all electric power tools & hand tools & car tools. Also , a manual hydralic log splitter that take a lot of pumping to split a log, just like jacking up your car. I know ,I bought one & don’t ever use it.too much work.
gas chain saws start around 99.00 to 142.00— dont be afraid to buy a reconditioned one . I bought 4 , no problems. Dont buy a solid handle chain saw, you vibrate your hands numb in only 20 min. first two i buy were solid handle ,that why I bought 2 more I could actually use, with the spring mount anti, vibration handle.
I like homelite saws better than my craftsman, cheaper to buy & a better saw.
WHY MENTION ELECTRIC SAWS because \i use them as my saw of preference, whenever I can get a electric cord to the work. They vibrate way ,way less than a gas saw, & always start , no pull, let alone first pull.
They wiegh less , are easier to opperate but don’t cut quite as fast as gas. Not having a gas saw that won’t start, priceless.
WHAT ABOUT WHEN THEIR IS NO ELECTRIC OUTLET. dc to ac power inverter from your car battery, rated to power your electric chain saw or small gas generator. china two cycle as low as 100.oo maybe 700 wt.
Log splitters
tractorsupply.com huskee 22 ton 6.5 hp 1000.oo comes with hydralic fluid all fully assembled ready to tow home& use.
takes a 2 inch ball , class 1 light duty hitch fine.
You don’t need to spend 1400 to 1600 for HD ,lowes or sears,
they sell U more machine than U need & their splitters come unassembled,in a box that wiegh 400 lbs & without 100.oo worth of hydralic fluid that you have to buy & put in at your own expense. Feel like sitting in the parking lot with a tool box & a helper, trying to assemble their log spliter before you can tow it home. bad choice. Buy they delever it to you for only an extra $60.oo, still disassembled in the box.
I been down that road, been there ,done that. Warning, takes two or 3 people to assemble, 350lb I beam to manhandle.
electric log splitters—— they workwell on limbs & small logs, but beware, wont split more than an 8 inch dia log, some wont split a 6 in dai log. Much faster & easier to use the 22 ton husky instead of electric log splitter.
I will say this, if i only had to split 6 inch diameter logs, then the electric would be the way to go.
But most logs are bigger & the electric wont do the job. the wedge hits the log & just stops. Not enough tons of hydralic pressure to do the work. Like trying to drive a 2 cylinder car, just not enough engine, that why there are no two cylinder cars.
I own one & it does work but I wont bother to use it on anything over 6 in dia. As cheap as $250.oo, last time I looked. Better to put your money towards the huskee 22 ton than buy a toy log splitter.
3.5 hp gas splitters 750.oo probably jam ram on a 14 inch log. better than the electric splitter though.not enough splitter to do a good job on larger logs.
TRAILERS :FIRST ,here I am talking about a light duty UTILITY trailer that only wieghs 250 to 350 lbs empty & uses a class 1 light duty hitch & so can be pulled by any 4 cylinder economy car that you can find a hitch to fit.
The trailer is made of sheet metal & one 16 yr old girl can easily pick up the trailer tounge & roll the trailer around when the trailer is empty. Don’t try it when the trailer is full, the tounge could weight up to 200 lbs.
Some 4 cyl cars , you can’t find a hitch for. Maybe because they are not rated for towing.
These trailers can only hold UP TO 1000LBS MAXIMUM & unelse you have bought the better grade tires, not even that. With the standard grade tires, you are limited to 650-750- lbs. you can tell when the tires start to look flat on the bottom , that you are begining to overload the trailer & should take some wieght out.
BALANCING YOUR TRAILER, VERY IMPORTANT!!!
The wieght of the load in the trailer should be mostly centered over the single axil. The tounge wieght shoul not exceed 200 lbs & the trailer shouls be neither nose heavy or tail heavy. The trailer will pull better if the nose is 20 to 30 lbs heavier than the tail, but not exceeding the 200 lb tounge wieght limitation.Most trailer hook ups, between the ball & the hitch , allow for a little up & down movement & this will allow you to guess at the tounge wieght if it is near 200lbs it will be very hard for you to lift up on the tounge & if the nose is light,it will be too easy to lift it up a bit. I think there is only a 1/4 inch play in there at the most, but I have never
actually measured it, so i dont really know.
If you push on the front of the trailer & on the back of the trailer, you should be able to get a feel for if the trailer is well balanced & with the load centered over the axil.
If the trailer feels off balance, redistribute some of the load.
Never trust a helper to load your trailer so that it is balanced. HE PROBABLY NEVER LOADED A TRAILER BEFORE & SO NEEDS SOME INSTRUCTION IN BALANCING THE LOAD CORECTLY.
ALWAYS BRING ROPE & A KNIFE TO CUT IT. Always tie down a load. Dont think that just because a cast iron stove is heavy means that it does not need to be firmly & securely tied down.
An untied cast iron stove can bounce out of the trailer, if you hit a pot hole or railroad tracks at any kind speed,
& will shatter into a million pieces when it hits the road.
ALWAYS CHECK THE CLEARANCE BETWEEN THE TOP OF THE TIRES & THE BOTTOM OF THE FENDERS. Sometimes ,they can rub & your load will need to be lightened until there is enough clearance.
Without clearance, I doubt your tires will last until you get home & there is danger of ruining both the wheel bearings & axil.
TRAILER WHEEL BEARINGS should be inspected, regreased and reinstalled once a yr. If you blow a wheel bearing, the trailer will be stuck there until you can locate a new wheel bearing & come back to install it or find
a mechanic willing to do road side repair. You might have to have the trailer flat bedded into the repair shop.
WAY CHEAPER TO DO YEARLY WHELL BEARING INSPECTIONS.
A BEARING BUDDY GREASE CUP FITTING is a good idea as this keeps constant grease pressure on the bearing &
allows for way less bearing checks & maintaince.
www.bearingbuddy.com
For people that have a car, this is the cheapest solution.
A basic trailer can be bought new for only $250.oo+ship + tx, see harborfrieght.com
You have to add the 3/4 in plywood floor & the rails & tailgate made from 2×4 & some wooden fenders from plywood.
Say maybe another 150.oo or you can buy the fancier trailer with all this stuff, but it still comes in a DIY ,most assembly required box.
OTO hand, just buy a used trailer, ready to go. I tell you of the harborfrieght trailer so you can use that price of a new one to beat down the used trailer price with.
TOW HITCHES
You can’t tow a trailer without a tow hitch so that going to cost you $90.oo + ship to 190.oo+ship, depending on your model of car & how hard U shop. if U shop haed here ,on the internet, you will probably find something in the 90.oo to 120.oo price range, so dont settle for the first 8 prices you get, U look harder,U find someone sell to U cheaper.
Guys with pick up trucks,you are all set,just buy a 10.oo ball to bolt onto your predrilled step bumper.
Most trailers use the 2 inch ball nowdays. The 2 in ball is preferable to the 1&7;/8 inch ball becuase it is a stronger coupling between the trailer & the vechicle, so if you have a choice when you buy your trailer,specify the 2 ich ball.
THEN YOU NEED A BALL,another 10.oo or 12.oo & a trailer light hook up harness, $4.oo to 12.oo , depending on how good a shopper are you.Sledges & wedges— sometimes, you get a round that no splitter will handle, the knarley ones with knots & branches all over. I find the heavier the sledgehammer, the easier the wedge goes in, especially for weaker people,senoir citizens,like me.
BUSTING UP FREE PALLET WOOD.
Sledges are the cat’s meow for busting up pallets into firewood,real fast. Sledge will bust up a pallet in 4 to 6 minutes & thats wil taking a 3 minute break for sody. 2in thick cross boards with heavy twisty nails need the 20 lb or 30 ld sledge. the 6 or 12 lb sledge good for the 1/2 cross boards. 6 lb for straight nails & 12 lb for twisty nails.
Regular sledge is 6 lbs , too light to do much without a lot of zip behind it & zip means a rotated cuff on old people
7 many middle aged people.
10 or 12 lb sledge ,better but still too light, still needs zip.
18 or 20 lb -this is the baby that does the job so that you dont have to. No zip, or just a tad required.
SENOIR CITIZEN’S & WOMEN’S E-Z- METHOD OF SLEDGE HAMMERING WEDGES OR BUSTING UP PALLET WOOD.
Zip on hammer is not used, so no rotated cuffs occur.
Grab the handle of the sledge about 6 in from the end, so that both hands have room to fit on & lift the sledge hammer STRAIGHT UP over your head. (just as you would if your right hand interlocked fingers with your left hand & you raised your hands straight up over your head.)
The sledge hammer will be about 10 ft up & slightly in front of your head. Now just let it drop by gravity while your hands guide where the hammer head strikes.
If you don’t get good results, you need the 30 lb sledge instead of the 20 lb.
with the 20 lb , you will have to put “some” zip but dont strain your self trying to put a lot of zip to the hammer , because this is where rotated cuff come from.
Way cheaper to buy the heavier sledge hammer than get rotated cuff.
DONT LET NO TEENAGER GEEK DROPOUT AT THE HARDWARE STORE TELL YOU IT IS TOO MUCH SLEDGEHAMMER FOR YOU BECAUSE HE DOES NOT KNOW OF THIS NO WORK METHOD.
He thinks you are going to zip the hammer & if you were, why then it would be too much hammer . They told me that my 30 lb was to much for me & that must be why 4 yrs later, I still am using it without hurting myself, with the no zip method.
Maybe ,they not so smart, those salesmen. after all. they are just salesmen ,not sledgehammer swingers.
And neither do we actually swing the sledge hammer, we let it gravity drop with guidance & that is the difference between getting the job done slow but sure instead of doing a little work fast & then being all sore & exhausted &
saying ,I can’t do this.
You try to do too much ,too fast instead of pacing yourself slowly.
You make the mistake of looking at it as a job that you have to get done fast, so that you have more time to do nothing.
Instead of that, you should look at it as a day of relaxing fun. You are having fun cutting trees & splitting wood, especially because you don’t have to work hard at it at all & you can pace yourself & take all the time you want
& take as many breaks for as long as you want too , whenever you feel like it.
And what a wonderful excuse to get away from the wife & kids & all their nagging & pestering & still be doing useful work that they can’t complain about.
On a warm summer day, I will go out at sun up & stay out until sundown, only comming in for food & i enjoy it more than almost anything. i have a folding chair in the shade & a tall cold one & my pack of smokes & no one to bother me about anything at all.
i take 20 min breaks every hour, & even more when I start getting a bit tired.
It can be a really fun hobby, while providing you with thouands of dollars of free wood every year.
In my case, the figure is 3000 to 4000 in oil that i never buy, each year and 250.oo cord x 12=3000 worth of wood that i dont buy, either.
it is a pita(pain in the) to keep gas chain saws up so my best advise is to drain out the fuel tank & start them up & let them run dry the gas line & carb so that they start the next year.
Use the ashless two cycle oil that has fuel stablizer in it or stabil fuel stabilizer. Wal-mart sells this stuff cheap.
at sears, buy the chain sharpening file & holder to sharpen you chain with. It comes with instructions but have the make & model # of your saw with you, as well as the # of the chain, because sears sells 4 different size diameter chain files & one 1 fits your chain. Usually, it is the smallest size that they sell because home owners chain saws come equiped with the smallest teeth as a small toothed chain is easier to opperate. Sears the cheapest that i know of for this.
Chain bar oil is sae 30 but specially formulated to adhere to the chain & bar. you can use 30 wieght engine oil in a pinch or any engine oil in a pinch but the oil will fly off the chain more easily & not lubricate the chain as well as chain bar oil does.Walmart the cheapest , but I bought a lot , back in 03 ,so i dont know current price. I’m guessing 9.oo/gal
Never let your chain touch the ground while spinning. The only thing that will dull your chain faster is to hit a nail or a stone or concrete, all of which I have done at one time or another & had to spend 30 minutes resharpening my chain because of it.
I’m not going to go into how to fell a tree as there are numerious articles on the internet about it & a detailed description in your chain saw manual as well.
Do a search on how to fell a tree on www.ask.com
or www.ehow.com
It helps to widen the width of the cut, when you rock your chain saw back & forth in the cut, when you are sawing a log.
Don’t press down hard on the log to cut thru faster, especially if your chain saw is on an angle , because:
1. this causes the chain bar to wear at an angle & your chain will never track true again unless you buy a new bar & a new chain. 2. you can press down hard enough to burn out the centrifical clutch of your chain saw.
3. All this pressing down will strech your chain & then you will have to stop cutting & readjust the bar tension.
So, let your chain cut at its own speed & legthen the life of your saw & chain.
USE YELLOW PLASTIC WEDGES FROM SEARS.
If you get your saw stuck when a cut colapses on & pinches tight the chain, let off the throttle & turn off the saw.
All running the saw here will accomplish is to burn out the clutch & strech the chain, causing u to have to readjust the bar tension & buy a new clutch.
That chain is not moving until you relieve the pressure, either by lifting up on the appropiate section of the log
or drive in a yellow plastic wedge to relieve the pressure.
tHE IDEA OF THE YELLOW PLASTIC WEDGE IS THAT IT WONT RUIN THE BAR OR CHAIN IF YOU DRIVE THE WEDGE INTOthe bar or THE CHAIN. Some experienced wood cutters , who should know better, but think it wont happen to them,use a steel wedge, but just one slip up & they have to by a new bar& a new chain.
Read every thing you can on the subject before you drop you first tree, & pick on a small tree well away from any structure or power lines or anything else it can fall on, & plan a safe escape route that you will use to get clear of the tree once it starts to fall.
All trees want to fall the way that they are leaning. IT IS qiute tricky to get a tree to fall against the way it is leaning, so you should get experienced help for this case.
ANOTHER METHOD TO FELL A LARGE TREE is from the top down,called topping,this involves climbing up the tree
with a set of tree climber’s spikes & a chain saw & cutting the top off while you are still in the tree. i have only topped one tree, & it took me 4 times as long as a professional takes, but it was my first & probably my last, considering my age. Frequently , when they top trees , it is because the tree is too close to a building to cut it down any other way.A very strong bull rope & an especially strengthened pulley are attacked to the strongest top most part of the tree, so that the system will support 5000 lbs & then large 3000 lb limbs are cut off & lowered by rope & pulley & a ground crew that takes up 3 wraps of the bull rope around another close by tree to help belay the rope with the weight of the large limb.
This should only be attempted by trained professionals with full libility coverage. So,it certainly is not for you, but ,i thought I would tell you a little about it.
If I were young again & knew what i now know, I would have opened up a tree cutting service. but I was young & stupid & worked my butt off for chicken feed. Now ,i’m too old so it don’t matter anyways.
Well, I think i covered a little bit about a lot of material here & given you a good step up on getting started.
If you know someone that does his own cutting & splitting, ask him about it. I am sure he will be willing to take to you about it & give you some pointers.
A lot of wood burners buy the wood in the round in either 4 ft or 10 ft long lengths. 10 ft is cheaper than 4 ft, but the logs are too heavy to move without help, so if you are older spend a bit more for the cord,in the round, (unsplit) cut to 4 ft length. i think the cord unsplit goes around 160.oo ,in 10 ft length to 190.oo in 4 ft length.
THESE LOG GUYS WILL ALWAYS TRY TO GET TOP DOLLAR, & tell you that the wood is dry & seasoned
when it is really wet & unseasoned or only partly seasoned, say 3 months ,not a yr like it should be.
They store their wood outside in a field uncovered, so you can count on it being wet.
Anyway, enjoy this info & i hope you give it a try.