White Oak

Got ahead, but now behind and trying to catch up. Got this white oak from a local tree service. The biggest piece of the trunk is right next to the tractor, measured 40" in diameter, and was just under 10' long. I cut ~18-20" in length, and I think I got 5 rounds out of it. Looks like it had one hollow branch, but was otherwise healthy. I picked up 28" bar for my Husky 562XP for occasional use. Pulled it no problem with a nice new chain. Just can't lean into it as hard as the 20" bar, but otherwise pulled it great. Between the long bar, and my tractor, I cut the entire load, stacked the rounds, and cleaned up the shavings in ~4 hours. I'm going to borrow my buddies 34 ton splitter next weekend if the weather is good. Hoping to yield ~3 cords.

gregbesia said:

I thing this qualifies for work smarter not harder example. Nice equipment, good job.

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The tractor is quite the force multiplier!

Jay106n said:

I hope you are not planning on getting out your driveway any time soon

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The wood was delivered at dinner time on Friday and I had it cut to 18", and stacked for splitting, and the saw chips/dust cleaned up by noon on Saturday. My drive way wraps round, so we jut parked on the other end for the night. It's easier to drop the wood on this side of the driveway, its ~23' wide, so I don't damage the lawn/bushes/flower, The wrap around section is single car wide, ~13 feet. So I had it dropped here, once cut, I moved it and sort of lined the wrap around portion with the rounds.

The tractor is a Massey Ferguson GC2400. The tooth bar helps some, it give me just a few more inches to help balance the rounds on the bucket. I to worry about clamp on pallet forks damaging the bucket, because they are pretty long, give the heavy rounds a nice long lever arm to pry on the bucket! However, they also make clamp on brush forks, which are closer together and not nearly as long at pallet forks, they might work well. Ideally of course, I'd get a grapple...the best, but most expensive solution!


Here is where the wood has been sitting since noon on Saturday. It looked like so much less when all neatly piled. Hopefully I'll get it split next weekend!

Didn't get quite as much time this weekend as I had hoped, but made some progress. Using a 37 ton northstart that I borrowed from a buddy. Not a huge fan of the wedge design, or 4 way