Does any body else do this?

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.
O

oldspark

Guest
Cut your wood in about 6 to 8 ft lengths and take it home and cut it to length later, the stuff that is too big is cut shorter, I can get it home quicker and work on it any time i want too, I handle it more this way but I can get a lot home in a short period of time. I have a livestock rack on my pickup so can stack it 6 ft high and turns into a fairly goood load as it does not pack very well in those irregular lengths.
 
oldspark said:
Cut your wood in about 6 to 8 ft lengths and take it home and cut it to length later, the stuff that is too big is cut shorter, I can get it home quicker and work on it any time i want too, I handle it more this way but I can get a lot home in a short period of time. I have a livestock rack on my pickup so can stack it 6 ft high and turns into a fairly goood load as it does not pack very well in those irregular lengths.
I cut and split the tree right where it lays. Then I load the splits up and haul them to the stack. Done. Never have to touch it again until I put it in the stove, years later.

If something should come up and I run out of time, I leave it lay in the woods until the next day or whenever I want to work on it again.
 
My tree guys cut logs 6'6" and stack them in a dump trailer from right to left .
My trailer gets filled 6.6"x 12' x 5'
fresh cut oak is heavy .
I rather load cut rounds because after you move the rounds in the dirt its much harder to cut .
If i get log length logs i power wash the logs to cut down on the sharpening.

John
 
I like to move the logs into my wood working area. Cut them into rounds, roll the round over to where I'm going to stack it. Split it and stack it right there in the same spot.
 
Back when I was splitting Birch with an axe, I would buck to double length to get them home and make the final cut when I was ready to split it. I always found it easier to split it on the fresh cut than a checked old cut.
 
LLigetfa said:
Back when I was splitting Birch with an axe, I would buck to double length to get them home and make the final cut when I was ready to split it. I always found it easier to split it on the fresh cut than a checked old cut.
Amen to that!
 
We've not had to much snow this winter so I've been skidding out the whole trees up to my shed. I have a 4x4 tractor and a farmi skidder on it and it saves alot of work. With snow on the ground the wood stays clean. I can cut it up and push it around with my tractor so it saves having to handle it one more time. Plus I can cut and split it when ever I get alittle extra time. A month from now I would be making deep tracks trying to get back there. I skid them about a 1/2 mile but I can skid 4 logs at a time.
leaddog
 
I usually cut to length where the tree fell, but if I have to carry the wood more than a short distance to the car I cut into the longest length I can carry comfortably. I can fit 6 footers into the car, and they are easy to carry if the tree is less than 8 inches or so. If the log is larger, I cut shorter.
 
I have done the same thing several times . Last year I got a bunch of wood from a farmer clearing some land and he did that with all the wood and stacked ut up I just loaded as is and brought it all home.
 
I'll cut the medium stuff in 4' lengths and the other stuff around 10' and haul it to the house and cut it at my leisure. I want to get it out of the woods and up to the house quickly and that works well for me. If its cut on the property then I will skid full logs to the house. Here recently I saw an ad for someone who was building splitters. They built a splitter on the back of a dual axle trailer, with the motor and pump on the tounge. It looks like it would be a nice setup.
 
No can do.
I buck it all up into 16" rounds before loading it into truck because the majority of the stuff I cut would be too big a round to carry as a 6 or 8 ft length.
Also I don't like having all those saw dust shavings blowing around my small lot if I cut up the rounds at home. I already have enough of that from my table saw.
Besides it doesn't take but a few minutes to buck up a pick-up load and my two boys easily load it as fast as I can buck it up.

However, I remember one time, years ago, when I was getting a bit of wood from a logging slash with a friend, and we watched some old guy probably in his 70s cut lengths of the wood all by himself with a bow saw, and loading them in his little truck with the tail gate down and the ends sticking out. He arrived just after we did and had his tuck loaded and was gone before we had our truck half full, and we were using a chainsaw! The old guy was obviously in great shape, sure made the two of us feel a little inadequate. :red:
 
oldspark said:
Cut your wood in about 6 to 8 ft lengths and take it home and cut it to length later, the stuff that is too big is cut shorter, I can get it home quicker and work on it any time i want too, I handle it more this way but I can get a lot home in a short period of time. I have a livestock rack on my pickup so can stack it 6 ft high and turns into a fairly goood load as it does not pack very well in those irregular lengths.

It depends.

If it's derby-style cutting then I do the absolute minimum amount of processing to get the truck loaded.

If there are no time or competition constraints then I'd cut to length on site.
 
Never done wood that way myself, there is no wrong way is there? I drop a tree limb it down to thumb size then skid it over to my landing to process. Then haul it home to heap on pallets workes for me.
 
oldspark said:
Cut your wood in about 6 to 8 ft lengths and take it home and cut it to length later, the stuff that is too big is cut shorter, I can get it home quicker and work on it any time i want too, I handle it more this way but I can get a lot home in a short period of time. I have a livestock rack on my pickup so can stack it 6 ft high and turns into a fairly goood load as it does not pack very well in those irregular lengths.

yes I do this all the time now I have around 20 cords that needs split but it is better to get it at your place first.
 
When we cut a lot with the buzz saw, which mounted on a Farmall, we cut most wood into lengths from 6' up to 10'. I've also done a lot like quads does. Now I put everything into a splitting stack and come spring (after snow melt) I put the splitter next to the stacked wood and just sit there and split.

There is no right or wrong way to do it. It all depends upon your situation. As you can tell I've done it several ways but have no favorite way. It is just that the way I am doing it now is the easiest on my body plus I can't get a wagon in where I am cutting now so use the atv and a trailer.
 
When I had to borrow a trailer and go 20 miles up the road or into the state forest it was the only decent way to do it. Especially when I had to heft it on my shoulder and hoof it throught the woods to the trailer. Seemed like a lot lesss back and forth that way.
Extra cutting time was in my back yard.
 
Depends . . . normally I cut the wood to length in the woods. It's just as easy for me . . . figure I've got to do it sooner or later . . . so might as well do it sooner rather than later.

I've also thought of using the tractor with the winch and pulling the trees out full length, stacking them in an area and bucking it all up at once . . . but to be honest I tend to use a lot of the wood and if I did this I would have to leave a lot of the branches behind in the woods . . . whereas now I just cut everything up in the woods and the only thing left behind are small branches.

Last summer when I was clearing the lot for the fire pond I was cutting the wood in 4 foot lengths . . . it was easier to twitch out with my ATV and I was able to get the wood moved back home quicker and easier. If I was scrounging or worried about any downed wood coming up MIA while I was not there near the wood source . . . I would go with the quicker load and go method of cutting longer, getting it back to my home and then processing the wood vs. taking the time to cut it all to length.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.