Noodling

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bsearcey said:
Definitely noodle from the side not the end. You won't get any noodles if you don't. Have to cut parrallel to the grain to get those.

BTW - that vid of the Aussie noodling was great - and holy cow that spotted gum is beautiful. Wish I could get some of that for flooring.

You get noodles from the end you just need to be off center. Thats how I got the pic, but they look much longer from the side.
 
I've done it both ways since I wasn't really sure how to noodle....I'll take thru the bark every time now!
 
Very interesting..

I have only noodled when cutting crotches and other "oddball" pieces. Then it is more a matter of strange grain patterns. I have done a little bit on a few really bad pieces to set a wedge (obviously from the end).

It seems to me that doing it from the side (aka through the bark) would be harder unless you do something to keep the log from rolling. That would be the main benefit of doing it from the end I would think. Man I do like the speed those videos show, somehow I don't think my saw can cut nearly that fast, but then again I suppose oak might be a little different to cut than what they were cutting there...
 
Slow1 said:
I don't think my saw can cut nearly that fast, but then again I suppose oak might be a little different to cut than what they were cutting there...

I thought that Aussie spotted gum was pretty dense stuff.
 
Battenkiller said:
Slow1 said:
I don't think my saw can cut nearly that fast, but then again I suppose oak might be a little different to cut than what they were cutting there...

I thought that Aussie spotted gum was pretty dense stuff.

No clue - in any case nice demo videos. I'll probably try a 'through the bark' noodle job now just to see how it goes.
 
This might seem like a dumb question,but is there a reason guys want noodles?
I assume the only reason to cut a round through the middles with a chainsaw is to
make carrying/splitting easier.Does it matter whether you get chips or noodles?
 
I'll still leave the noodling to you fellas. I still don't like it...
 
Backwoods Savage said:
I'll still leave the noodling to you fellas. I still don't like it...

Me neither....I only do it when I can't get a round into my truck.
 
muncybob said:
Backwoods Savage said:
I'll still leave the noodling to you fellas. I still don't like it...

Me neither....I only do it when I can't get a round into my truck.

When I had a bunch of rounds I had to load that were too big I took my fiskars and split them in half or quarters (slabs actually) as necessary so that I could lift them. I think it is much faster than the saw franky and probably wastes less wood (think of all those noodles laying around... how much tinder do you really need?).
 
I'll be trying the same this year...didn't have my splitting axe when my neighbor decided he wanted 2 large cherry's taken down last summer. I'm starting on a downed large ash tonight so I'll have to remember the axe when I get to the big stuff!
 
I never would have dreamed of cutting firewood that way. Only log I ever ripped smoked a brand new bar and safety chain. Of course, it happened to be a 4' long log of mountain mahogany, one of the hardest and densest woods in North America, full of metal-dulling silica. Now that I have a new and more powerful saw, I may give noodling a try just to see how it goes. It seems to me it'd be a hell of a lot easier on the cutters than regular ripping is.
 
This past year it seems I've had to noodle just about everything I've gotten. You can noodle a big round way faster then splitting it with a sledge and wedge. Really for me it depends on the wood. Right now I'm working with some tulip poplar thats between 18" and 24" (maybe bigger) diameter. Believe me I've tried splitting without noodling, but you can't especially while it is still green same thing was true with that big hackberry. The force of the blow is just abosrbed by the wood. I can get it to split with sledge and wedge, but why go through the trouble when I can noodle it in half real quick. Once I half the round that's all I need to be able to split with the FSS. Now if I owned a decent splitter especially a vertical one this would all be pointless. Like someone else said it's also a good way to reduce the size of the round in order to pick it up. Maybe you have to sharpen your chain a little more, but no big deal. It's worth it. I do think you have to watch your bar more. Seems it speeds up uneven wear on the rails.
 
Backwoods Savage said:
I'll still leave the noodling to you fellas. I still don't like it...
I don't like it either. On the very rare occasion that I can't split one with the old maul, it stays in the woods to rot.
 
quads said:
Backwoods Savage said:
I'll still leave the noodling to you fellas. I still don't like it...
I don't like it either. On the very rare occasion that I can't split one with the old maul, it stays in the woods to rot.

Never noodled . . . never will . . . I rarely get a round so large that I can't get it on to the trailer to split it . . . and the rare times in the past that I have got rounds so large that I have not been able to get the round loaded myself or with a buddy I have used Dad's tractor to load it and then let the splitter take care of the round when I get it home.
 
The guys I get wood from can drop through a 2 or 3 ft diameter round of hardwood in about the time I can get 2 swings of the maul in. They make it look effortless.
 
okotoks guy said:
This might seem like a dumb question,but is there a reason guys want noodles?
I assume the only reason to cut a round through the middles with a chainsaw is to
make carrying/splitting easier.Does it matter whether you get chips or noodles?

I had no choice but to noodle. My last Grapple load contained a stinking Cottonwood monster that was 48" diameter at the base. My 18" bar had no hope of bucking it so I noodled with my ripping chain. This wood has been a nightmare - the 27 ton splitter strained and tore it more than split it. And the worst part is that the BTU's are lousy in Cottonwood, they stink worse than the wood.
 
fire_man said:
okotoks guy said:
This might seem like a dumb question,but is there a reason guys want noodles?
I assume the only reason to cut a round through the middles with a chainsaw is to
make carrying/splitting easier.Does it matter whether you get chips or noodles?

I had no choice but to noodle. My last Grapple load contained a stinking Cottonwood monster that was 48" diameter at the base. My 18" bar had no hope of bucking it so I noodled with my ripping chain. This wood has been a nightmare - the 27 ton splitter strained and tore it more than split it. And the worst part is that the BTU's are lousy in Cottonwood, they stink worse than the wood.
I dont burn the cottonwood that is even on my place, goes into the burn pile, however there was a post over on the arbor site by a guy who said he liked it better than soft maple.
 
okotoks guy said:
This might seem like a dumb question,but is there a reason guys want noodles?
I assume the only reason to cut a round through the middles with a chainsaw is to
make carrying/splitting easier.Does it matter whether you get chips or noodles?

It's not that you "want" noodles. As others have said, you just do it to the big pieces so you can lift them into your truck or trailer. If you get noodles, it is easier on your chain and saw since you are going with the grain.

In the videos I linked, several guys are just noodling for fun in pieces much smaller than you would normally do it to.
 
I sorta did this over the weekend...I had a large pine stump I wanted to cut down a bit. It was a bit large for the 16" bar on the MS250. So, I started cutting from the top. I didn't get any noodles, rather, I had more of a fine dust. I thought my chain had gone dull in a matter of seconds...but once I started making a few side cuts, the nice big chips started flying again.

Oh, and I found not one, but two friggin nails deep in the stump. What are a chances? Luckily, they didn't ding the chain up.
 
Here is a video I made on Saturday of one of the rounds of elm. Too big to lift on to the stack waiting to be split and with elm, since it is virtually impossible to get a piece this big to actually split off, it saves having to horse the whole round over and over until you can finally get a piece to separate. I should've sharpened the chain first but it is what it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPCyU8MI0aY

Sorry for just posting the link but I can't figure out how to get the video to embed on this site.
 
wendell said:
Here is a video I made on Saturday of one of the rounds of elm. Too big to lift on to the stack waiting to be split and with elm, since it is virtually impossible to get a piece this big to actually split off, it saves having to horse the whole round over and over until you can finally get a piece to separate. I should've sharpened the chain first but it is what it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPCyU8MI0aY

Sorry for just posting the link but I can't figure out how to get the video to embed on this site.




Nice video seems it only noodles in spots?
 
You only get noodles when you get the bar a the right angle. This was one of my worst efforts. I think I was camera shy.

How do you get the video to embed? When I do it, all I get to show up is the code.
 
wendell said:
You only get noodles when you get the bar a the right angle. This was one of my worst efforts. I think I was camera shy.

How do you get the video to embed? When I do it, all I get to show up is the code.

In youtube there is a button thats say do you want to share push that button. Copy and paste that here under the button youtube.
pretty easy after you done it a couple times.
 
That's what I tried but when I previewed the post, all that showed up was the link between the YouTube markers.
 
I don't noodle often, but when I do....Its cuz I NEED to.
 

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