Wood pile date tags ?

[Robbie]

Anyone want to brainstorm and think of an easy way to date your wood piles on the ends of the logs so as to easily look and see when each pile was cut/stacked or will be burned by ?


I have 4 rows about 40 ft. long by 6 ft. tall and I just used a heavy magic marker on the ends of a few select splits under an upper tarp.

I figure there has to be an easy way to make tags but I don't think magic markers will last over a few months outside before fading.

Plastic lids would work well if stapled onto splits but what to use for marking ?

Just a thought............while waiting for fall.............. %-P



Robbie

 

[myzamboni]

Get some address numbers (7,8,9,0) and thumbtack a number into each row (2007,2008,2009,2010)?

 

[babalu87]

Burn it in with a hot piece of iron, month and year should suffice.

 

[granpajohn]

Take note of your local surveyor/engineer's stakes. The marker ink lasts pretty long; we use Dixon Redi-Mark. There are metal tags available such as these: http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/View_Catalog_Page.asp?mi=1178. But who wants to pay for 1000 tags?

 

[WarmGuy]

You could also take digital photos of the piles that include a date and time.

 

[MrGriz]

Holy Cow...Just burn the oldest stuff first and hope you have enough, that's what I do.

Then I'm with BB, eye up the furniture

 

[nshif]

How about "dog tags" Go to a local Petco or such that has the machine to punch out dog ID tags on a piece of metal and nail em to the end of a split.. instead of putting dog info on them just put a date. Kinda small but would work and not that costly. Me I just know when I cut each stack.

 

[Gunner]

People the stove season is only a few weeks away...let's not loose are flippin' minds here. Blowin on wood, cold wood, now we are going to be lazer inscribing each split.

I need a drink.... :grrr:

 

[Harley]

People the stove season is only a few weeks away...let's not loose are flippin' minds here. Blowin on wood, cold wood, now we are going to be lazer inscribing each split.

I need a drink.... :grrr:

I'll have one with you here, Gunner. If it's dry - it's dry, and should be all set to throw it in the stove. If it's cold or frozen - probably a good idea to bring it inside and let it warm up a bit before you throw it in the stove (thinking more of thermal shock to the stove than anything else if the wood has a bunch of ice chunks hanging on it). Other than that - keep the stove going - you'll save money and be more comfortable - whether the wood going in is cold or up to room temperature before it goes in is probably not going to make any noticible difference (though, technically - I guess it could), but I wouldn't really change things around much to make sure you have anything other than easy access to get to the wood pile.

 

[keyman512us]

People the stove season is only a few weeks away...let's not loose are flippin' minds here. Blowin on wood, cold wood, now we are going to be lazer inscribing each split.

I need a drink.... :grrr:

I'll have one with you here, Gunner. If it's dry - it's dry, and should be all set to throw it in the stove. If it's cold or frozen - probably a good idea to bring it inside and let it warm up a bit before you throw it in the stove (thinking more of thermal shock to the stove than anything else if the wood has a bunch of ice chunks hanging on it). Other than that - keep the stove going - you'll save money and be more comfortable - whether the wood going in is cold or up to room temperature before it goes in is probably not going to make any noticible difference (though, technically - I guess it could), but I wouldn't really change things around much to make sure you have anything other than easy access to get to the wood pile.

"Mr Bartender make that three..." lol
I was thinking along the same lines the other day. Full moon people start acting weird...Time to Woodburning season gets closer and closer the pyro's start to get the shakes...lol Just something about a wood fire.

Well Robbie...If I was going to get "All Monk" about it??? Perhaps a handfull of u-shaped electricians' staples (buy those by the 2 gallon pail) a few milk jug tops and a fine toothed sharpie would be about as far as I would be willing to go.
If you really want to get fancy...save the date tags from the loaf of bread or English muffins and tack em to the end of the splits as they "become available".
Grabbing from the same end of the pile you started stacking is about as far as I worry...in the end all I say "Burn It"

 

[Robbie]

Yes, but my cat was on a pile the other day and I'm thinkin this was a sign that he wanted me to burn that pile first............so I realized it was a sign and decided to date my piles.

..............this way he would know like me which to burn first. :roll:

..............if he can still read as good as he did last year............ %-P

Plastic lids with permanent marker dates, stapled under the plastic should work..............he will just have to figure how to raise the plastic to see the dates...........I'm sure not showing him.



Robbie

 

[BrotherBart]

This reminds me. I put four more splits on the pile yesterday and forgot to add the serial numbers, wood type, cutting date, splitting date, dimensions and weight of each to the inventory spreadsheet. ;-)

 

[wahoowad]

Hello. My name is wahoowad and I am a woodpile addict. Yes, I date my stacks with a plastic tag that I write on with a permanent marker. Don't ask me why, I just do it.

 

[Gibbonboy]

You could accomplish all of this with a simple database and either a barcode/reader or RFID tags/reader. You'd need a portable scanner, though- wouldn't want to get wood in the house only to scan it and find out that it was the wrong vintage, species, or something!

Seriously, I have a bunch of woodpiles all over the place, and even with my defective memory (I'm having a great time, what are we doing again?) I can still generally remember which wood is ready to burn when. I would also say that unless there is a huge chronological difference in piles, the variances between splits in a pile would be wider than the averages of the two piles. If anyone is bored this winter and/or is looking for a statistics project, maybe you could test each split. Firewood QA/QC is important!

Stencils or magic marker is the way to go.