How to cut firewood

[Ratman]

My new fav
http://nh.craigslist.org/grd/1508183730.html
OMG

 

[Wood Duck]

No more cutting with my inconvenient 12 lb chainsaw, I am going to use a handy cordwood saw from now on. All it needs is a new engine!

 

[Ductape]

Hope you don't trip near that thing. :bug:

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Around here it might go for $10. Maybe more if the motor was good but that is doubtful. Those saws can be a bear to sharpen, but if set up right you can saw a lot of wood in a little time. We used to do that with a buzz saw on the front of a Farmall Super M. We'd cut 8-10' lengths and stack them up. Come cutting time, one man from the stack to the saw table, one running the saw and one throwing the wood.

Many years ago a lot of farmers used to cut their firewood in the winter months and stack it up. The following November or December they would go from farm to farm buzzing wood. Six men and 2 saws, they could make short work of a year's supply of firewood.

 

[quads]

We still have one (maybe more) of those on the farm setting in a hedgerow, slowly disappearing into the ground.

 

[Danno77]

could i run that with my old JD Type E (hit-n-miss) engine? mines a teensy 1 1/2hp, but that would be fun to play with.

let's see what it'll cut (hold my beer), construction lumber -> check; firewood splits-> check; giant round of walnut -> check; flesh -> ah sh*t ->check....

 

[bogydave]

Wonder why they quit using this type of saw?
My Grandpa lost a finger, another guy lost a hand. That's 2 major accidents I know of on ONE saw my Grandpa had on the farm in WV.
I think it too, rusted into the ground.

 

[onedog]

We used one on the folk's farm till they sold the farm 4 years ago. Used it for 6 or 7 years. Never had any major mishaps other than an occasional bruised hand from the log kicking back when we cut directly into a knot. We were always very careful around the devise. Ours was converted from a silage blower and was driven by tractor PTO. We cut a lot of wood in quick order and saved significant wear and tear on the chainsaws.

Larry

 

[LLigetfa]

I grew up with a buzzsaw. Ran it off the John Deere LA belt drive. Chainsaws are dangerous.

 

[Danno77]

I grew up with a buzzsaw. Ran it off the John Deere LA belt drive. Chainsaws are dangerous.

I've been in the market for an L/LA for a while now. those suckers are hard to find in an unrestored state (at least around here)

 

[ROBERT F]

Heck, why even bother with a 55-80 cc chainsaw when you can have a 333cc+ 5 horse wood killin' machine!!

 

[Gooserider]

Helped a friend put one of those things back together this summer - haven't used it yet other than testing, but an 11hp Honda engine spinning a 24" blade w/ an approximate 2-1 reduction on the belts does pretty good...

IMHO it's limited in the size wood you'd want to cut with it just from the standpoint of getting the logs onto the platform, but for the right wood it would be nice...

I could also see using it if I had a big pile of splits I wanted to shorten.

Gooserider

 

[madrone]

:bug:

That thing proves that not all nostalgia is warranted.

 

[CrawfordCentury]

Wonder why they quit using this type of saw?
My Grandpa lost a finger, another guy lost a hand. That's 2 major accidents I know of on ONE saw my Grandpa had on the farm in WV.
I think it too, rusted into the ground.

That's the kind of saw Robert Frost describes in "Out- Out"

Fitting that's a NH listing since that's where he was living when he wrote that one...

Out, Out - "
by: Robert Frost

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behing the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap -
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all -
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart -
He saw all was spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off -
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. The hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then - the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
No one believed. They listened to his heart.
Little - less - nothing! - and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

From "Complete Poems of Robert Frost", 1916

 

[Danno77]

you gotta love Robert Frost. Especially this self-sufficient crowd.

and Carl Sandburg (a local guy to me), he has this poem that would bring a tear to my eye (were I not dead inside- as discussed elsewhere on this forum).

i've converted it for your hearth.com pleasure, but be warned portions are plagiarized and i only take partial credit as its based on CS original work, lol....("Illinois Farmer" by Sandburg, Carl. Cornhuskers. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1918)


bury this old woodburner with respect
He slept the wood warmed nights of his life after days of work among his woodstacks.
Now he goes on a long sleep.
The wind he listened to in the leaves and the limbs, the wind that combed his wiry beard zero mornings when the snow lay white on the axe and the chopping block at the woodshed,
The same wind will now blow over the place here where his hands must dream of seasoned wood.