Frigid weather bar oil

[Ryan'smilling]

I'm glad somebody else mentioned using a "cooler" to keep things warm. I had friends laugh at me for suggesting this, I resisted the temptation to call them idiots and remind them that a cooler is just an insulated box.
I think putting some equipment into a big cooler with a hand warmer when I have to work outside in the middle of winter is a great idea, especially tools that are truly miserable to handle when they are at Sub-Zero temps.

We use the small size igloo coolers when we're washing and packing root veggies in the fall. Not really possible to keep your hands dry, so we fill a cooler with hot water and dip our fingers in periodically. Works great.

 

[jetsam]

I'm glad somebody else mentioned using a "cooler" to keep things warm. I had friends laugh at me for suggesting this, I resisted the temptation to call them idiots and remind them that a cooler is just an insulated box.
I think putting some equipment into a big cooler with a hand warmer when I have to work outside in the middle of winter is a great idea, especially tools that are truly miserable to handle when they are at Sub-Zero temps.

A big cooler would have room for 20+ watts of solar panel on the lid. 20 watts of heater (Just hook up a big ceramic power resistor, should cost about a dollar) inside an insulated box would be plenty to keep the insides well above whatever the outside temp is.

Related, I saw a guy standing on a box made out of a sheet of foam insulation a few years ago... I didn't believe it until I looked inside and picked up the box for myself.

Stuff is called Kerdi-Board, and they market it as a tile underlayment, but it's available in thick sizes, and you can use it to make custom sized coolers that you can stand on if you keep your feet away from the middle.

 

[Goinwheelin]

Costco 5w20 full synthetic goes for $8 gal. No kerosene needed.

 

[Philbert]

Related, I saw a guy standing on a box made out of a sheet of foam insulation a few years ago.

I have a friend who built a dome house out of 1 foot thick, polystyrene 'bead board' 35 years ago. Covered it, inside and out, with fiberglass mesh and synthetic stucco. Still lives there.

Philbert

 

[KASH]

When you work cut and skid using chain saws and a line skidder the colder it is the better.The colder the less limbing you do the limbs start to to snap off good at 20 below If you pull your skid of trees around a ringer tree and back over the load with the blade down at the landing most limbs are gone.I use any brand of winter grade chain oil and have never thinned the oil the saw heats it.If it will pour out of the can and into the saw your good to go just try and pour 10w30 oil at 40 below if you can get it to fill the saw and let it run for awhile it will thin and oil the chain.
Kash

 

[Timber MacFallen]

When you work cut and skid using chain saws and a line skidder the colder it is the better.The colder the less limbing you do the limbs start to to snap off good at 20 below If you pull your skid of trees around a ringer tree and back over the load with the blade down at the landing most limbs are gone.I use any brand of winter grade chain oil and have never thinned the oil the saw heats it.If it will pour out of the can and into the saw your good to go just try and pour 10w30 oil at 40 below if you can get it to fill the saw and let it run for awhile it will thin and oil the chain.
Kash

He has an electric saw....

 

[KASH]

Good point on the electric saw not much heat generated there.
Kash

 

[Canyon Angler]

Cheapo hydraulic fluid mixed with regular bar oil

 

[Northerner]

When you work cut and skid using chain saws and a line skidder the colder it is the better.The colder the less limbing you do the limbs start to to snap off good at 20 below If you pull your skid of trees around a ringer tree and back over the load with the blade down at the landing most limbs are gone.I use any brand of winter grade chain oil and have never thinned the oil the saw heats it.If it will pour out of the can and into the saw your good to go just try and pour 10w30 oil at 40 below if you can get it to fill the saw and let it run for awhile it will thin and oil the chain.
Kash

Yep. Most of my chainsaw work is well below freezing. -20c is perfect for logging. Saves me a lot of delimbing with chainsaw.

These trees haven’t seen a chainsaw yet besides felling.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[KASH]

Sure is nice on a 30 below morning at day break no wind and the exhaust from the skidder is blowing straight up.You can hear the limbs snapping on that first skid of the day. Kinda hard to explain you kinda gotta be there.
What make is your skidder Clark?
I started out skidding with a TD9 bulldozer with a winch and no fairlead you had to cut your stumps pretty low skidding Black Spruce.The next machine was a Tree Farmer C4 gas with a small grapple you could haul some big loads with it but you had to fall your trees perfectly in line I used to pull 15 big poplar on a load.Went on to a 230 TimberJack and then Clarks.
You started the TD9 on gas then flipped the valve bank to diesel on a 40 below morning she would pop and sputter and the round smoke rings from the exhaust would start out about a foot circle and rise straight up and kept getting bigger till they were like 30 feet round due to the lack of wind.
Kash

 

[Yukon Stihl]

Thing like the smell of diesel exhaust on a cold morning. Smell of success it started and ears

 

[Yukon Stihl]

Thing like the smell of diesel exhaust on a cold morning. Smell of success it started and we are going to work

 

[Cycledude]

here in Wisconsin they mostly sell two grades of bar oil winter blend or summer blend, I choose to use winter blend year round. The brand I’m currently using is Essence winter blend it’s about $9 a gallon and always pours out of the jug just fine. Have seen others using summer blend during cold weather and it pours very slowly so I imagine it also goes through the pump much slower.