Quickest Method to Process Wood
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Perhaps...it is sound, but it is good to reevaluate, and try stuff.
Lets say you have a 4' x 8' x 3/4" sheet of plywood you want ripped in four equal strips lengthwise. Your choices depend on the tools at hand. If you have a skill saw, the tool moves through the wood. If you have a table saw the wood moves through the saw. If you have both tools, then the choice is which way is easier to do. Do you have help, or are you alone? Is there an outfeed table on the table saw for such a cut? How precise do the cuts have to be? Many, many things fall into this type of choice, and there are many smaller variables. Do you move the tools to the wood, or the wood to the tools?
I have used a log arch some. It is great for large stems, that if cut into rounds would be a strain to lift. An arch is great if you are getting wood, that if left for a night, or a week, might disappear for what ever reason. You can move the wood and process later. However, smaller wood with an arch just takes a bunch of time for what becomes a small volume of wood. In this case I've found cutting on site and loading a small atv trailer more productive regardless of handling it an extra time. In my case I did not have the option of splitting in the woods, so I never tried that.
Referring to Mr Whoopee's post #18. For a number of years I had a lift gate on a '86 gmc short box beater plow truck. That was the greatest set-up for hauling large rounds, and then backing up to the splitter to unload, using the slightly lowered lift gate as a staging table. Mine was used, off an old Pepsi truck. It sure saved a lot of time and work with the big stuff loading two or three rounds at a time.
Edit: An after thought is that the four wheel SuperSplit is the same width as the atv and would be easier to get in the woods to use if need be, much more so than my old splitter, or the wide and 1,500 lb TW-6.
Sandhill has explained the wood processing process exceptional well. Many AS people have talked about how they can move logs, split, skid logs, load, and stack very fast and efficient. Many years ago when good timber sales were available you could load your tractors and equipment and move to the project with some degree of safety. Now that projects are private timber removals or USDA projects with tons of restrictions using tractors or winches is a complete different challenge. Maintaining tractors and trucks are part of the equation. If you can leave your tractors at a harvest site without any problem then you are blessed. For most part that is not an option here. I have a dump truck and trailer that was set up to haul 40,000 to 50,000 lb loads from the field to customer or mill. It has been sitting idle for the last several years because there is no use for it. Same with my tractor. It is just not practical to move my tractor to a location then to move it back home two days latter. The days when a camper, splitter, trucks, tractors, and misc. stuff where you could live comfortable for six months to a year are gone. Right now wood is a complete sellers market and the price keeps going consistently higher every year. On the other hand wood is very scarce. Many customers will pay for the wood any time they are asked, but do not want to take delivery until fall time so now the wood has to be stacked someplace for six months. So how many times the wood is handled is a big deal and expensive. If moving tractors around also it soon becomes a nightmare of logistics. Thanks
Thanks Ted.
There are so many variables that there is no right or wrong way.
Perhaps a 'good', 'better', 'more gooder'
way, at best.
Everyone have a good holiday weekend...
Thank you Vets, past and present.
There are so many variables that there is no right or wrong way.
Perhaps a 'good', 'better', 'more gooder'
way, at best.Everyone have a good holiday weekend...
Thank you Vets, past and present.
Right now my best approach has been to cut the trees or log decks into rounds and make piles not too close to a road. We have steep hills every where. So cutting trees into rounds and scattering the brush around then rolling the rounds to a log or some point of interference in to piles. When deliveries are somewhat set up roll the rounds to a truck and load. Take the truck to a splitting location split and deliver direct to the customer. Some times it gets scary when the wood is down a pretty steep hillside with no way out so have to drive a truck down to the wood then have the winch to assist in getting out. Or lower a trailer down a hill side load it up and winch it out. When those conditions happen you know that the wood will not be messed with for several years. This method does not need too much equipment. Thanks
ChoppyChoppy
Tree Freak
Haul tree length, pile, process when you have an order.
This year though I'm filling about 50 bulk bags for "premium" wood. Ie... seasoned... that I'll price $100 more.
This year though I'm filling about 50 bulk bags for "premium" wood. Ie... seasoned... that I'll price $100 more.
I also think how you process it has a lot to do with how big a hurry you are in getting it done. The trees I skidded from my brothers house to mine last week, I just took the fel and rolled them ontop of my wood pile so they would be off the ground. Yesterday, I was putting a file to my saws, I finally got them all back from brothers and sons, and they all needed a file put to them. I took them down to the wood pile and sawed a few rounds with each saw. I might have bucked half of what was there, I started getting hot and sweaty so I put the saws up, took a bath and fired up the firepit and roasted some hotdogs. I'll get around to bucking the rest of the wood in the future. I am not in the hurry I was even a year ago. If I get it done today, fine, if not, tomorrow or the next day will work. My splitter hasnt been cranked in over a year, might drag it out next week and split a little, might not, might go fishing instead. I am starting to like retired life. Now if I had to depend on selling firewood to eat, I would certainly starve with my current wood processing setup, and maybenot, if the fish keep biteing.
Me too. I just put $1,985. in my truck, and two hundred in the Husky 357. Not sure why I'm doing this anymore...
I just put $3800 in a zebco 33, but it came with a pro 17 tracker. I did manage to move my wood splitter today, I needed the room to park the boat.
BIG JAKE
Let’s go Brandon!
These days I'm more prone to the "Mudstopper Method of Prioritization". Also perfecting my pre-split wood drying techniques-which conserves effort. I've found thru intense study that the complex thought processes required to accomplish this is best optimized while fishing. In light of this, a two week trip to Minnesota would seem a logical next step. Outfitting operations are underway, and we'll disembark next week. This may seem a roundabout way to process wood, but it is quite effective.
ChoppyChoppy
Tree Freak
True. I try to average about 10 cords a week, nothing too crazy.l. it's mostly just me though.
Hoping to find a GOOD laborer come fall and really hammer down. Have a just graduated kid doing bundles for me. Doing great work, but he'll be at college in a few months.
Haven't cut this week, been working on projects like wrapping up the self serve bundle bin, oil cooler thermostat on the processor, upgrading the pump, and of course the usual ~20hrs a week of customer OPE repairs, customer "interuptions", etc. It's nice working "after hours" I don't get bugged every 10 mins.
Today I was painting, in the middle of it laying down real nice and had 5 or 6 people expect I stop to help them.
Dont get me wrong, I am a couple years ahead on my firewood. Getting to that point took a lot of work because I had a job and worked out of town. I had to get wood when the opportunity was there. Skip up a year, now retired. I have time to get wood when it becomes available. Tree falls in someone yard, grab a saw and cut it up. next week, find another one somewhere, go get it. A tree here and a tree there and pretty soon I am set for another winter, and I dont have to kill myself scrounging.. Get up in the morning and buck a few rounds, Maybe go back in the evening when it cools off and split a little. Son comes over and says lets go fishing, put up the saw or splitter and hook up the boat. A life aint a life if you dont live it, just wish it hadnt taken me 60 years to figure that out.
Even while fishing, I still find myself looking at fallen trees along the shore line and thinking, If I could get that tree home, it would make a big pile of wood. Might have to buy me a big pontoon boat and rig up a winch and.......................
ChoppyChoppy
Tree Freak
I enjoy working. Just me and my dog and he's at work with me.
Not to say I don't mind taking an evening or whole day off every few months to "recharge" though.
Thanks for making me laugh guys. It feels good!
Been side tracked for ten day with copd. Went to pulmonologist yesterday. Just drags out like it isn't bad enough to mess with, until it is. Then sweats/chills/fever and the worst, loss of appetite. Recover is a slow process as well. Walking three hundred feet and back to the wood lot with the dogs means nap time.
Never been a fisherman...
(i may have shown these before) Mrs. bought a used 27' travel trailer and we are halves on a six year old pickup. She has made reservations for several days in June, July, and August in northwest MI. In May we went to Pentwater State Park for three days, and she drove, backed it in, and set it up. I got to cook and enjoy the view. I love it when she smiles from the drivers seat of the dually and says this isn't so bad. 62 yesterday, and still spreading her wings... I think she just has a great truck for towing and a good coach in the passenger seat. Can't wait to go again. Photos: heading north; set up camp mid week; top of dune behind trailer looking northwest; phone selfie; late Friday, new neighbors rolling in...Lots of good people; Home, she used the concrete saw cuts as a guide.
Much more soft wood as we went north even in as little as a hundred miles.
I thought I would have ten more cord of wood piled up by today. It is what it is. You make plans, and then you adjust as you go... TW-6 still looking for a good home.
EDIT: Now if I could just get her to do firewood deliveries in the big truck...
Been side tracked for ten day with copd. Went to pulmonologist yesterday. Just drags out like it isn't bad enough to mess with, until it is. Then sweats/chills/fever and the worst, loss of appetite. Recover is a slow process as well. Walking three hundred feet and back to the wood lot with the dogs means nap time.
Never been a fisherman...
(i may have shown these before) Mrs. bought a used 27' travel trailer and we are halves on a six year old pickup. She has made reservations for several days in June, July, and August in northwest MI. In May we went to Pentwater State Park for three days, and she drove, backed it in, and set it up. I got to cook and enjoy the view. I love it when she smiles from the drivers seat of the dually and says this isn't so bad. 62 yesterday, and still spreading her wings... I think she just has a great truck for towing and a good coach in the passenger seat. Can't wait to go again. Photos: heading north; set up camp mid week; top of dune behind trailer looking northwest; phone selfie; late Friday, new neighbors rolling in...Lots of good people; Home, she used the concrete saw cuts as a guide.
Much more soft wood as we went north even in as little as a hundred miles.
I thought I would have ten more cord of wood piled up by today. It is what it is. You make plans, and then you adjust as you go... TW-6 still looking for a good home.
EDIT: Now if I could just get her to do firewood deliveries in the big truck...
Very nice pictures and I wish you the best on your recovery.
I had to take the wife fishing this morning. While I was out fishing with my son, she was out shopping for a life jacket. I came home last night and there was this pretty pink life vest in one hand and a new fishing license in the other. We had a good time, I bet its been 30 years since she had cast a fishing pole. She didnt catch anything, but she missed several. I spent about as much time getting hooks out of trees as I did fishing. I told her i would take her at least once a week, weather permitting.
From Alaska to South Africa, you guys are great!
Hope I didn't leave anyone out.
Hope I didn't leave anyone out.
We have been to that SP.... Thought about setting it as one of our camp destinations but we just keep it as a day visit place. We just did 3 days at Hoffmaster a couple weekends ago and are headed to Cheboygan and Bois Blanc Island at the end of the month.
Looks like you are doing what retired folks are supposed to do! Thanks for the pics.
Here is the train ready to head out..
Looks like you are doing what retired folks are supposed to do! Thanks for the pics.
Here is the train ready to head out..
I wish we would have done this when our kids were young.
We saw a bicycle rack at Pentwater that mounts on the trailer A-frame above the propane bottles. Tracks for the tires and a vertical rod to stabilize each bike.
My father talked about on Bois Blanc Island. Do not know if he was stationed there in the Coast Guard or not. He certainly talked fondly of it.
He was stationed in New York City for a short time. Met a student nurse from Brooklyn, at the Worlds Fair, so '39-'40. Soon transferred to Machinac Island. They wrote, and were married within a year. When she moved onto the island, it was by horse and sleigh marked by Christmas trees. Luggage was in the first sleigh, they rode in the second sleigh in case the first one fell through. Dad had a car, but of course not on the island. It is still that way, something like six hundred heavy and light buggy horses, and very few emergency vehicles. Many teams of three across on the large tourist wagons that pull up the hill behind the old fort. The day after Labor Day most of the hoses are loaded on ferries to winter in the U.P.
World War II. He was transferred to Ketchikan, Alaska and patrolled the Aleutian Island. Mom, because she was a nurse, was aloud to live on base. Most had to live off base during the war. Letters in and out to her family were screened. Black outs at night. They later had a house built there on the hill side. Park in the road, walk up what sounded like several levels of houses to get to it. My brother and sister were born in Ketchikan. They are nine and ten years older than me. My parents were there a little over five years. My brother has a scare on his forehead near hair line from a sledding accident with his big sister.
He was from a different era.
Rode a horse to high school in Ravana, MI.
And as a father he was old school. "I told you, I didn't ask you young man."
He was a good loving man of few words. Mom is there too, the one who raised four kids, when he spent weeks, sometimes month, on a ship or found us housing before meeting the ship between many of the unpteen transfers.
Interestingly, when you live on a ship much of your life, he did not acquire many personal items. Family stuff yes. Personal stuff no: a favorite pipe, a pocket knife, a lighter, a double barrel shot gun he had early on, and a bamboo fly rod, and a Buick. Every dollar he made he gave to her. And every extended leave he could, he spent his time driving her back east, back home to see her folks and family. When he retired he took another job and worked till he was seventy, and I was nineteen.
Eventually, all that led to me doing firewood seventy plus years later.
We have had a family event for many year, Saturday morning breakfast, Memorial weekend, and visit the folks, together.
None of my three siblings ever had kids. Two are in California.
To much info...but I'm on prescriptions.
We saw a bicycle rack at Pentwater that mounts on the trailer A-frame above the propane bottles. Tracks for the tires and a vertical rod to stabilize each bike.
My father talked about on Bois Blanc Island. Do not know if he was stationed there in the Coast Guard or not. He certainly talked fondly of it.
He was stationed in New York City for a short time. Met a student nurse from Brooklyn, at the Worlds Fair, so '39-'40. Soon transferred to Machinac Island. They wrote, and were married within a year. When she moved onto the island, it was by horse and sleigh marked by Christmas trees. Luggage was in the first sleigh, they rode in the second sleigh in case the first one fell through. Dad had a car, but of course not on the island. It is still that way, something like six hundred heavy and light buggy horses, and very few emergency vehicles. Many teams of three across on the large tourist wagons that pull up the hill behind the old fort. The day after Labor Day most of the hoses are loaded on ferries to winter in the U.P.
World War II. He was transferred to Ketchikan, Alaska and patrolled the Aleutian Island. Mom, because she was a nurse, was aloud to live on base. Most had to live off base during the war. Letters in and out to her family were screened. Black outs at night. They later had a house built there on the hill side. Park in the road, walk up what sounded like several levels of houses to get to it. My brother and sister were born in Ketchikan. They are nine and ten years older than me. My parents were there a little over five years. My brother has a scare on his forehead near hair line from a sledding accident with his big sister.
He was from a different era.
Rode a horse to high school in Ravana, MI.
And as a father he was old school. "I told you, I didn't ask you young man."
He was a good loving man of few words. Mom is there too, the one who raised four kids, when he spent weeks, sometimes month, on a ship or found us housing before meeting the ship between many of the unpteen transfers.
Interestingly, when you live on a ship much of your life, he did not acquire many personal items. Family stuff yes. Personal stuff no: a favorite pipe, a pocket knife, a lighter, a double barrel shot gun he had early on, and a bamboo fly rod, and a Buick. Every dollar he made he gave to her. And every extended leave he could, he spent his time driving her back east, back home to see her folks and family. When he retired he took another job and worked till he was seventy, and I was nineteen.
Eventually, all that led to me doing firewood seventy plus years later.
We have had a family event for many year, Saturday morning breakfast, Memorial weekend, and visit the folks, together.
None of my three siblings ever had kids. Two are in California.
To much info...but I'm on prescriptions.
