repairing wedges

[Gologit]

Admittedly, wedges are my one piece of litter I consider ok. I sort of like finding some ancient logging scrap, old cables, drums, whatever, down in the woods from the good old days. So broken wedges are my contribution to the legend. Maybe kind of vain. I still pick up skidder drivers beenieweenie cans, soda cans, sandwich bags, and so forth, just my preference in litter.

You'd probably like wandering around out here. We're always finding old logging and logging railroad stuff. Part of our haul road last year was an old railroad right of way from back in the steam days. The tracks are long gone but we still found old spikes whenever the grader made a pass.
There's also a place where the old sleds, logs sixty feet long with the hand-hewn cross pieces still in place, from the steam donkey days are still visible. When they junked them they just pulled them up fairly close to the road, stripped all the iron, and left the sleds. They're kind of ghostly...like old ships cast ashore and forgotten.
If you wander down through the brush below the sleds you'll find the remnants of an old logging camp from back in the early 1900s. All the old buildings have pretty much fallen in but you can still see the old square nails and coarse thread bolts that everything was held together with.
Old bull line and cable are all over the place. I found an old axe head last year...no marks on it at all, might have been hand made.

 

[2dogs]

You'd probably like wandering around out here. We're always finding old logging and logging railroad stuff. Part of our haul road last year was an old railroad right of way from back in the steam days. The tracks are long gone but we still found old spikes whenever the grader made a pass.
There's also a place where the old sleds, logs sixty feet long with the hand-hewn cross pieces still in place, from the steam donkey days are still visible. When they junked them they just pulled them up fairly close to the road, stripped all the iron, and left the sleds. They're kind of ghostly...like old ships cast ashore and forgotten.
If you wander down through the brush below the sleds you'll find the remnants of an old logging camp from back in the early 1900s. All the old buildings have pretty much fallen in but you can still see the old square nails and coarse thread bolts that everything was held together with.
Old bull line and cable are all over the place. I found an old axe head last year...no marks on it at all, might have been hand made.

It is like that around here too. I used old wire rope from the steam donkeys until just a few years ago when I broke the last of it.

 

[slowp]

Yeah. I love heading out through the brush then ending up on my face when I've hooked my foot on a piece of old choker that couldn't be seen. Or almost breaking my neck when my calks slip on a pile of asphalt that the road crew dumped and it is now covered with a light layer of dirt and moss...the logger was cursing them too, he did the same. Not fun..:censored:

 

[Burvol]

But it sure looks hard when a guy who quit falling for a few years (and is my age) returns. Ouch!
So, is there something you can make out of the broken wedges? Perhaps hit the flea market circuit with? Substitute wedges for beercans in the classic beercan hat? Door stops? Ice scrapers?

I take broken wedges that have the taper end left with more than four inches on the end and make "pinkies" out of em. Pinkies are nice to have one on hand sometimes if you're in some crap wood for the day.I take the broken end and make it flat with a bench grinder, then you have a brand new little pinky for poles (bigger than whips) when you are next to a road, guy lines, etc. but the dutchman rules most of the time for stuff this size (away from crummies, guy lines, and prosessors!!!). The 12" wedges can be rebuilt if you are drinking beer and feeling ambitous. Grind the ends flat again or chop saw and re-work the taper. You have to have a lot of wedge and beer left for this, I prefer to spend the $6.00 on another wedge. Another thing I use broken 12's for is chalking my tires in the morning in the winter so I do not have to use my parking brake.

 

[Burvol]

Wow! Thanks for all the responses. Just for my own curiosity, I think I will try melting & re-molding some plastic wedges. Winter project. Will mess around with it in the woodpile of course to see what happens.

I just have a knack for dinging up my wedges with the saw or snapping them apart in the tree. Must be my own special talent. ha ha Lots of great advice here and I have no intention of getting cocky on someone elses property!

Hit them square, they will last a lot longer. Watch your face too. I broke a wedge this winter when I was cutting in 20 degree weather and had a piece go through my upper lip into my gum, took six stiches, and the scar is already gone, but it hurt! My partner (my old man) told me to "put some fresh pitch on it and go back to work", I told him I didn't want the surgeon digging pitch out of my face later that night, so I just let it bleed for the day with a band aid.