Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[LondonNeil]

Well I'll be pleasantly surprised by the stuff i split a few months ago if that's so. I'm going on its wet feel, which wasn't that heavy, its super wide growth rings, and I think I've had small amounts of it before, which was never that dense. I suspect UK growth conditions make for very different wood to Victoria growth conditions. Gums are Eucalypts aren't they? this one puts red gum at 0.54, another puts it at 0.53
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-density-d_40.html

however, I'll be putting Euc on my must have list along with oak, ash, false acacia and holly if its as dense for me as it is for you.

 

[Cowboy254]

Well I'll be pleasantly surprised by the stuff i split a few months ago if that's so. I'm going on its wet feel, which wasn't that heavy, its super wide growth rings, and I think I've had small amounts of it before, which was never that dense. I suspect UK growth conditions make for very different wood to Victoria growth conditions. Gums are Eucalypts aren't they? this one puts red gum at 0.54, another puts it at 0.53
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-density-d_40.html

however, I'll be putting Euc on my must have list along with oak, ash, false acacia and holly if its as dense for me as it is for you.

Yes, I've seen that table and they're both wrong on the red gum. False identification, I suspect. Red gum is almost identical to blue gum in kg/m3 which is about 900kg @ 12%MC. We have friends from New Hampshire who visit most years and they couldn't believe how heavy the red gum we were burning was compared to the birch and sugar maple they were used to. Takes a bit longer to get going though so it's useful to have some other stuff to get started.

That said, you may well be right regarding the different growing conditions for the same species. I have read that non-Australian grown plantation blue gum can be as low as 750-800kg/m3 compared to the normal 900kg/m3 so maybe the e.gunnii has become more sissified over there out of its native environment. Still, it should be better than softwood.

 

[Cowboy254]

Well, Mt Cowboy...



is no more



It was a complete pain in the rear end to move it. It amounted to a full to the brim middle bay of 20-21 cubic metres, plus a further 8 cubes in the right bay plus a further 5-6 cubes stacked to the left of the shed (as well as some more recently cut stuff) and there's still some needing splitting (if I can) and noodling (if I can't) as well as some unstackables. So maybe 35-36 cubes or nearly 10 cord. It's interesting how some nasty shapes can be noodled down to good stackable pieces. There's still 3 cubes of peppermint stacked there on pallets which can stay there and will be the first to burn next year along with the unstackables.



The left bay is mostly peppermint and is for next winter and the middle bay the year after but I'll probably raid some of the middle bay which has the big bits of higher BTU and mostly unsplittable blue gum for the colder nights and replace it with stuff stacked on the tarps on the left.



So all up there's about 62-64 cubes or 17 cord in captivity ATM.

 

[Marshy]

Am I the only one who stacks the end of their pile like this?

 

[woodchip rookie]

I use cinder blocks.

 

[woodchip rookie]

no unstacking/restacking of the ends

 

[Logger nate]

Found some nice tamarack that no one has cut because they’re so far from the road but with snow on the ground was able to get them to slide close enough to the road to get.

 

[Haywire]

She gave you the ol' fakeroo and just sat there on the stump! haha

Cool truck!

 

[KiwiBro]

Not having snow-able temps in my neck of the woods, does the hinge act differently in the same species Summer to Winter? More brittle in Winter? Less able to swing 'em?

 

[Marshy]

No snow yet. Getting my firewood moved up to the house though.

Had a nice sun rise this am on my way home from night shift.

 

[Logger nate]

She gave you the ol' fakeroo and just sat there on the stump! haha

Cool truck!

Ya I wanted to get vid of it sliding down the hill, I thought it was going, lol!
Thanks, it’s my buddy’s wood skiddin haulin beast.

 

[Logger nate]

Not having snow-able temps in my neck of the woods, does the hinge act differently in the same species Summer to Winter? More brittle in Winter? Less able to swing 'em?

Well usually more brittle in winter when wood is froze.

 

[Cowboy254]

I was outside this evening gazing at my full woodshed (does anyone else do that or is it just me?). Then a king parrot lands on the gutter of the shed right above me and was shaping to fly down and land on my head. I haven't made his acquaintance before but I know they're curious and quite intelligent. I went inside and found some seed.



All was well until he ran out of seed and tried the next most appetizing thing which was my little finger. Ow! I tossed him back up into the air at that point and he landed on the wood heap then spent the next 10 minutes following me around, flying to any available landing post and eventually dropping down to the ground and walking after me like a lost puppy. He was a cool little fella!

 

[LondonNeil]

That is a seriously huge amount of wood Cowboy! I'm envious. I'm also envious that you hardly need to split it compared to me, I reckon on average I'd split everything down about 4 to 6 times smaller!

I've googled for UK grown eucalypt density and found this research paper looking at its potential for biomass.
http://www.eeo.ed.ac.uk/abs/research/forestsci/Leslieetal.pdf
It is thin on density with just one short paragraph, which says,
Wood density is also important as it largely determines the calorific value per unit volume [11] and eucalypts have denser wood than other species utilised for biomass production over short rotations: SRC willow has a wood density of 0.4 Mg/m3 [13], whereas E. nitens grown in Australia on two sites had a density of 0.471 Mg/ m3 and 0.541 Mg/m3 [14] and E. gunnii grown in the Midi Pyrenees in France, a density of 0.5 Mg/m3 [7]

So at 0.5 its slightly less dense than most leyland cypress However I'll probably pick some up if it looks straight at knot free.

Love that parrot! Has someone else been feeding it do you think? or are they often that tame?

@Marshy I stack like that, and do a cross hatched section every 8 feet or so along my stack, seems to keep things stable, even my stacks which are full of short pieces.

 

[svk]

Am I the only one who stacks the end of their pile like this?

View attachment 613322

I stack every row perpendicular to the last

 

[MechanicMatt]

Some pictures from this weekend, bear is decent, but he looked like a monster in the scope....

 

[woodchip rookie]

I stack every row perpendicular to the last

I tried that before. It didn't work. My splits are nowhere close to the same length and size, so it doesn't really work. All the stuff I cut from now on though will be measured to 18" for the NC30 so maybe in the future I can do that, but I got years worth of 12" stuff to burn through though.

 

[al-k]

my buddy scrounged this behind my house yesterday

 

[MechanicMatt]

Meat In The freezer

 

[dancan]

View attachment 613349 View attachment 613350 View attachment 613351
Found some nice tamarack that no one has cut because they’re so far from the road but with snow on the ground was able to get them to slide close enough to the road to get.

You think you could come over and show Clint that technique ?
That way he'd only have to drive on the flats