Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[KiwiBro]

Don’t forget, “organic” [emoji1787]


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free range, biodegradable, BPA free

 

[bigfellascott]

I have 2 super dutys. F250 and F350 Dually. Dont put them in the mud. Pavement, frozen ground or completely dry ground. If you put them in the mud you will be stuck. They are way too heavy. My dually weighs 7,100lbs empty.

Spot on mate, I thought it would have been a rippa in the bush but was sadly disapointed to be honest. I do love the load capacity of em but, that is awesome but a PITA to get something out of (you have to climb in the bloody thing) which for a fat ******* like me ain't gonna happen

 

[dancan]

Yes and I don’t know why anyone would want use one of those beasts as a daily driver, get the wife to drop off the kids at school and buy a loaf of bread. For those that are towing huge loads of scrounge that’s different!

Not if you hang out with bigger trucks.
KiwiBro's theory of relativity.

Well , it belongs to one of my customers , he offered it but I told him I needed to drive it to see if it would fit .
My wallet isn't fat enough for it lol
Too much to run , too much at the tolls , too much for tires , too much real estate to turn around ,,, I could go on .
It was kinda nice to push any button in the truck and everything worked , I guess I'll continue to beat up my old Ef2fiddy

 

[chipper1]

Sorry Chipper I’ve lost track of what stove everyone has, thought you were a OWB guy or I’m just mixing up my Cantoos, Chippers and Dancans...... Okay Dancan and his old van can’t be confused with anyone else!

No offense taken my friend .
I have a hard time keeping track of my own stuff lol.

 

[cantoo]

Here's some pics of my forks with the extra one for cutting rounds.

 

[cantoo]

And seeing as it's turned muddy already I decided to split up a few rounds and try out the new auto cycle valve. Man it works nice even though the oil was really cold. These are 16" long rounds and a variety of sizes. I took some end pictures to show how I split the different sizes of rounds. The bigger rounds get split into 6 pieces so that means a resplit is required. Hopefully I post them in the correct order so it makes sense.

 

[cantoo]

So the top two smaller pieces get split in half and up the conveyor, the bottom splits get sent up the conveyor. The top 2/3 of the bottom rounds get pulled back and set on the bottom. Then 2 smore small rounds get set on top of them and cylinder runs out again. The auto cycle is nice because now I can stage the next rounds set onto the 2 angle irons you see beside the rounds getting split. And my hands are free to hold the top small rounds if needed too. In some of the pictures you can see the 12" x 40" long piece of steel that I use to direct splits to the conveyor or off the side. It has 3 round rods welded to it so I can move it to different spots. You can see the different holes where it can be moved to.

 

[cantoo]

I got a decent pile done in about 1 1/2 hours including taking some pictures and having to use the tractor a couple of times to break the rounds out of the snow and ice. Likely just over an hour of actual splitting. Took 2o minutes before the oil was warmed up much and I ran out of fuel on the splitter. Was a bit of a wet hour and slipping around in the ice was nice too. The plywood boxes are for engine covers.

 

[cantoo]

The new engine and clutch work good on the conveyor, it is just above an idle. It does move faster than the electric but I could lower the rpms abit and it would be about the same speed. I should have made the supports a little stronger as there is a little too much movement and the belt slips if I idle it down too low. I'll stiffen it up sometime. A picture of the splitter motor too. If you look at the first set of pictures you can see the angle irons I mentioned earlier. I should have set a couple of pieces on them to show how handy it is to stage rounds on them, I'll do that next time I split. The pieces stay right where you put them then just round them onto the beam. Anyone who is thinking about the auto cycle valve I say go for it. I kept putting it off thinking it was a lot of money and not worth the hassle. It really does speed things up and on my splitter I think it is actually safer as you aren't trying to balance rounds and hold the lever at the same time. There is a learning curve though because you have to get used to moving the lever the opposite way you were before. And being able to just use the single lever and operate as normal is handy too.

 

[Deleted member 149229]

Nice set up @cantoo. Makes me jealous but I don’t have the area for a great set up like that.

 

[hseII]

Got my new weed wacker today.

From the RF?


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[KiwiBro]

Cantoo, thanks for the pics. Is the horizontal knife deep enough to support the 'to-be-resplit' portion of the rounds, so it's an easy drag back for re-splitting?
Are you manually lifting the rounds to that staging area at the back of the splitter rather than using a bucket on the tractor?
If so, are you re-positioning the splitter and conveyor periodically, closer to the round pile or just walking further each time?

Had any round avalanches that pin you against the splitter? Asking from my own experiences trying to split from a big pile of rounds. I don't any more, rather drive the tractor bucket into the pile and position it at a nice height to transfer rounds to the splitting table.

Are the round piles pushed up solely with the forks? I don't think I could get mine that high without a bucket.

When cutting logs on your forks, Do you cut as many as the length of your bar will get through or go one log at a time? Alternate between log ends to keep them balanced on the forks as you whittle them down? When they get shorter and closer into the fork tines, do they move around on you much?

Lots of questions, sorry, but always keen to learn.

 

[cantoo]

Kiwi, the wings are about 8" so they do kind of sit there but it's easy to slide them back into position for resplits. I manually lift the rounds as it's quicker than the loader. I push up the rounds with the forks. I welded a couple of braces into the back of the fork frame and with the third fork they push up pretty high. I could push them high but like you say they would then tumble down on me. If you look at the 1st set of pictures of the forks you can see the 4" wide brace at the bottom that I welded in behind the quick attach plate.
When loading logs onto the forks I always put a smaller one on first against the frame then bigger ones until 4 or 5 fill the forks. I set the forks at a nice cutting height and with the forks tilted so the logs almost roll off on their own. I grab the paint and my marker rod and mark everything, set them back down and I grab the saw and cut 2 rounds staring from the tractor side and then I go to the front and cut almost all the way thru each 16" mark along the 1st log at the end of the forks while walking to the other end. I then cut 2 rounds off each of the logs one at a time at that end, this balances the shorter logs on the 3 forks. I then cut each log completely until I get to the smaller log which is against the It is the thickness of the forks away from the frame so I can cut it all without hitting the steel frame.

I sometimes use the saw dogs to hold the logs from sliding as I cut them.​

I sometimes use the saw chain to pull/ roll this log ahead as I cut so I don't hit the frame. If the forks are tipped right it works pretty well. I should have my wife do some videos sometime as it would explain things better.

 

[KiwiBro]

Thanks for that. Made sense too. The rounds here are often too heavy for me to be lifting them to the splitter table manually. I've been going back and forth on whether or not to have some sort of bucking table on a slight incline to dump logs onto and keep the rounds at that same height without the need to manually or tractor lift them back up to splitter height. Still trying to work that one out. In my case, everything is complicated by the need to stay as portable and mobile as possible. A perpetual work in progress ;-)

 

[JustJeff]

Kiwi, the wings are about 8" so they do kind of sit there but it's easy to slide them back into position for resplits. I manually lift the rounds as it's quicker than the loader. I push up the rounds with the forks. I welded a couple of braces into the back of the fork frame and with the third fork they push up pretty high. I could push them high but like you say they would then tumble down on me. If you look at the 1st set of pictures of the forks you can see the 4" wide brace at the bottom that I welded in behind the quick attach plate.
When loading logs onto the forks I always put a smaller one on first against the frame then bigger ones until 4 or 5 fill the forks. I set the forks at a nice cutting height and with the forks tilted so the logs almost roll off on their own. I grab the paint and my marker rod and mark everything, set them back down and I grab the saw and cut 2 rounds staring from the tractor side and then I go to the front and cut almost all the way thru each 16" mark along the 1st log at the end of the forks while walking to the other end. I then cut 2 rounds off each of the logs one at a time at that end, this balances the shorter logs on the 3 forks. I then cut each log completely until I get to the smaller log which is against the It is the thickness of the forks away from the frame so I can cut it all without hitting the steel frame.

I sometimes use the saw dogs to hold the logs from sliding as I cut them.​

I sometimes use the saw chain to pull/ roll this log ahead as I cut so I don't hit the frame. If the forks are tipped right it works pretty well. I should have my wife do some videos sometime as it would explain things better.

My neighbor has a similar fork setup. He made a hydraulic arm on top to hold the logs on the forks. Don't have to run back and forth as much while cutting.
Yours is definitely a production setup. I could do a whole winters worth in an afternoon!

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[square1]

16" is the norm. 4'x8'x16" makes a rick of firewood. You could always make the leftover 8-9" pieces into kindling.

Often I'll split the 8~9" pieces one time if they're about 16" across. It's stiil the right size for burning.

Well , it belongs to one of my customers , he offered it but I told him I needed to drive it to see if it would fit .
My wallet isn't fat enough for it lol
Too much to run , too much at the tolls , too much for tires , too much real estate to turn around ,,, I could go on .
It was kinda nice to push any button in the truck and everything worked , I guess I'll continue to beat up my old Ef2fiddy

It ain't no mini van!

 

[U&A]

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[chipper1]

Thanks for that. Made sense too. The rounds here are often too heavy for me to be lifting them to the splitter table manually. I've been going back and forth on whether or not to have some sort of bucking table on a slight incline to dump logs onto and keep the rounds at that same height without the need to manually or tractor lift them back up to splitter height. Still trying to work that one out. In my case, everything is complicated by the need to stay as portable and mobile as possible. A perpetual work in progress ;-)

Whenever possible I try to split right out of the trailer. It makes it nice as they are already half way there. I'll try to get a couple pictures today of how I set up. It may be a little different today because of the snow being piled hp where my trailer was which is where I'm now splitting into the pile at.
This is an elm I cut down for a neighbor(not sure I posted pics here or not), he said I could have some and I was thinking I had enough, but it just kept calling me so I went and cut a bit of a load yesterday. You can see part of the stump on the right side of the picture. Theres another load with about this much wood there still, it's probably just under a cord, the trailer is 20x6.5.
My kids helped me load it so that made it go pretty quick.

 

[chipper1]

My neighbor has a similar fork setup. He made a hydraulic arm on top to hold the logs on the forks. Don't have to run back and forth as much while cutting.
Yours is definitely a production setup. I could do a whole winters worth in an afternoon!

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A member here and a friend has a setup like that, I think in the past he had some pictures of it in here.
@Sawyer Rob

 

[rarefish383]

I

We had another school district snow day today. Had the chance to split a little of the red oak before it got super slippery out. What’s up with the black in this round??

If it makes you feel any better, since you missed it, it’s not just any metal, nothing soft like lead or copper, it’s steel. Specifically Iron. Just like the blood veins in your arm look blue, that’s because of the iron in your blood. I’ve seen it run ten, twelve feet up from the actual piece. Try taking a saw log to the mill with that stain on the stump cut. When I was a kid the company my Dad worked for did the tree work at Mount Vernon. We took down a giant Oak with blue stain in it. Dad let me split it on the job to see what it was. It was a hand forged spike with hand forged chain on it. The grounds keeper told us George Washington tied slaves under that tree to get them out of the noon day sun. I still have the spike and chain with a piece of wood on it. But, no way to prove where it came from. It could have been there to tie up horses for all we know.