Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[mountainguyed67]

I don't think I could ever live in the South due to the poisonous snakes.

Not poisonous, venomous. You can eat a venomous snake, you can’t eat a poisonous snake.

 

[mountainguyed67]

I’ve been backpacking a 33 mile 4WD trail the last five days, to report conditions to Forest Service ahead of their being allowed to drive in and clear it. There were 43 trees across the trail, ranging from 4” to 42”. Pretty good mix, not heavy on the big ones. One year there were 85 trees, and mostly 2-1/2’ to 3-1/2’. This year there weren’t any parallel down the middle of the trail, and no weird hung up stuff. So, not too bad.

 

[jellyroll]

I haven't heard that name in a while. My 1966 Toro sports a Tecumseh which I mowed my dads lawn with when I was around 11. You know, one of those chore things.

View attachment 1001194

Great engines always though they produced more torque than a comparable briggs.

 

[GrizG]

Sounds like it's all working out fine, great they picked it up too . That's where I'm at with my CSS, 2 years ahead on my personal wood, so the splitters I currently have are both up for sale. I do have quite a bit I could split for selling though, as what's left (about 2 cord) is already spoken for. I'm sure wood sales this fall will be up from last yr, so I'd like to have more ready to go, unfortunately I only have a few sticks of dead standing, everything else is green. For myself I have plenty of locust(probably 8-10 cord of logs), and the neighbor has more, he's just waiting for cooler temps to finish the three trees I dropped for him.
The good thing is if I started now I could have all that locust hand split by the time I need to refill the wood shed in the spring, but I probably won't be doing all that lol.

I was thinking of you a couple days ago, I saw they had a bunch of heavy equipment down one of the old railways they made into a bike/walking path not far from our place. I was very surprised they had that big of equipment on there, but the base must be solid seeing as it's old tracks.
I can see installing a wood stove right now being a good idea, especially for those with a supply of wood. A good friend of mine is picking up his and some pipe soon as it's all paid for. I'm sure I'll be helping him cut right around the corner from his house a friend of mine has 40 acres and has it logged often. He said you take 2/3 and leave me 1/3, he doesn't burn much and just wants the woods kept clean, win win!

The base on old rail roads is a wild card... the real old ones that have been out of service for years may have had the ties laid pretty much on undisturbed dirt with ballast added between the ties later. Drainage maintenance is another wild card. I've seen horrendous damage done to former rail corridors by water... clogged/collapsed culverts and silted in swales on the sides will kill the corridor. Unmaintained vegetation too... especially when there are 10"+ trees growing between the rails that infiltrate the ballast and base. On one of the trails where I perform tree work two clogged culverts led to about 500 feet of the corridor being scoured up to 3 feet deep. I've cut down and up quite a few trees along that section due to beaver activity... Here is a photo of the water that overflowed one of the clogged culverts:

 

[GrizG]

Those old Tecumseh and the OMC made LawnBoy's lasted for decades with hard use. Nobody makes engines like that anymore.

I maintain 4 snowblowers with Tecumseh engines... the oldest is 40+ years old and the newest is 25+ years old. The exhaust valve on the oldest was sticking and finally stuck so I gave it a valve job and it runs strong again. I replaced the carb on another one that fell victim to ethanol... a cheap fix. Those engines were simple in design but I imagine the EPA frowned upon them heavily in the company's dying days.... there were not exactly "clean" engines.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Tecumseh were pretty good; I have two of them yet... A 10hp and a 12 or 14hp ?, OHV industrial.

Biggest problem I've seen is, if run HARD, they overheat because they don't hold hardly any oil, compared to a Briggs or Kohler.

SR

 

[Philbert]

My Toro / Tecumseh 3HP, 2-stroke snowblowers we’re incredibly reliable. Always started on the first or second pull, even the first time of the season. No air filter!

I often think of those when trying to start a fussy chainsaw!

Philbert

 

[JustJeff]

My bluetick scrounge hound. She thinks the small round ones are hers as you can see by her collection along with the mutilated soccer ball. She will hop right in the trailer and select pieces at will, leaving them for the lawnmower to find.

 

[chipper1]

My Toro / Tecumseh 3HP, 2-stroke snowblowers we’re incredibly reliable. Always started on the first or second pull, even the first time of the season. No air filter!

I often think of those when trying to start a fussy chainsaw!

Philbert

I still have some. Prime them and then give them a pull, bam, then slowly take the choke off. It's not to dusty outside in the winter .

 

[sean donato]

Last winter I actually got rid of my last tecumseh powered snow thrower. Sat for 2 years in the shed. Got sick of moving it. Have an ariens walk behind, and a plow for the tractor.(much easier to sit on my arse the walk behind or push.) Dumped some mix in it and it fired right up. Listed it on waste space and sold it in an hour for more then it cost new. The guy lived in town and was just tickled he wouldn't have to shovel his side walk. I can't say I miss it but, it was dead dead reliable.

 

[sean donato]

In other news I just finished up the escape. Intake gaskets, valve cover gaskets, idle air control valve and throttle position sensor. Feeling pretty good about it. Seemed to run decent in the drive. Just need to run and get a playe for it. I'm hoping how much I ran it when it was dumping fuel didn't hurt the cats. They are kinda expensive. Well see. I need to give it a good bath under the hood and get rid of all the oil mess from the valve covers and fix the front radiator hose hangers. Then on to seeing if it will be good enough for the wife. Think fluid changes are in order as well. I was very impressed with hoe clean the engine was under the valve cover. Guess I'm too use to vehicles with close to 300k on them then 165k. Intake was even remarkably clean.
Now thats done tomorrow morning before work I can focus on the Kubota a little more. Hoping Saturday, besides the running around I have to do in the morning (finally a few days off) I can get the up rights finish welded and move onto boxing the lift arms And finally paint and finished assembly.

 

[501Maico]

Great engines always though they produced more torque than a comparable briggs.

That's a good thing in this case. At full speed one has to almost jog to keep up with it. 3/4 RPM is more reasonable and still cuts well.

 

[Cowboy254]

Here's Episode III of Cowboy's (straight to video) trip down Scrounge Lane . This was out at the Lady Farm for those that might recall.

This piece was from Limby's first tree, a good size blue gum back in May 2016. It was very difficult going trying to split by hand, eventually I'd be able to split around the rings with half a dozen motivated hits with the 8lb maul. Some rounds I gave up and attacked with the saw but at that time didn't understand this thing called 'noodling' and instead tried to cut it end-on. Didn't take long to learn though. Though I got my first chainsaw in 2008, I had never come across anything I couldn't split by hand. Musta been getting old and weak.

 

[muddstopper]

The base on old rail roads is a wild card... the real old ones that have been out of service for years may have had the ties laid pretty much on undisturbed dirt with ballast added between the ties later. Drainage maintenance is another wild card. I've seen horrendous damage done to former rail corridors by water... clogged/collapsed culverts and silted in swales on the sides will kill the corridor. Unmaintained vegetation too... especially when there are 10"+ trees growing between the rails that infiltrate the ballast and base. On one of the trails where I perform tree work two clogged culverts led to about 500 feet of the corridor being scoured up to 3 feet deep. I've cut down and up quite a few trees along that section due to beaver activity... Here is a photo of the water that overflowed one of the clogged culverts:

View attachment 1001244

Old rail beds dont have anybody doing inspections and clean outs of old colverts is probably the reason for the washouts and flooding. The thing is now days, the railroad companines are relying on chemicals to control vegitation growing along the right of ways. I can remember when each year the companies would send a longarm bush hog to mow the sides of the track. They sent a gradall or backhoe along to clear the brush out of the ditches. We had very few washouts, unless it was an unusal rain event that flooded everything. Now, with the chemicals, the weeds, grass and bushes dont grow on the right of ways. The banks all erode and the ditches fill will mud. 'The colverts all get stopped up and the runoff jumps the ditches and washes out the tracks. Slides are a major problem that result in deaths to track workers as well as freight disruptions and millions in repair cost. I have seen and worked too many of those disasters, but the division engineers that are supposed to be able to figure out the problem, just cant seem to figure it out. They cut off all the crews that are supposed to do the inspections and the crews that cut and remove the brush, and then hire contractors with big spray trucks to do a scorched earth chemical treatments along the side of the road.

 

[WoodAbuser]

Good morning folks.

 

[rarefish383]

My Toro / Tecumseh 3HP, 2-stroke snowblowers we’re incredibly reliable. Always started on the first or second pull, even the first time of the season. No air filter!

I often think of those when trying to start a fussy chainsaw!

Philbert

Philbert, I forget if I asked last year. I did a super clean of my garage and found 20-30 chains for saws I don't have anymore. Mostly Wild Things and Wood Sharks. Friends have dead saws and their wives' yell at them to throw them away You know guys can't throw away a tool, so I find them on the front porch. Some have never been sharpened, just hung them on a nail. I put them in zip lock bags by drive links, then put them in an ammo can. I just found the ammo can and it either leaked or it was real humid in the bags. Some have some rust on them, but not bad. If you want them PM me your address and I'll put them in a flat rate box on my dime.

I do have an ulterior motive. I made a deal with my wife, I would throw away 3 things a month till the end of the year, that was last year, and I made it happen. If you remember Multifaceted from the Axe thread, he works about five miles from me. I took him a 50 pound bucket of wedges and splitting maul heads. Some of the mauls were real nice old 8 pounders. My wife said that's a good start for this month, now you just need two more things. I said, "Nope. There are 3 mauls, 6 wedges and some axe heads. That's three months not counting the axes." I won that discussion. A "thing" is one item. Well, I'm cleaning the garage again, and next week is her birthday, so I'm reinstalling the three item deal.

 

[rarefish383]

Old rail beds dont have anybody doing inspections and clean outs of old colverts is probably the reason for the washouts and flooding. The thing is now days, the railroad companines are relying on chemicals to control vegitation growing along the right of ways. I can remember when each year the companies would send a longarm bush hog to mow the sides of the track. They sent a gradall or backhoe along to clear the brush out of the ditches. We had very few washouts, unless it was an unusal rain event that flooded everything. Now, with the chemicals, the weeds, grass and bushes dont grow on the right of ways. The banks all erode and the ditches fill will mud. 'The colverts all get stopped up and the runoff jumps the ditches and washes out the tracks. Slides are a major problem that result in deaths to track workers as well as freight disruptions and millions in repair cost. I have seen and worked too many of those disasters, but the division engineers that are supposed to be able to figure out the problem, just cant seem to figure it out. They cut off all the crews that are supposed to do the inspections and the crews that cut and remove the brush, and then hire contractors with big spray trucks to do a scorched earth chemical treatments along the side of the road.

That's kind of ironic. I have property on the headwaters of Lost River in Hardy County WV. Lost River is the cleanest cold water river feeding the Chesapeake Bay. It also has native populations of Brook Trout. So, they have a massive initiative to keep the waters clean and cold. My neighbor has 120 acres of pasture land for their sheep. They just fenced all of his pastures and streams at a cost of $68,000, put in a stock tank and well, all he had to pay for was a 25' phone pole for the well and the future electric. He's been given $19,000 over 4 years for not planting, and letting them plant trees along the streams to shade the water and keep it cool. All of this was from government and conservation groups, like Trout Unlimited. I think it's a worthy project. Lost River is a beautiful river. But, they are paying farmers not to use chemicals, then every one else uses them for pest and vegetation control. Don't even think of telling the politicians in Annapolis they have to let weeds grow on their golf courses. A friend just retired, he was the director of the Chesapeake Bay for DNR or Dept of Ag, I forget. I called him and said they offered to pay me the fair market value of my 30 acres if I put it in the Trust. Since I only use it for my rifle range and to hunt and relax, their plans fit in mine already, so I felt like a crook extorting them for money to do what I do anyway. He said look into it. I keep my property, can sell it, give it to my kids, cut hay off it. But once it's in the program, all future owners have to abide by the conditions set up. I do have input on future use of the land, nothing really changes for me. Another plus for me, they may pay me a stipend for cutting down and burning invasive species like Russian Olives which are taking over my hay field.

 

[GrizG]

Old rail beds dont have anybody doing inspections and clean outs of old colverts is probably the reason for the washouts and flooding. The thing is now days, the railroad companines are relying on chemicals to control vegitation growing along the right of ways. I can remember when each year the companies would send a longarm bush hog to mow the sides of the track. They sent a gradall or backhoe along to clear the brush out of the ditches. We had very few washouts, unless it was an unusal rain event that flooded everything. Now, with the chemicals, the weeds, grass and bushes dont grow on the right of ways. The banks all erode and the ditches fill will mud. 'The colverts all get stopped up and the runoff jumps the ditches and washes out the tracks. Slides are a major problem that result in deaths to track workers as well as freight disruptions and millions in repair cost. I have seen and worked too many of those disasters, but the division engineers that are supposed to be able to figure out the problem, just cant seem to figure it out. They cut off all the crews that are supposed to do the inspections and the crews that cut and remove the brush, and then hire contractors with big spray trucks to do a scorched earth chemical treatments along the side of the road.

It will be a while before my associates and I can build rail trails on those corridors so I hope they resolve the issues so it costs us less.

This in response to a local detractor who commented we wanted to destroy all the railroads and turn them into trails..

 

[rarefish383]

He's probably the one riding in the middle of a travel lane.

OOPS, I kind of read that wrong. I thought HE wanted to turn them all into trails. The few guys I know that still ride are respectful of traffic. But you don't want to be on the road when there is a rally. They will ride 4 across and block traffic, turn wave and laugh at you. Respect vanishes with mass.

 

[ValleyForge]

That's kind of ironic. I have property on the headwaters of Lost River in Hardy County WV. Lost River is the cleanest cold water river feeding the Chesapeake Bay. It also has native populations of Brook Trout. So, they have a massive initiative to keep the waters clean and cold. My neighbor has 120 acres of pasture land for their sheep. They just fenced all of his pastures and streams at a cost of $68,000, put in a stock tank and well, all he had to pay for was a 25' phone pole for the well and the future electric. He's been given $19,000 over 4 years for not planting, and letting them plant trees along the streams to shade the water and keep it cool. All of this was from government and conservation groups, like Trout Unlimited. I think it's a worthy project. Lost River is a beautiful river. But, they are paying farmers not to use chemicals, then every one else uses them for pest and vegetation control. Don't even think of telling the politicians in Annapolis they have to let weeds grow on their golf courses. A friend just retired, he was the director of the Chesapeake Bay for DNR or Dept of Ag, I forget. I called him and said they offered to pay me the fair market value of my 30 acres if I put it in the Trust. Since I only use it for my rifle range and to hunt and relax, their plans fit in mine already, so I felt like a crook extorting them for money to do what I do anyway. He said look into it. I keep my property, can sell it, give it to my kids, cut hay off it. But once it's in the program, all future owners have to abide by the conditions set up. I do have input on future use of the land, nothing really changes for me. Another plus for me, they may pay me a stipend for cutting down and burning invasive species like Russian Olives which are taking over my hay field.

Hopefully I didn’t pay for any of that idiocy…..but somehow I imagine I did…