Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[dancan]

No complaints about winter here

 

[dancan]

Cept' that Clint doin' the cold dance tryin to send it here
That brutal cold won't be here this week

 

[mainewoods]

32* today. Put chains on the Jeep skiddah and twitched out 8 tree length sugar maple. That don't happen very often in mid-Jan around here.

 

[mainewoods]

I remember the pics you posted last winter Dan. No snow or polar vortex dance from me. You've earned a break!!

 

[Erik B]

Woke up to -26 and its up to zero now.

@svk Good thing you are not in NW MN. Heard they had temps of -36 this morning

 

[dancan]

I didn't mind that deep snow , only had 3' to 4' deep for a period of time in my scrounging grounds , it just made for getting the stuff real close to the road the only right choice regardless of species LOL

 

[dancan]

I went back after the melt to get the 4' stumps left behind

 

[mainewoods]

Yup, 20-30 below is pretty tolerable, 4 ' of snow is a pain for scroungin'. Not too good when you drop a tree and it sinks out of sight.

 

[MustangMike]

20 here today, don't mind the temp, but the wind chill makes it unbearable. So I been mostly tinkering with the saws in the garage (which is gettin too cold).

Put new seals and deleted the base gasket in 044#1. It will be even stronger now!

A slant 6 is the best balanced engine, short of a V 12. The only reason they go to V-6s is to save space, but they need extensive counter balancing. Most engines have the wrist pin a bit off center to improve how smooth they idle. A slant 6 does not need that (gravity does it)! I bet you Motor Heads didn't know that! (At high RPMs, all engines perform better with the wrist pin in the center, as they did on the Ford 427 cause it was designed for racing).

 

[JustJeff]

Cleaning the chimney.

 

[zogger]

Miss Emmie scrounged up the warmest seat in the house..

 

[mn woodcutter]

I've got one of those too!

 

[nomad_archer]

I've been monkey'in with the MAC again. I am making progress but I don't last to long working in a 12* garage. Those metal tools are cold. I should be able to get the line replaced tomorrow and then start reassembly. Hopefully I get it done by the end of the week.

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

I've been monkey'in with the MAC again. I am making progress but I don't last to long working in a 12* garage. Those metal tools are cold. I should be able to get the line replaced tomorrow and then start reassembly. Hopefully I get it done by the end of the week.

>but I don't last to long working in a 12* garage.

Brr.r.r.r. !! sounds like freeze-up has made it to your garage! Brr.r.r.r. !!

 

[chipper1]

Neighbor is having some select trees taken out of her woods (maybe 6 acres) along with a few black walnut trees in the yard and she just told me that I am free to take whatever is down. Looks like I'll be getting some deadfall and tops this year! They are leaving a heck of a mess between ruts, pushing over the smaller stuff, and scuffing up everything they drive near.

Where you at H, I'll be right over lol.

My neighbor two houses down had 110 trees taken out, I barely made a dent in it and they sold the property. I was still cutting on it when I found out, that could have went very bad, I stopped right away. I need to get in touch with the new owner as there is so much to clean up over there. It sure is nice when you can skid it right to where you want to split/stack it. I will need to find an alternate route to skid now since I built my wood shed right on the trail. I could unhook then pull to the front of the wood shed and shoot my lead out and just pull right through it. Which will be nice for stocking the woodshed with dead standing.

Also I vote if the temp is below 0 we just put -, this -20-40 crap just ain't right.

 

[chipper1]

I've got one of those too! View attachment 479750

Hey WC.
Looks like you made sure your wood stove matched the cats bowls.
What make/model is that, how do you like it.

 

[Ambull01]

Sorry, responses are a bit late.

The tree climbers here probably know them the best. Must be a good book or set of vids out there.

Ya, I like tulip poplar a lot, got plenty of it here and is a dream to work up, start to stove, and real fast to season.

True. I was thinking about putting the question in the arborist section. Need knowledge about securing various implements for manual carrying.

Easier as hell to split too. I could hand split it all day.

Here's a great site:
http://www.animatedknots.com/

Philbert

Nice! Thanks. Really like how they group the knots by intended usage.

So guys I am switching too 40:1 since these old saws need it. No one sells containers with the 3.2 oz of oil for a 1 gallon mix well at least not that I can find. How are you guys that are running 40:1 measuring your oil?

I filled up a 2.6 oz bottle to the brim and poured it into a measuring cup. Came out to about 3 0z. One gallon of fuel with 3 oz is 42.67 ratio so that's good enough for me.

With the new synthetic oils (car motor oil), warm up is not as important as it used to be. 1) The oil leaves a coating on the metal 2) It does not get as thick when cold as the old oils did.

I generally just give it about 10 seconds in all weather, just enough time for the oil pump to circulate to the whole engine.

I listen to the car guys on the radio from time to time and that's exactly what they said. A caller asked them if she should start the car and let it idle for a few minutes during really cold temps. They told her she'll just be wasting gas and instead should just let it idle around 10-20 seconds then drive slow/easy until engine temps come up. Engine temps take a long time to increase at idle with my car. Also, shift pedal is a bit stiff in the teens and below but normalizes after a few minutes drive.

Yes, that and fuel injection over carbs.

With that said, hands down absolutely the best starting old gas engines (nothing plugged in) I had anything to do with were slant sixes. Once staying at a lodge in maine and working construction (half loggers, half construction guys), mine was the single onliest vehicle to crank and run at like 30 below and I wound up jump starting almost every other vehicle there. It was a 62 valiant. Same thing in atlanta once when we had a rare way below zero day, 74 dart then,. jump started people on my block then over to my sisters condos.

Speaking of jump starting, finally bought one of those portable jump start contraptions. With young kids we've had our share of dead batteries because of indoor car lights left on, door left open in the van, etc. Haven't had a chance to use it yet! I'm hoping a beautiful young woman gets off the commuter bus to find her car parked front end too close to the overpass support beam for a traditional jump. I'll bust out my handy little jump starter to become her hero for the day, if I remember to keep it charged.

My 15' Suburban takes some wacky viscosity, must have synthetic oil. Even if I buy everything from Walmart its $45 to change the oil.

And MN jacked up the license fees to be based on retail value again. (One of the few good things Ventura did was repeal that to a flat rate.). My tags are $650 per year. I'll probably buy used when the lease is up on this....just too expensive when this stuff adds in.

Made the mistake of taking the Cadi to one of those quick lube places once. It was over $100 to change my freaking oil! Took them out 10 min. I felt ripped off. Bought myself some car ramps and just do it myself now. Your vehicle would be even easier, just crawl right under it.

 

[mn woodcutter]

Hey WC.
Looks like you made sure your wood stove matched the cats bowls.
What make/model is that, how do you like it.

Those are the dog bowls and yes the wife is in charge of decor! The stove is a Pacific Energy Fusion. This is the 5th season with it and I've been very happy so far. We have a 3300 Sq ft split level house and that stove will heat the entire house as long as the outside temp stays above 10 degrees. We have a newer home so it's very tight and well insulated and the location of the stove combined with the openness of a split level made all the difference. We also have big south facing windows that help during sunny winter days.

 

[JeffGu]

Yeah... I figured you had a dog, what with those shiny stainless steel bowls and that big, plump dog treat lying in the middle of the rug...

 

[chipper1]

Those are the dog bowls and yes the wife is in charge of decor! The stove is a Pacific Energy Fusion. This is the 5th season with it and I've been very happy so far. We have a 3300 Sq ft split level house and that stove will heat the entire house as long as the outside temp stays above 10 degrees. We have a newer home so it's very tight and well insulated and the location of the stove combined with the openness of a split level made all the difference. We also have big south facing windows that help during sunny winter days.

Thought it looked familiar, I have the pacific energy alderlea t5, love it.
Our place is not very energy efficient, but set up well for the stove with an open design in common doublewide fashion.
It sets on a full 9' basement which I do not presently heat. maybe down the rd though.

Yeah... I figured you had a dog, what with those shiny stainless steel bowls and that big, plump dog treat lying in the middle of the rug...

I see what you did there JeffGu very funny, I can take it though as I dish it out regularly...
Please see my signature for verification of my slowness at times. LOL
I will add another to it maybe later today also.