Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[Philbert]

I am deciding between the Tecomec Evo chain grinder and the Oregon 410. I know this has been in this thread before but I can't find it. Anyone who owns one have any input?

EVO has a sliding vise, which works better with the ‘Square Jig’, if that’s of interest.

I like the Tecomec ’Compact’ (really full sized) grinder in that price range. Full amperage motor, and controls are easier to reach.


Philbert

 

[MechanicMatt]

Do you need the money right now or not? Can you afford to build a home on spec for that price? Can you afford to sit on the home for a few years if the interest rates go up while paying HOA fees if there are some, taxes, upkeep on the home etc? How about building costs? Lumber and other building commodities skyrocketed during Covid raising building costs to the point contractors raised their price to finish or just paid out a non completion penalty as it was less than the material inflation costs and walked off. Can you afford to dump $100k into a house then be left scrambling for someone else to complete it at the new materials cost? Lot's of people do it but only you can decide if you can afford it. Budget it out and include the average sale time of the homes in the community with what it would cost you to keep the home that long plus a buffer in worst case scenario. Building a spec house is a good way to make money but most of the guys I know doing it are contractors themselves so are doing it for cost and can sell cheaper for the same profit others do plus the cash flow to sit on it if they have to.
Say the average time on the market in your community is 2 years and the selling price has to be discounted for the property to move. Average lowering price is $25,000 before sale. It costs you $15,000 a year in taxes, maintenance etc. That $200,000 home you put on the market for $300k just required you to drop it to $275k to move it. $30k plus 6% brokerage fee to sell is $46,500 plus other nonsense so say $47,500. You sat on a house for 2 yrs and made $25,000 which is a good profit but what is the red hot real estate market doing in 2 years? Will your house sell quickly or will you have to wait 3 or more years? Will house prices drop to keep them moving? Did you have to borrow equity in your home or from a 401k to get the deal done? What if another emergency pops up and now you don't have the equity in anything to pay for it? What if your cash flow from your job stops because you broke your leg and can't work for 2 months. Do you have an emergency fund to draw on to keep the bills paid? Don't believe a real estate broker on any of this, they will paint you a happy picture to get your listing.

You only said you paid "a song and a dance" for the lot. If you paid $8,000 for it and sold it for $16,000 that's a 100% profit. Not good enough? It would be for me and I'd take the $16,000, look around and do it again and again and again. Pretty soon your buying $100k property cash and selling for $150 or $200 without risk as you pulled your original $8,000 out long ago, allocated 5 or 10% of the profit to yourself as a "salary" and are now playing with other peoples money. If you lose everything then you still have a nice profit plus your original money in the bank.

Paid less than $1,000 and Zillow shows lots in there going for 8-10

 

[diver64]

Paid less than $1,000 and Zillow shows lots in there going for 8-10

Oh, well in that case I'd sit on it for a bit and see what the market does but I'm risk adverse. Your going to make a killer profit any way you look at it.

 

[chipper1]

Thought you guys might enjoy this, had a juvenile eagle on the back of the pond project eating the woodchuck that the boy shot last week, proud of him . This is the same location I shot the coyote last yr, we put the woodchuck out there to see if we could get another yote to stop by.
View attachment downloaded638771056553776121.mp4
The eagle had some of the locals a bit confused as they wanted to walk thru, but no access was given.
View attachment downloaded638768808906738659.mp4
This guy was out there a couple days later.
At least that's when we got him on the camera, I watched a turkey vulture on the woodchuck yesterday for 10min and the camera never took one picture/video.
View attachment downloaded638771050973765349.mp4
Had these critters out there last night, a deer walked thru between these two pics.

 

[Squareground3691]

It's been too long since I've dropped some serious(to me) trees. Couple nice ash that will be made into 5/4 2x6s for the bed of my dually.View attachment 1248364View attachment 1248365View attachment 1248366Gotta say, I love the square ground chain and the 24" bar on the MS400!

Ur square file should be there Monday according to tracking buddy , get ready lol ,you might like of these to

 

[chipper1]

Ur square file should be there Monday according to tracking buddy , get ready lol ,you might like of these to View attachment 1248599

I haven't even used my chain vise yet . Need to get it out of the basement and into the barn. Sure it makes hand filing a pleasure.

 

[Squareground3691]

I haven't even used my chain vise yet . Need to get it out of the basement and into the barn. Sure it makes hand filing a pleasure.

Can’t wait to see ur shop setup, gonna be great, get those square grinders going,the end feature clamp makes square filing much easier,all the chain out of the way except the tooth ur filing ,

 

[SS396driver]

Ur square file should be there Monday according to tracking buddy , get ready lol ,you might like of these to View attachment 1248599

What brand is that ?

 

[Squareground3691]

Guy Mike makes them , got it on OPE [email protected] is his email. , not sure he’s in this forum

 

[Squareground3691]

Time to restock,

 

[jblnut]

Cut us some fence line junk today.


Lots of low btu stuff in here but it burns better than snowballs so it’ll get run through the boiler !!


Lots of leaners. The MS200 saw a lot of run time today. Sure do enjoy this little beast.


Not sure if this technique has an actual name but it works great on leaners. Make your face cut, bore in and work back. Prevents barber chairs quite well. I was a bit skinny on the face cut on this one but it popped right off once severed.

 

[SS396driver]

Guy Mike makes them , got it on OPE [email protected] is his email. , not sure he’s in this forum

Thanks

 

[Haywire]

Sunday Spruce

 

[mountainguyed67]

Yes, in my mind it works like that too... ONLY 27 projects going.

Sounds like you and I are neck and neck.

 

[mountainguyed67]

The Forest Service finally let my volunteer organization go check access to our adopted foot trail along the river. They gave me a permit to be in a closed area, this is the first they would allow it. Some might remember we had a crazy winter two years back, that road had been impassable ever since. A crew cleared it two months ago, but the FS closed it again ahead of forecast storms, in anticipation of more landslides. Sure enough, more rocks and dirt did come down. Me and one other went in and worked on the road yesterday. We worked on the slide area enough to drive through. Most of the rocks were small enough that we could throw them to the side or carry them. Quite a few we were able to roll out of the way. About 5 or 6 rocks were too big for the two of us to move any distance. We used a chain to drag them behind my Travelall one at a time, almost to the small creek. The road is wide there and a sharp turn, so we could get the rocks to the edge of the road.



The hillside above the big slide still looks unstable and I expect more rock and mud to come down in a good rain. That would trap people in there, and is the reason for the closure.



Once the big slide was passable, we drove up to the end for a quick look. On the way back we moved small rocks from a few small slides and further trimmed 4 trees that were still partially in the road .




There was also a couple little mud holes. Those tracks are ours, no one else had been through.



Our volunteers have been eager to get in there, maybe next weekend we can start on the foot trail.

 

[farmer steve]

The Forest Service finally let my volunteer organization go check access to our adopted foot trail along the river. They gave me a permit to be in a closed area, this is the first they would allow it. Some might remember we had a crazy winter two years back, that road had been impassable ever since. A crew cleared it two months ago, but the FS closed it again ahead of forecast storms, in anticipation of more landslides. Sure enough, more rocks and dirt did come down. Me and one other went in and worked on the road yesterday. We worked on the slide area enough to drive through. Most of the rocks were small enough that we could throw them to the side or carry them. Quite a few we were able to roll out of the way. About 5 or 6 rocks were too big for the two of us to move any distance. We used a chain to drag them behind my Travelall one at a time, almost to the small creek. The road is wide there and a sharp turn, so we could get the rocks to the edge of the road. The hillside above the big slide still looks unstable and I expect more rock and mud to come down in a good rain.

View attachment 1248765View attachment 1248766View attachment 1248767View attachment 1248768


Once the big slide was passable, we drove up to the end for a quick look. On the way back we moved small rocks from a few small slides and further trimmed 4 trees that were still partially in the road .

View attachment 1248771
View attachment 1248772
View attachment 1248773
View attachment 1248774


There was also a couple little mud holes. Those tracks are ours, no one else had been through.

View attachment 1248770

Our volunteers have been eager to get in there, maybe next weekend.

Beautiful country.

 

[MustangMike]

I am not able to open his attachments.

 

[mountainguyed67]

Beautiful country.

It is. It was a great day, felt good to get out there and see the views.

 

[mountainguyed67]

I am not able to open his attachments.

Refresh your page, I fixed them.

 

[JimR]

Today in the mud I got in the rest of the bucked up Ash trees. With an extra hour to play I decided to drop another good sized Ash tree. This one is 27" across. I used my new to me 572XP. All I can say is this is my new felling saw. It cuts fast. I have the bar and chain setup on it from my 372XP. I do think that it is faster than my OE 372XP. I'm hoping that the ground will freeze tonight so I can pull the rest of the tree out of this area tomorrow and get it bucked up.