Hand Tools and Machinery for Country Living

[ides1056]

My first saw was and is the Stihl in question: earlier model is all. It does everything well. Use the green chains that lessen the possibility of kickback. Use a scabbard or case to protect the saw and chain. Get a peavey, absolutely. Way easier to roll a log.

You will find many spalted maples around, and they need to be pretty good sized to make sense sawing up. Often they are just punky.

[j44ke]

Thanks. I have a nice list of chainsaw models now, so I'll be able to go in and make a total pest of myself at the Stihl and Husqvarna dealers.

I bought an axe and finished off clearing the maple from the road. Much more effective. Practiced my technique, which is non-existent (think I heard some beavers laughing in the distance) but improved with each whack. The "false heartwood" I left and finished off with one of the saws. The axe didn't like the dark stuff, but the saw did a good job. Much faster than last effort.

Seems like the dark mark might be from sapstreak disease. That's a fungal infection that ruins sugar maple farms. I sent a photo to one of the botanists who did the plant survey of our land. Not sure what I'll do about it if so. We have a ton of sugar maples. Just be one more thing killing the trees.

Realize I am making work for myself but that's kind of the goal. Not like I don't need the upper body exercise. I mean, other than lifting a half full coffee cup from the table to my face on a regular basis. Feel the burn.

[mjbabcock]

Rocking a chain is when the teeth hit a rock or dirt. It basically rounds the leading point/tip of the cutting portion of the chain. It doesn't look like much, but your ability to cut drops really quickly. I cut a lot in wet/muddy weather, and the dirt gets on the logs. That dirt invariably acts like sandpaper on your chain, and dulls it.
Rocked chain in Chainsaws

This guide is actually really useful.
Chainsaw chain maintenance. Detailed guide
The thing about a rocked chain is that the leading edge gets hardened. You file away at the notch, and it looks sharp, but it turns out the cutting tip is rounded. The image below sort of shows how the top gets left during sharpening as it was harder than the rest of the tooth.

[j44ke]

Thanks Jason, that's helpful (that whole website has a ton of info.)

This (video below) is a sharpening system my friend over in the Catskills swears by, made by Stihl. Sounds like on a rocked chain, the worst links become the benchmark. Everything gets taken down to their level until they are sharp to make sure the whole chain is even? So that might mean quite a few passes with the file over the entire chain.

[Drew]

You should learn to sharpen a saw by hand. Once you do it a couple times you’ll be fine, and you’ll be way better off when you are 300 yards away from your gadgets, and all you have is a file...

Just like making bike stuff. Sharp file, purposeful strokes... once you get the hang of it, 2 or 3 strokes on each tooth is all it takes. I can do a chain on my 28” saw in a couple minutes. Every now and then you’ll have to knock the top off the rakers, but that isn’t often, especially if you’re not using the saw all the time. I think Stihl sells a little kit that comes with three files and a raker guide. If you can find somebody experience to show you once, you’ll get it.

Definitely stick with green chain if you’re new, and make sure you understand kickback and how to avoid it.

I would recommend getting a saw with 3/8 pitch chain if you can afford it. That usually pushes into the commercial Stihl stuff. Not sure on Husky. 3/8 pitch gets you a lot more chain options. I think the Farm Boss (271?) is 325 pitch chain. It’s been a while since I’ve bought one, so maybe there is more 325 stuff out there now.

Don’t stick the saw in the ground and you don’t have to worry about rocks. You would think a saw chain would be fine to run through dirt... but that’s what toasts it. Keep it in wood, and wood only, and you won’t have to sharpen much. If it’s bad enough that you hit a rock or something, best to take the chain to Stihl dealer and get them to grind it, that way it’ll come back perfect. I think my guy charges me $5.

[j44ke]

The hurricane took down a big multi-trunked black cherry, so our friend the cabinet maker made the trek from Woodstock and I helped carve it up into 9' logs and then we cut and split all the limbs - some of which were nearly as large as the trunk sections but 3x as twisted. Conveniently he brought his chainsaw (aged Stihl Farmboss) and his splitter, a Didier that's been in his family forever and is a lovely piece of simplicity (a Briggs & Stratton motor with a piston and a wedge, that's it.) We cranked through all the cherry and then we split a couple standing dead ash trees the gardeners had felled the day before. My stacking technique is pretty remedial. Just trying to keep the wood ventilated and as dry as possible without trapping moisture under the tarp. I guess we'll see. The ash is already bone dry so I put it on the right and rear and the cherry on the left and middle where it will get max sun all winter.



Found out our Morso wood stove is actually built for 20" logs (originally was told 11" max) but there is a recommended volume/weight, so I may have some additional splitting for some pieces.

[ides1056]

If you drive a couple of T-posts into the ground at either end of the pile you can stack higher without worrying about the pile collapsing.

The Stihl sharpening gadget shown above is incredibly useful- a must-have.

[monadnocky]

My stacking technique is pretty remedial....

That's the way, as you surely know. Nothing fancy needed. Stack, cover the top only to allow for ventilation, and you're good to go.
Drives me bananas to see piles of wood completely covered by a tarp. Just traps the moisture in and makes it worse.

[monadnocky]

If you drive a couple of T-posts into the ground at either end of the pile you can stack higher without worrying about the pile collapsing...

I use those cheap green metal stakes with the notches on them for remedial fencing purposes. Most have that flange at the bottom. Drive about a foot into the ground with Mr. Sledgy and you can stack pretty tall.
This weekend I'm covering my stacks with plastic, but since it hasn't rained here since March I don't think I'm terribly at risk of wet wood if I don't.

[caleb]

That looks like a nice spot for a wood shed.

[ides1056]

Chances are a post won't go in there, come to think of it, due to the ledge. I built a couple of woodsheds on locust bases. Each holds about a cord and a half. Rough pine walls and tin roof, facing south. When they are filled I know I have enough for winter.

[j44ke]

That looks like a nice spot for a wood shed.

And it is relatively flat. I had a tough time finding an area away from the house that was flat enough to stack easily. There is a big chunk of ledge underneath, as Jay correctly noted, that they had to blast to put the garage in - that’s the white wall to the right. It also gets sun all day long except sunrise. The palettes keep the logs out of water draining downhill. You can see a few stones I used to level the palettes.

[mjbabcock]

Okay, I’m biased. You are cross hatching (warp and weft?) each layer, when you would get a much more stable, and higher stack if you just cross stacked the ends. I learned from a guy who processes 80-100 cord/year by hand. The ends he’d crossed on each successive level to create barriers that prevent falling. The bulk of the row gets stacked in the same direction. Each row gets 2-4” of “breathing room” between it and the next row, and they should be 5-6’ tall. The pallets are okay, but unnecessary. Sacrifice the lowest layer, but go ahead and build you stacks perpendicular to the slope. You will end up with tapering stacks as they work their way up the hill, but they will work just fine.

[j44ke]

Okay, I’m biased. You are cross hatching (warp and weft?) each layer, when you would get a much more stable, and higher stack if you just cross stacked the ends. I learned from a guy who processes 80-100 cord/year by hand. The ends he’d crossed on each successive level to create barriers that prevent falling. The bulk of the row gets stacked in the same direction. Each row gets 2-4” of “breathing room” between it and the next row, and they should be 5-6’ tall. The pallets are okay, but unnecessary. Sacrifice the lowest layer, but go ahead and build you stacks perpendicular to the slope. You will end up with tapering stacks as they work their way up the hill, but they will work just fine.

I saw that pattern (if I understand your description correctly) late in the game and thought about redoing the cherry using that route. I would have gotten the whole bunch of the cherry in one stack that way. But the cherry was a real PITA - each branch split like it came out of a spiral slicer - so stacking it in any fashion was tough. That center stack is made up of the worst of the twisted pieces in kind of a circle-square stack.

The bear knocked down the “ornamental” stack of fat poplar logs the gardeners put up to hide the generator - plenty of paw prints. He/she has spent the last week dismembering any rotten trunk it can find in the forest. So I figure I may get to redo these stacks also.

[Mabouya]

Do a Google Image Search on "wood drying shed" and you'll be amazed by the variety of stuff that comes up.

Apparently some folks take this very seriously.

[j44ke]

I barely have a trickle of Internet right now, but I blew through a bunch of data falling down the wormhole on stacking.

I think this is the approach Jason described above.



This is crazy.



C'mon now.



This is my favorite.

[Mabouya]

This is crazy.

C'mon now.

Those are actually two very rare species found in only a few places in the US.

The first is the "pre-cut-to-stove-length" tree - you just chop it down, leave it there, and use the branches as needed.

The second is the "firewood ball" shrub. It forms a perfect hemisphere, and for the very old ones (I'd guess that this one is at least 75 years old) if you trim it just right every fall it will grow into a wood-ball, perfect for use in your stove once it's dried out.

[ides1056]

Whatever way you stack it, do not bring it in the house to dry.

Whatever moisture remains in the wood goes into the walls and promotes rot.

[monadnocky]

We had two large trees taken down recently, both in the final stages of disease. A maple and a beech. I had the guys crib what was burnable and I'd split everything myself for next winter, using either the manual splitters or my 27-ton hydraulic feller. Well, let me tell you: Ash is very, very wet. And incredibly, amazingly hard. To get the rounds on to the splitter (which can be used in the vertical position, but it's very inefficient and tends to bounce around all over the place when used that way), I needed to get them split in half first, as each round weighs... oh, I'm guessing around six tons. Or at least that's what it felt like to me. Manual splitters? Yeah, that's like trying to split an anvil. Hardest whack I could only caused a dent about 3/4 of an inch. MY technique was to jam the wedge into the little divot I made with the splitter, and then have at it from there. NOT easy, as to get leverage you need to let go of the wedge to get to the back of the sledge, and half the time that would just cause the wedge to bounce out. Even when it was firmly engaged, each full-scale whack of the sledge only caused it to go down about an eighth of an inch at a time. What a racket*. My neighbors, thankfully, are very nice people.

Here's the wedge getting some traction:
wedgestart.jpg

And here it is further down. Even when the wedge is all the way into the round, and you can no longer whack it with the sledge, there are these stringers of wood holding the two sides together which need to be carefully hacked at with the hatchet shown here. It's an exhausting process and a full-body workout.
getting there.jpg

And here's the piles after getting the maple and the beech fully processed. This took three weeks.
newwood.jpg

newpile.jpg

Here's my double stack to be burned this year:
double.jpg

And another stack (maple) ready to go, from another downed tree from two summers ago. This wood is lovely.
upper.jpg

Welp, all that's left to do is get it covered with plastic before the rains arrive (not particularly worried, as it hasn't rained in central NH since about March - we are in "extreme drought" conditions right now, with no rain on the horizon).

*The intelligenter thing to do? Let the rounds dry out over the fall, winter, and spring, and have back at it next summer- I hear beech splits a lot easier when it's not about 67% moisture.

[lumpy]

Re: the above: Dang.