This is just a place to store pics of the wood gathering. Whether it be cutting, splitting, chipping, hauling ,loading, oddities or what have you.
Album by Kevin Foust. 1 - 372 of 372 Total. 5507 Visits.
1 Had a huge ash tree at my place that needed some trimming. It was over 4 ft at the base and been struck by lightning 3 time in my lifetime that I know of. The dead limb was leaning towards my building and decided to take those out before it might hit them.
2 Dad and I went together and bought this lift used at the peak of the recession. Got a great deal on from a dealer. It is a diesel 4x4 and has 60 ft of reach. Fully extended here so you can get a scale on how big this tree was.
3 Dad had a classmate who fell off a roof and ended up dying from his injuries. We decided it was time as with all the buildings and upkeep it was worth it to be safe. We paint our own places too so that was another factor.
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6 Sure makes work like this nice. It has an 8 ft basket.
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8 Our main wood storage barn got hit with wind damage for the second time. !st time it blew the whole roof structure off, rafters and all. Put it all back and several years later it did this. Insurance totalled it out. We'll try to rebuild but I have my doubts.
9 Broke a lot of posts. has 78 cord in it and we'll have to get a lot out before the work starts. Slow process for sure.
10 Pretty nasty wind.
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13 Another barn that we have some wood in.
14 Dads homemade splitter here. Not anything to look at but it does a decent job. 4x 24 cylinder with 16GPM pump. Strong for what it is.
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16 Furnace house stuffed full.
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18 These next pics are in the woods at Dads other farm. The same wind that took the barn out had straight line winds in the woods. Took most everything in it's path. Gonna clean it up.
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21 Dad with the might Super2 Homelite, Showing his OSHA approved cutting method. He loves those little saws for little stuff.
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25 My saw combe 192 rear handle and MS 660. Baby and Papa!
26 We ended up calling this firewood road. Watch the length as I walk away.
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39 Cut a lot of wood in a hurry there. About 3 Saturdays all toll. Got it all hauled on the "road"
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41 Hauling Walnut in Dad's Dodge.
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43 Barns a filling up!
44 Chunkin' the big stuff just to carry size. We'll split this on a rainy day.
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49 Stacking with a heavy lean in. Our stacks stay there a while and this prevents fallouts as they dry. Stacks are as high as I can reach so it makes a mess if the fall.
50 Same farm. Renters careless cigarette usage took this barn out. Had about 30 cord in there. What a mess.
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52 Ended up loading all the full length stuff and put it in my furnace house. Salvaged enough to heat my place that year but it was a nasty, dirty year for me.
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57 about as much as we want in here. Need more storage now!
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60 Rather healthy tree.
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62 sycamore the leaf came from
63 Same big ash was taken out as it fell a few years later and here are the cleanup picks of that. REAL glad I took the limbs out now.
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67 Notice what was left of the tree? Still quite a large amount of weight supported by a small section down low.
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69 Brought in my splitter and chunked it in larger, nicer to handle chunks for the boiler.
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71 Drive thru splitting makes for quick loading when you're done. Load from both sides and less steps.
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73 Not far to haul this stuff!
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78 Nice wood, that's for sure.
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81 These are pics of bitternut hickory. My favorite wood to deal with
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86 Lots of weight with wet hickory. this was a wind blow down at my place.
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89 At least it is still dry in here.
90 More Bitternut ID with small branch to the right.
91 Small Bitternut.
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99 To the ceiling!
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103 Dad stepped in to give it some scale. He's 6ft.
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106 This at my place. Wind damage totaled this barn as well. Shifted the whole thing over and broke some posts. We will Save this one as it isn't as bad as Dad's. Once again, I'll use wood out of here to get ready. Here I have pulled out about 20 cord allready.
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109 Over In Dad's woods. When Hurricane Ike's winds came through Ohio they were still plenty strong. WE had no rain, just wind. It took out the top on our Biggest Beech. It was right at 5 ft in diameter. Top is on the other side of the truck.
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111 Here is just the top. 20 ft up it Y'd. One branch over 3 ft, the other 4 ft. We left the totem hoping it would still live, it didn't. Cut it up the next year and 18 cord from one tree. Tree was over 400 years old, sad to see as it was healthy and solid. Rare for a Beech.
112 Big Sycamore on same farm. There are 4 of these within 100 yards and all over 4 ft in diameter. Creek is over to the left and they drink a lot of it.
113 Dads old 1 ton Dodge When taking wood from pipeline going through. We'd haul loads like this all day. The most was 16 in one day.
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115 Locust tree along road near Mom and Dad's. This thing is NASTY! How'd you like a forest of these?
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120 11 inches of needles.
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124 Bird built a nest in it though. Home sweet home?
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127 When we first got dads farm it was overrun with vines and such. Whole farm basically untouched for 40 years. Saw the grapevine and made Mom and present. Cut it up to look like a snake and put it outside the front door when we came home for lunch. When she went out to get the mail she was none to happy. ;)
128 Now you get an idea of the size.
129 Even gave him some fangs.
130 Yeah, the have some size.
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132 Here is a couple of pics of some Wavey grain beech. These are near impossible to split by hand as the grain twists in the tree. You can have a straight grain growing right next to a wavey grain so I don't know why it happens.
133 When id does split it creates a saw tooth pattern to the grain split. VERY tough stuff to deal with.
134 At Mom and dad's. Getting ready to drop the ash tree in the front yard. Another EAB Tree.
135 Dad used a cable and anchor to make sure it would fall where we wanted.
136 The boys came out to play!
137 I'm partial to orange and grey.
138 Dropped it in quick order under Mom's supervision.
139 1/2 hour later it was cleanup time.
140 Tree wasn't that big as it's about 24 inches where you see it cut here. Dad will recut it so it flush to the ground. That way he can mow over it.
141 Some of Dad's homeys. XL12, Super 2 XL automatic and a newer one.
142 Neighbors tree we will cut next year as he asked for some assistance. It's 4 ft in diameter 3ft up. That one will take a little longer!
143 Close up of anchor.
144 Dad's wood chute for his house, outside view.
145 Laid stone on the sidewalls with sloped poured floor.
146 All full now.
147 Shut the lid and it too angles down to get the water away.
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150 Dad's chainsaw tree.
151 Our neighbor had a larger ash tree that was taken out be EAB and he wanted it taken down. Power line on the backside. Pretty well balanced but a little towards the power line so decided to play it safe and brought the lift up.
152 Put a cable in it just to be sure.
153 A couple old steel fence post for a dead man and put my notch in the tree.
154 I told him when it comes down it was going to explode as it has been basically standing dead for over 2 years.
155 Timber! Combo of wedges and cable to do a controlled fall.
156 Most of the smaller limbs came off on their own but the 6 inch and up stayed. Started cutting it up but didn't have too much time.
157 Large rounds here are 17 inches thick as that is what he wanted for his stove. Look skinny by the scale of the diameter.
158 Got close on the one side of the hinge and a little wide in the center. I'm rusty. ;)
159 After dropping it my neighbor said," Man, you sure made a mess for my wife to clean up!" I'm planning on cutting the stump and getting a large cookie off the bottom. See how it dries out as I may make a rustic table out of it.
160 Saws made quick work of it.
161 Just got the stump to cut yet. Next up is the splitting.
162 Made one length cut for him on the stump and then cut a cookie. Cutting it with an 090 AV with a 4 ft bar.
163 saving a cookie for conversation piece and if it doesn't split out too bad maybe make a rustic table. I know, no chaps on here but all is well. I do wear ear plus all the time though.
164 Only had a couple hours to split and we loaded it directly into his little pickup and then stacked. About a cord or more an hour.
165 This cookie kind of fills up the bed.
166 Said he's going to have them grind the stump. I told him to get a quote for 1 tree and see if they will bite ;)
167 His pile is growing and we stacked 3 rows deep in spots.
168 Even with a 4 ft bar it wasn't able to single cut it. Had about 6 inches more because of the flare at the bottom.
169 Very solid tree and hated to see it die.
170 This was a very healthy, fast growing tree at times. Some of the growth rings were 3/4"
171 Finally quit raining and we were able to finish up the little dab we had left. the winch makes moving the bigger ones into position real easy. Dad and my neighbor are supervising. ;)
172 Pick them up from the back or sides and get them to size. We normally just back down the length of the tree when it is a big one.
173 Into position and split off a chunk. Swing chunk and table out and split another off.
174 Leave a hanger and you have enough storage that nothing hits the ground again till it is split. In this case, we were throwing it the back of his truck so it never hit the ground till stacked.
175 Found the piece we were looking for so we are done.
176 He had moved the smaller stuff out as he said he could handle that with his smaller splitter. He didn't want to hold me up.
177 Good little pile of wood and don't know for sure how much. I'm guessing 6 - 8. All I know is he is as happy as a lark!
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186 An old time family friend said he was going to have to take a bunch of trees out as the ash bore had done their thing. He's over 80 years old and still gets after it. I offered, no insisted, to help as they are close to his house on hilly ground. He had a few cut when I got there.
187 We are going to cable most all these and do it the slow way so we don't have any surprises.
188 3 more down in the back and there are more away from the house but he wanted to get all of the ones close to the house first so we'll move to the front.
189 Cutting a lot of these higher with larger hinge cuts. Then pull them down slowly. This one in the process of being pulled and did a wedge hinge to get it to roll once it reaches the over center point. You can see how much it was leaning as it still has not overcentered at this point.
190 4 more down and he wanted the one in the very center to slip between the 2 trees on either side. Not my choice but that is where he wanted it. We are using a pulley point at the bottom of the hill and cranking it tight way to the left.
191 Everything is going exactly where he wanted it and we are all happy about that.
192 Cable goes to the tree in the center of the pic then back up the fence line out of camera range. Takes a 100ft cable 50 cable, chain on 2 trees and strap on the pulley tree.
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194 Tree hung up some in the top but cranked the cable till it stopped. the hooked it to a tractor and pulled it the rest of the way down using the cable.
195 Most of these trees are 16 - 30 inches in diameter and like telephone poles. I hook a chain around the tree and attach the cable to that using an extension ladder. Ground is pretty hilly around and that slows things up. Owner of the property in the pic here, he's 82 years old and is amazing to me.
196 Have about 8 dead ones along his drive. Power lines on other side and naturally most lean that way. Most were cabled as we didn't want any surprises.
197 Bad pic but trees are pretty thick and most had no good way to fall away from power lines without getting hung up. Slowly but surely we got them safely down.
198 2 more down along the drive.
199 Here you can see the power lines and the road out there. Steep hill on the right.
200 Down the hill they go and he'll drag them back up to cut.
201 30 incher done. Slope is steeper than it looks.
202 Went over after Christmas and we started working on getting his saw to work. He had collected 4 Stihl 031's and had parts from I believe 2 others. Checked the compression and took the best one [170 PSI] but wouldn't run. He took a junk saw and cut the rod off and mounted to a drill press. Here we are testing all the coils and condensers to see what we have.
203 Don't know if some have used this notch system or not but it works really well on smaller trees you want to wedge but the wedge would get in the way. Make a face cut like normal, then plunge cut through the center.
204 Don't do this on a hard leaner but normal stuff it works great. Go all the way through the back of the tree.
205 Go ahead and drive the wedge in as much as you can. Then make lateral cuts above wedge about 3 inches, staying away from the wedge till it is even to the edge of the wedge.
206 Here is a view from the one side.
207 Drive the wedge home and works like a charm. Makes a tongue and groove effect. Like I said though. Do NOT do it on a leaner to the sides or back. Normal trees it works great on.
208 I don't remember seeing this posted before so forgive me if it has.
209 Got 3 more down and now we're going to cable the one in the center of the pic on the right. You can see Dad between the trees and owners shop to the backside.
210 Cable goes to the tree at the top of the hill in the upper right corner, then a pulley directs it to were they are working the winch which is attached at the base of the tree closest to them. I got the notch cut and start the back cut till the get some tension on it.
211 Another really nice ash here. He'll take a few logs for lumber out of this one too.
212 Timber! Right where we wanted it.
213 Here's my Dad and our friend cranking up another one out of that clump.
214 Here's the beefy come a long we are using to pull them down. He got it from an Ag equipment dealer he worked for in the 1950's. Double geared, double pawed and with the handle you can get a lot of pull on it.
215 Don't see them made like this anymore.
216 This one was leaning toward his shop pretty hard. Still not overcentered and notice the gap on the back cut.
217 One more down.
218 I tend to leave a healthy hinge and let the winch do it's thing. More controlled that way.
219 Ended up being 27 trees total and started bucking them up but ran out of time.
220 Quite a bit of wood in this one area. That tree on the right was the worst leaner as all the weight was going the wrong way. Winch got it where he wanted though.
221 Didn't have a lot of time today but we got around 3 hrs in. The trimming crew doing their thing and I'm sawing up the bigger stuff.
222 Did get most all of it cut up on this side as he is saving the logs to saw up for lumber. Said he wants to make wood baseboard covers for his heating system.
223 I got the far 2 trees all cut up before the "limb crew" came. Couple of slackers they are! Hah. Hope I can still do what they do when I'm their age. Should get a full day in tomorrow and would think the cutting should be done. Then the fun of cleanup!
224 Went back over today and made short work of what was left in the back yard. It's all bucked up except for a few logs he keeping for lumber as mentioned before.
225 I think he'll have enough wood for this Winter! ;)
226 Took a break to get some pics of this tree for you guys. It's just beyond his driveway and it's a big boy.
227 I'd feel real sorry for the car that ran into this one! Root base is just massive and perfect spot as it has all the water it wants.
228 Here is some scale for you. I'm 6'5". It measures 20' 6" four foot up so that puts the diameter at over 6 1/2 foot. Too bad it's cottonwood.
229 Some limbs all ready fell on that guardrail but I pity the township crew if it falls on the road. Some serious weight there.
230 Heading back our friend decided he wanted to let these go for awhile and drag them up later. They'll be some logs on those too.
231 May have to drag in several pulls as some of these are pretty big.
232 Started on the front and cut some log lengths and started dragging them up off front hill.
233 They'll be about 5 or 6 logs out here till we're done. That's a MS660 with a 3ft bar for scale. We're cutting the logs 17 ft long.
234 Good bit of wood out here as well.
235 All bucked up here as well now. A couple logs rolled down the hill just out of view so he'll get them from the road.
236 Going to leave these for now as well as they are easy pickens. He said he will drag them towards his wood shed and cut as they are needed, saving a handling if you will.
237 I went back through and flush cut all his stumps for him as well. He was tickled that he got all of that cut up and wants to burn the wood up in his woodshed before moving this stuff in so I guess we are done for a while. I'll go back over when he's ready to do that. Good times with a good friend.
238 Did a little research and found you can still buy these pullers and they are made right here in Ohio. There are cheap offshore imitations so don't be fooled. You can order direct from them here: https://www.wyeth-scott.com/
Super nice people to deal with and a quality product. This is something you will have for a lifetime.
239 It's called a "More Power Pull".
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241 It came with a super nice pulley to double it up but you can use this to pull out of harms way as I showed when we were doing the previous job.
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249 Kevco electric woodsplitter
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256 Decided it was time to take this tree down. It's an ash that has been standing dead for 4 years now. Right next to the road and telephone line with the power line on the other side. You can see them if you look close. Has a heavy lean over the road as well.
257 This is where I want to put it and it is the tree just right of the pole. I'm guessing it is 80 - 90 ft tall. My plan is to trim some of the trees in it's fall path and put a chain up high. I'll use the lift to do that.
258 The 2 limbs you see crossing the road trees trunk are the ones that will be trimmed off. the tree is just too tall to piece down with the lift for my taste. we have another one at the top of the hill that I will piece down today. It's about a 2 footer as well but only about 50 ft high.
259 I was going to go higher with the chain but once up there I spotted the squirrel hole. I don't want to take the risk of it snapping off there. Picture skews the view but chain is about 10 ft higher than the top of the pole. 25 ft chain was 10 ft from the ground.
260 Decided while I was blocking the road with the lift I'd also piece the leaning limbs over the road. I was at full extend(60ft) reaching and the tree was still about 20 ft higher. With all the limbs off now it should be a lot better.
261 Here's a better view of it with the limbs trimmed off. I'm sure some would just wedge and drop but I don't like extra bills! Things can go wrong in a hurry and there's no going back when it does.
262 This gives you an idea of the height.
263 Close up of the bad spot. Again, I like playing it safe with this.
264 Figured I'd go ahead and get all the limb trimming cleaned up first. It'll make it nicer and I know the tree will break up pretty bad.
265 Used all 3/8" chain and a long length of cable. I'm sideline pulling with the 3 ton puller from a distant tree.
266 Dad came down to help which was nice and had 2 dogs come to visit as well! End of the line is anchored to another tree.
267 When pulling trees I go for a deeper wedge cut. This gives you an idea of the lean it has. The wedge cut is on the left and the straight saw cut is on the right. I leave a large hinge on these as when they are dead for that long, they can snap. No expert here but it has worked well for us. I took this shot mid pull and till it was done, the wedge cut was right at being fully closed before it overcentered and fell. I should have made it even bigger.
268 Right down main street!
269 Here's a view of the puller. I got 2 of them and they are extremely useful for pulling trees. You can get them with the pulley as well and you can see it just on the left side of the puller.
270 I cut everything that was in the cleared area and loaded it up. Then, with the same chain the pulled it over, drug the log out so I could cut it easier and wouldn't have to roll them all through the brush.
271 It ended up being right at 25 inches and I'll leave these set till I get the Catersplitter out. We have a large fence row tree to take down this year too.
272 Here's the stump and this is why I go with the wide hinge. Notice that only the fibers in the middle held while about 6 inches in just snapped. I tend to put a little tension on a tree at first and wait till I see the top start to move just slightly. Then get out and let the puller do the rest. You never know how brittle they are so it isn't worth the risk to me.
273 The ground was fit and they are calling for rain so we decided to take out another bad tree. This one is on one of our fields property lines. We were clearing the fencerow close to 30 years ago and the guy who owns the house pictured begged us to let it go. Said it kept his house cool and provided a windbreak. He now wants us to cut it as it's rotting and would hit his house if it fell. Would have been easier to do 30 years ago!
274 We brought the lift up as it will have to be pieced down to be safe and not hurt anything of his except the grass.
275 This clump has some size to it. I'm really excited as it's Silver Maple.....and rotting! LOL This one would be potential 4 barber chair if you were trying to cut from the ground without taking some weight off.
276 Oh joy, one already broke off and laying in the tree. We'll drag that out and down with a chain.
277 Center is rotting and I told him we are going to leave a high stump because I don't want to ruin a chain if there is fence in it. He said okay and he would work at it later. Good luck.
278 Starting to piece it down and going really well. The ones to the right had bad in the center even up high. He has a tree to the left so I'll have to go up high and limb it up.
279 These are the ones that would hit his house. This lift does spoil you and makes it so much easier.
280 The boys came out to play! dad had about 3 of his Homeys too.
281 With all the limbs off we decided to cut it all to size. Then load up the small stuff where the trunk will fall and move the brush out of the way so we're not fighting it. dad want to chip up the brush and use it in his garden for a soil builder so it will go to good use. I'll bring the splitter up and work up the chunks after that. all depends on weather.
282 I guess he still has a windblock, sorta.
283 Wish it was a different variety of tree but it'll burn when dry. Quickly though!
284 98 inches or 8 ft 2 inches across the top of the stump. I measured the circumference 2 ft up and it was 238" or just over 19ft! Wonder how much water this thing was sucking up. I know our farmer will be happy as we trimmed some of his other trees that were coming in the field too. I'm tired so it was a good day with Dad.
285 Here's an extra pic of piecing it down over his other trees. I actually learned a lot of nice ways to do take downs from watching Utube videos of tree guys. Notice also I do have a harness on and it's attached.
286 Wind died down some and we decided to chip up the brush. Dad wanted the chips for his garden so it'll save burning it all.
287 We're just blowing it in the back of the truck and he has a tarp laying on the floor. We move it quite a bit to save steps. the chipper does real well and it's basically as fast as you can feed it. Feeding constant works best.
288 It chips really nice. The long dark pieces you see are catalpa beans. they feed right through.
289 It has a quick adjust chute and a power feed. You can reverse the feed as well if needed. It never plug normally.
290 Ended up being just one load which was fine with me. Took us about 2 1/2 hours. Getting ready to dump it in Dad's garden here.
291 After lunch I decided it was time to cut this ash down. Standing dead for 5 years now and you can see the bark is off of it for the most part.I want to drop it straight back in line with the camera view. there is a burn pile out of sight and I'll burn the junk tomorrow.
292 This is at my place so the wood will go straight into the boiler house. Nice when they are this close.
293 Got the wedge out but didn't even need it. It was just barely unbalanced the way I wanted it to go. That doesn't happen too often. Nice, slow and steady drop.
294 No other tree damage and we got it all cut up. Even hauled most all the wood not needing split. Not needing split means I can lift it so it's about 16" and under. Got a good bit done today.
295 It was zero this morning here and evidently a little too cold for the camera on the first 3 pics. Since it's cold a need a fire to keep warm! I'll start it and throw the remainder of the brush on it while I babysit.
296 I'll peel the rest of the bark off and burn it as well. You know as soon as you split it is going to come off anyway. Tree ended up being 25 inches 3ft up from the ground.
297 This ought to keep me warm. Notice the saw in the middle bottom of the pile for scale.
298 Walked down to the boiler and got a 5 gallon bucket full of coals. Didn't take long to get it going with that.
299 Some good heat and we're burning clean. I cleaned up close to the pile first before it got to be too much heat.
300 Just the chunks left to split now. I'll get the splitter out and we about a days worth of splitting as it's in 3 locations. Some nice wood here.
301 All raked in and it'll have coals there for a couple weeks I'd guess. Coal pile is about 4 ft deep and 20 ft in diameter.
302 Here's the rake I was referring to. Kind of like a bent potato fork.
303 Has a screw in handle extension that makes it 7ft long.
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306 It's been a couple of months but we could finally get back into the field to split the wood up. It has been raining or snowing pretty constant since December and finally have a window to do it. We did the stuff in his yard first while it was still froze on top some.
307 This is how it works best for us. Just back down the log length and lift the bigger ones with the remote winch. Then throw to the side if you don't have another truck/trailer. Then once the truck is next to the wood, either load or come back for a hauling day. Dad came to help and it makes a bog difference. He's 80 and still going strong.
308 While we were here we decided to throw a load on his truck. First time using his and probably won't do it again. bumper is too low and angles the splitter too much. I have the drop hitch for my 3/4 ton.
309 Lower ones were rotted in the center but overall, most of the wood was solid and as good as silver Maple can be.LOL
310 Keep working our way to the stump and back up occasionally to say the cable drag. It's a constant movement thing as once you get it down to smaller size, the other guy can unspool and start dragging in/up. Basically no waiting that way.
311 The piece we were looking for...the last one. there will be about 3 trucks worth here.
312 He said he'd cut the stump so we will see. ;)
313 All strapped down and ready to head out. Took a little less than 3 hours but we had to move quite a bit.
314 Decided it was time to take down this tree at our cabin in the woods. We'd had a tire swing in it for years and it's health has been dropping off every year. Typical beech as it lost it's top and has center rot. Dad had cleaned up the latest limb fall and decided it was time to take the whole thing down.
315 That's a 660 with a 3ft bar for scale. Tree is 62" average. Around here Beech grow about 1 ft in diameter in 75 years so this one is over 400 years old.
316 Did a fairly deep notch and fears were confirmed. hollow and doady. The weight is going the right way but with these, you have to watch quick snaps as there is no holding wood.
317 I watched till I started to see it move and notice the splits in the trunk starting. possible barber chair situation so very cautious here.
318 Call me a wimp but I'll err on the side of life! LOL. Decided to wedge it over as I could get even push, hopefully avoiding the trunk split.
319 Went over slow and steady and just let a pillar of dirt in the middle. trunk broke out when it landed. You can see now how bad it was.
320 Didn't take but a couple hrs to work up but not much quality wood here. It'll burn though once dried out so not all is lost.
321 Time to get the splitter out now.
322 Drove this limb in the ground and ground was smeary enough that dad's 4wd would pull it out, even with a log lift. That's a 3/8" chain so it does have some size to it.
323 Used Dad's 3 point splitter to work it up. I'm VERY spoiled with mine but didn't figure we had enough to make it worth while. I regret that decision. LOL We got a late start in the afternoon.
324 Not very good quality and even worse that it's all curvy grain. they'll be a lot of "boiler chunks" here.
325 Not a lot here but it'll provide some heat.
326 We got the biggest stuff done today so just some smalls and the rest of the top pictured here to go.
327 A little delay due to a snow but we finish the rest of the splitting. Top is all done now.
328 Not a whole lot of wood but it'll keep us warm for a little while. We'll do the hauling next.
329 Bad news was the whole tree was what I call wavy grain. Laughs at a maul and I bet a Kinetic would be beating itself to death. Makes for a lot of junk and nasty stacking.
330 If you've never had the "pleasure" of working with this stuff consider yourself lucky. We've had some that you can't even start a wedge and sledge. Before we had my splitter and couldn't move 4 ft rounds, we actually would plunge cut a slot for the wedge to start so we could 1/4 the round to be able to move it.
331 It's really wild as we've had beech right beside each other that one was like this and the other was all straight grain.
332 No rhyme or reason on why it grows like this but you can imaging how hard it would be. This piece was NOT a knot, just the way the grain of the wood grew.
333 Got it all hauled so we will burn the brush tomorrow as Dad want's it cleaned up as he mows here around the cabin.
334 Had a couple of missed ones we'll work up as they were under the trunk.
335 Going to burn the brush on the stump in an effort to get rid of it. Going to try an experiment and we'll take a poll here to see if you guys think it will work. I'll know tomorrow if it does so we will see. I dug as much rot as I could from the stump.
336 In the center I got down over 2 feet so I'm to the dirt there. Good size hole in the center to start the fire.
337 Stump is about 5 foot across and it has been completely dead for a year. Dirt/rot held a lot of moisture but the wood on the outside is fairly solid.
338 Here's my experiment. I made a bunch of cuts through the stump. had the saw with the bar out and the head in the center hole. Dug the spikes into the center and pivoted the bar on a sweep cut till it broke through at the bottom.
339 I did the cuts at the lowest part of the "web" on the trunk. My theory is it will be like one of the Norway camp log stoves and will burn the stump quicker. Do you guys think it will work? Comment below and I'll report back tomorrow with pics. I was kind of surprised as the 192 made all those cuts on one tank of fuel. I had sharpened the chain prior but it did hit some dirt at the start and finish of most cuts. Still was cutting decent at the end.
340 Got to thinking and decided to do a little more to the stump. Plunge cut some X's into the wider sections making sure not to cut through. I'll fill these with oil to stoke the fire.
341 I ran the saw back through the straights to clear them out. Now to build the fire.
342 Paper in the bottom and dead twigs to start till I get a good coal pile and some heat.
343 Drug all the brush in and raked the big chunks up so Dad can mow come Spring. Yeah, those are some BIG Sycamores in the background. One in the middle is over 5ft across.
344 We started the fire at 9AM and this is what it looked like at around Noon.
345 It seemed to help as in the lows of the web you could see the red glow in the middle, feeding it air.
346 Here you can see what I was referring to with the glow. Not as good as I hoped but I think it does help to do the cuts. tends to fill up with ash some but once it gets a little bigger the air draw keeps it pretty open.
347 The other side has a glowing window to the inside as well.
348 I'm hoping it will continue to burn outward as the coals burn down and settle. Time will tell on that. So far it's doing okay.
349 This is what it looked like at 2:30. We hung around till 3 and will go back over before night to check on it. I'll try to get some pics then.
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353 Went back over to check on it and when we first saw it from a distance didn't think it looked too good. When we walked up on it though we were pleasantly surprised. It's burning back on all sides and going strong.
354 This side is real nice and basically gone. I'd say it's about 1/3 burnt now. You can see the glow at the top and sides where it is going back.
355 This side has a lot to go but the coal pile is stacked high there and a BUNCH of heat working on it. As soon as it breaks through a side it will probably do really nice. Here's hoping with fingers crossed. :)
356 1 day burn
357 1 day and we were hopeful as it was working it's way out pretty good
358 I took some of the coals and put it in the outer webs in hopes that it would start burning from the outside in.
359 We'll see how that does tonight.
360 1 1/2 days of burn here. A little disappointed as the coals did nothing on the outside and basically went out.
361 It's still burning nice but slow. we always want more than we have I guess but it's human nature. We did take a leaf blower over but it had carb issues so that's a no go.
362 Lots of heat coming off of it. I took the dirt and ash away on the outside and cleaned out the cracks on the top. Dropped some nice coals on that and they were burning till we left. We'll see what tomorrow holds.
