The yield goes up exponentially with diameter ;-D I cut all day Saturday. Overbucking 90cc 32" is a bit of a workout (ported and sooooomebody went a little low on the rakers....). I wonder about 42" and no overbuck, heavier saw...I'll tell you @davidwyby...I'm very glad I don't have to fight the battles you do just to make big pieces of firewood into usable sizes .
Me being something of a latecomer, I appreciate you linking the good old threads so I can catch up.Oh, I understand well the benefits of big wood, my friend . But big wood that is splitable is my goal, unlike that Aussie invasive species you whale away at .
My antique 064 with Stihl full skip square ground 32 inch b&c makes fine 40+ inch rounds of clear oldgrowth Douglas fir that still split easy and fast. 7 rounds of 2-inch diameter makes a +half cord...a full load for my Tundra.
Lemme see if I can find a pic.
Here's a thread with pics...our friend Jed makes a post, and some others no longer participating...miss that guy.
Old guy, old saw, new hip
Put a couple of Tundra loads of firewood in the shed these last two days. FS permit for private use is a deal and a half...$10 bucks a cord, with enough attendant rules and regs to choke a horse :lol:. Fortunately, +32 years working on the Ranger District helps quite a bit, when hunting up...www.masterblasterhome.com
I do, but my itchy feet carried me a long way before I was married.As you say, sir. My mistake. It seems my auto-spellcheck isn't all that good on indigenous words .
I'd bet you and I and maybe bare handful of others here know the word and what it means, don't you think .
Yes this is true. I screw my wood. The Atom splitter attaches to an auger drive unit. I break down logs lengthwise into 1/4 or 1/8’s depending on size. Then I’ll grab the long splits with the mini and saw them into chunks. It really saves a lot of effort. But I got out of selling firewood so it’s just for my needs and a few friends needs.@flushcut has an atom splitter (giant screw splitter on a machine), which could possibly work pretty good for you, he would be the guy to ask on that. You could leave them long and break them down into much smaller diameter, and then they could even be fed in a processor if that's a direction you wanted to go towards. Obviously you have more than enough capability/equipment to fab one yourself too if you wanted, a bit of a taper threading, welding, and some hydraulic work and you got one as big as you need. Woodcracker makes some pretty cool whole tree splitters too, which you could also fab up and hang upside down on the fork truck, and simply lift sections off without even getting out of the seat, and would be even easier to build too if you think that would work better.
I'm looking into making a reactor for batch making charcoal and torrified wood, and then hopefully will never have to split again. I need the charcoal for a forge and a cupola furnace so i can utilize scrap to cast iron parts and blanks, which combined with my lathe will greatly increase my fabrication abilities. The torrified wood can be easily powdered or pressed into logs, pellets, or briquettes depending on exactly how i decide to build some other projects down the road, and will be much easier to automate as well. The torrified wood is more energy dense than regular wood, and is completely dry, so much so that it can be stored in piles outside on the ground and it won't absorb water, so no decay either. It has marginally less btus than coal with pretty much identical physical properties, and the feedstock doesn't matter much since it's broken down by the malliard reactions into a high carbon material which is easily ground and/or compressed, so i could use anything green i could get my hands on. When i swapped furnaces i added a hot water coil, so I'm already set up there for heating the whole house, will just have to pipe it in from an outside boiler (another project), and my cute little insert will be more for ambience than actual heat, with far less labor needed.
I'm planning on using ferrocement for the shells with old wire rope from a dragline unwound to the single wires for the majority of the reinforcement wire (buddies from a gravel yard, it's always who you know lol), and some wire fence to act as a grid for the shape. With the weather warming it'll be a perfect time for starting it soon, hopefully it comes together and works like i think it will I've been planning this for years now, slowly getting all the ducks in a row, and it's close enough to get excited again about it. Just being able to cast, forge (with a 50 ton press too!), and machine stuff will be a complete game changer, there's only so much you can do welding stuff together. And the best part is that all i need is scrap for most stuff, weld what i can and forge or melt the rest, so i can actually afford to do stuff.
I forgot about the atom splitter. It's all about efficiency with firewood (and most anything really). Why spend a lot on a 6 or 8 way splitter when it doesn't have the muscle to split that much, causing half the time to be spent unjamming it? Hydraulics has its use in splitting, but I'm not sure if it's the most cost effective considering the kinetic energy splitters. Scale up the flywheel with lots of junkyard stuff, and it should be able to quickly go through anything, reaching peak pressure instantly. Just need a clutch of sorts or shear bolt system or some auto disengage mechanism in case concrete or a chunk of iron is hidden in the wood.@flushcut has an atom splitter (giant screw splitter on a machine), which could possibly work pretty good for you, he would be the guy to ask on that. You could leave them long and break them down into much smaller diameter, and then they could even be fed in a processor if that's a direction you wanted to go towards. Obviously you have more than enough capability/equipment to fab one yourself too if you wanted, a bit of a taper threading, welding, and some hydraulic work and you got one as big as you need. Woodcracker makes some pretty cool whole tree splitters too, which you could also fab up and hang upside down on the fork truck, and simply lift sections off without even getting out of the seat, and would be even easier to build too if you think that would work better.
I'm looking into making a reactor for batch making charcoal and torrified wood, and then hopefully will never have to split again. I need the charcoal for a forge and a cupola furnace so i can utilize scrap to cast iron parts and blanks, which combined with my lathe will greatly increase my fabrication abilities. The torrified wood can be easily powdered or pressed into logs, pellets, or briquettes depending on exactly how i decide to build some other projects down the road, and will be much easier to automate as well. The torrified wood is more energy dense than regular wood, and is completely dry, so much so that it can be stored in piles outside on the ground and it won't absorb water, so no decay either. It has marginally less btus than coal with pretty much identical physical properties, and the feedstock doesn't matter much since it's broken down by the malliard reactions into a high carbon material which is easily ground and/or compressed, so i could use anything green i could get my hands on. When i swapped furnaces i added a hot water coil, so I'm already set up there for heating the whole house, will just have to pipe it in from an outside boiler (another project), and my cute little insert will be more for ambience than actual heat, with far less labor needed.
I'm planning on using ferrocement for the shells with old wire rope from a dragline unwound to the single wires for the majority of the reinforcement wire (buddies from a gravel yard, it's always who you know lol), and some wire fence to act as a grid for the shape. With the weather warming it'll be a perfect time for starting it soon, hopefully it comes together and works like i think it will I've been planning this for years now, slowly getting all the ducks in a row, and it's close enough to get excited again about it. Just being able to cast, forge (with a 50 ton press too!), and machine stuff will be a complete game changer, there's only so much you can do welding stuff together. And the best part is that all i need is scrap for most stuff, weld what i can and forge or melt the rest, so i can actually afford to do stuff.