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Cutting and hauling firewood

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harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY
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2003-06-08          57095

DKI The old M has about 5.5 face cords and little JD has almost 7 on it. Wife runs an embroidery business (if the IRS reads this) and sells to fire wood guy and he sells to us. It is a good arrangement. It is also a lot easier on equipment, and me, than going to the woods.

Bought tub spreader at auction for $35.00 full of "HUMUS" had to do some cutting and fixing...

Have 30+ face cord of wood at boys (oldest son) house to cut up and split yet this year. We cleared some land for him to build a big garage/shop.

Have to build a new wood shed this year, it's in progress now, my old wood shed has been enclosed and I have 2000+ board feet of lumber stickered up drying and other toys stored in it. Plus all of Boys stuff that should be in his garage if he'll ever get off his butt and get it started.

Wife said I could no longer use the cover by the pond for wood because that was built for pinic cover on Sunday afternoon Bar-B-Q's rain or shine...

Too much to do and not sure where to find the time...

Harvey


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Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2003-09-19          64376

I believe I burned about a face cord a week in KY. I had to cut it all my self. Lucky my friend and neighour cut the hard wood off the land next to mine so I had the tops. I normally could cut and spit about a cord in an hour.
My dad still burns wood at 80. I went to a pellet stove as a back up.

Peters ....

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powellvalley
Join Date: Sep 2003
Posts: 4 KY
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2003-09-19          64380

Hi all - Any recommendations on a PTO splitter?? I'm installing a Buck stove & looking for an easy way to split hardwood (in KY also). ....

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harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY
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2003-09-20          64400

Powellvalley I find it still unbelievable that people still try and use screw type splitters. After using one down south and bringing it up here to NY (upstate) trying to use it on maple. These are or have got to be one of the most dangerous things I have ever tried using. Always 1 person has to be in control of the pto. Another trying to stab a piece of wood onto the turning screw...

I like wood heat but not that much. I'll stick to hyd splitters, my big splitting maul, block split with saw or leave the big nasty ones in the woods.

There is no easy way to use a pto screw splitter! ....

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Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2003-09-20          64427

I am sorry I have always used a axe or maul. I only went to a maul in KY when I started cutting a 24" for the longer fire box.
I tend to like to split it where it is and not carry the debre with me.
I am afraid that most people these days do not know how to split with an axe correctly. Luckally my father was an expert with practice I am fare.
Like a good golf swing it takes effort. I am better at splitting than swinging. Correct form requires a dull axe/maul of correct length.
I do not pick up the log round and place them on a block, too much wasted energy. A block was only used for slitting kindling. Another movie myth.
I do not always stand rounds on end as some can be hit as they lay.
As you enter the log round you need to twist the wrist so that the force of the axe point has downward and sideways momentum. This is the splitting action. If you do not split the log on the first strike the blade should spin out of the cut and hit the side of the blade.
The art part is reading the grain of the wood and determining where to place you first split.
Maybe we need to start a splitting clinic like we have for golf.
If you must split with a hydaulic splitter, I have only done it once and can say I found it more work. Maybe you want to buy the one I have sitting in the barn. It has a PTO pump and is 3 PT. I bought it with the house and have never moved it out of the barn. It is like new. ....

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powellvalley
Join Date: Sep 2003
Posts: 4 KY
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2003-09-20          64437

LOLL ! I agree with using an axe (I can bust wood with the best of 'em, we hand-split firewood & big locust for posts when I was a kid.) I've never been around the screw types... At one time I had a homemade splitter that was a dream to take to the woods - had a chevette engine for powering the hydraulics sitting on a welded up I-beam frame on a car axle, ball hitch for towing.
Anyway, the old back limits my efforts now & our mule retired 40 years ago, so I was thinking there should be a way to run a splitter (preferably hydraulic) off the tractor. & I'm trying to avoid the current trend of having a garage full of gasoline-powered stuff. ....

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Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2003-09-20          64438

You are welcome to the unit here if you want to drive down. Make me an offer. I can send you a picture. It is a heavy duty unit.

macroman on fayette.net ....

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Chief
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4297 Southwest MiddleTennessee
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2003-09-20          64442

Can someone please define the term "face cord"??? Maybe I am not understanding what a cord vs rick is. In my mind 30 cords of wood is a phenominal amount of wood. Burning a cord of wood a week would be nearly impossible unless I kept a ragging inferno in both wood stoves and added a 3rd. In my neck of the woods a rick is 4' x 8' x 16" (some use 18"). 3 ricks = 1 cord (4' x 8' x 4') or 128 cubic feet. I am thinking that a face cord is rough equivalent to a rick? ....

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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2003-09-20          64445

I haven't heard of a rick, but out here a face cord seems to be the same size as a rick. ....

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Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2003-09-20          64447

A face cord is a Rick in most instances. It is what you can stack on the face of 4'x 8'. In my case I was cutting 2' due to the large fire box I had in the furnace so the the face cord was a half cord. Yes it is a lot of wood over the winter. I have a stand in the basement that took a 1/2 cord so and would fill it about once a week. We had a lot of glass on the north, 6 - 8' and 4-6' sliders and additional glass so a lot of heat loss. The view cost. ....

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harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY
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2003-09-21          64460

Peters I think I'd like your wood. When I was growing up the kitchen stove wood was split with an axe in the shed on a HUGE block. Most of the furnace wood was split up by the buzz saw (an old antique device now the big saws are much faster) with what we called a Go-Devil (like a sled hammer only one side sharpened for splitting). We had some wood blocks (old elm and if I recall down south is a tree called gumball) you could not split in 2 days of trying with a maul you had to use wedges.

The big 20+" maple and beech blocks here can be usually be split with my mosnter maul but usually less energy is used (by me) on the hyd splitter.

I usually try to have 20 face cords put up and hope to only use 15. ....

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TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-09-21          64462

Use of terms varies. I think of ricks mostly as referring to hay or straw stacks that are shaped up well enough to cover rather than of a particular volume. Face cord often means 1/2 cord but an older use is a stack 4'x8'x 1-piece. It's the face of a cord of 4'x'8'x4'. The amount of wood depends on the thickness of the pieces. ....

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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2003-09-22          64534

I agree with Tom's comment, "Use of terms varies." Boy does it vary.

In Canada, and probably elsewhere, anything sold by quantity must be sold by a legally defined measure. In Canada however, the only legally recognized measure for firewood is the cord, terms such as 'face cord', etc., are just commonly used euphuisms, not legal terms.

The norm however is that a face cord is 4'x8'x16" being one third of a cord. Legally though you can only sell by fractions of cords, so a face cord would then have to be called a 1/3 cord to be legal. Oh well.

As for the splitting process, I use to make up a lot of 'Manual Splitters' for friends & nieghbours, they work well, are WAY safer than axe or maul, and are very handy for women, elders or youths to split wood.

It is basically a steel plate which lays flat on the floor and forms the foot of the device. Welded to this, at one side or in a corner, is a peice of heavy wall 2" (O.D.) square tubing (3' is a good length) rising vertically from the plate. Now for the tricky part, take a regular 4 to 6 pound splitting wedge and weld it to a peice of heavy flat bar (I use 1/2"x 4"), the flat bar is in turn welded to a 6" length of heavy wall 2" (I.D) tubing, the flat bar should be of such a length to position the wedge in the center of the plate when the one tube is slid over the other one forming the upright. A small catch which holds the wedge at the top of the riser is handy.

In operation you merely put a block on the plate under the wedge and strike the top of the wedge with a sledgehammer, whatever size is comfortable for the operator. The nifty part is that you never have a block jump or roll when you hit it, and if the wedge sticks on the first blow there is no wrestling to get the axe or maul free for a second hit, and even then the second or third blows ALWAYS find the same mark as the first, mimizing swinging effort required.

Best of luck. ....


Link:   Canadian Gov. Website - Measurements of firewood.

 
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Billy
Join Date: Oct 1999
Posts: 975 Southeast Oklahoma
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2003-09-22          64536

Speaking of firewood, how much does it sell for in your area?

Here, in SE Oklahoma, it goes for anywhere between 75$ to 120$ per cord. This is split, delivered and stacked. Most people sell wood here by the rick, which is 1/3 of a cord. By the way, just like Murf said, the cord (4'x8'x4') is the only 'legal' measurement used for firewood (here anyway).

If you asked anyone around here how much wood they use a year, they'll tell you in ricks.

Billy ....

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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2003-09-22          64537

Southern Ontario, a full cord of dry hard wood split and dropped in your driveway is $160 to $200 depending on whether you're in the city or suburbs, etc. and a 'face cord' (16") will cost you about $60 to $80.

You can save a little by buying larger quantities or even truckloads wholesale but not many people are equipped to handle a truckload of logs. Presently a truckload (yields about 8 full cords) will cost you about $500 but it is green wood, so it is for next years burn unless you have a kiln box.

All of the above in 'Beaver Bucks' of course ...

Best of luck. ....

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Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2003-09-22          64539

Murf if thats a Canadian dollar then we have about the same price here. ....

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