At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

More Firewood Cutting

When cutting the logs on the ground, I orient myself in a full squat. I have found this position to be easiest on my back. Bending over with the chainsaw tires out my back quickly. Squatting is also good exercise for my legs.


The cant hook helped me to roll a stump off the pile. Without the cant hook, I'd have had to pull the stump off with the chain and tractor.



The cant hook has an attachment that can be used to lift a log off of the ground. I am still experimenting to determine what method is more efficient. I can either cut the top of the log at each firewood section and then roll over the log and finish cutting the pieces. Or I can lift the log with the cant hook and also prop the log up on other logs/limbs to get it off of the ground and cut completely through the log.

I am ever in search of the fastest way to cut, split, stack, carry, and burn the firewood. At this stage I am sure that my process has lots of room for improvement.

 

[Obed]

I was having trouble keeping the chain tension set correctly. I noticed the chain would somehow get to tight on the bar and cause the saw to stall. When I took off the chain cover and cleaned off all the sawdust, I noticed that there was nothing keeping the chain tensioning bolt from pulling out of it's slot. The bolt was missing a retaining ring. I limped through the last few cuts I had to make on the remaining log. Later I went to the hardware store and bought a retaining ring (e-ring) for 14 cents. Although the tensioning properties of my Poulan saw are far from great, adding the retaining ring provided a noticeable improvement.

 

[MotorSeven]

I have a cant with a "foot". I tried propping up the log but much prefer making a bunch of cuts 3/4 through, then rolling the log to finish the cuts. The cant foot does come in handy for getting a chain under a log and that's all I use it for now.
It looks like you will be using a chainsaw a lot. I found that the small big box store homeowner saws just don't hold up well and gave up on them years ago. I'm a orangaholic and bought my first Stihl 024 Super in 1984. I have 6 other Stihls and the 024 still gets worked on a regular basis. Chainsaw brand opinions run deep, but the bottom line is a pro saw in Stihl, Husky, Dolmar, etc will put a big smile on your face every time you fire it up.

 

[dstig1]

Be careful with that timberjack/cant. They are known to let the log keep rolling or let go at an inopportune time and cause trouble. Not a problem with smaller stuff, but you can get seriously hurt on a big log that way. Generally safer if they are just supported up on something like on other logs.

 

[Obed]

It looks like you will be using a chainsaw a lot. I found that the small big box store homeowner saws just don't hold up well and gave up on them years ago. I'm a orangaholic and bought my first Stihl 024 Super in 1984. I have 6 other Stihls and the 024 still gets worked on a regular basis. Chainsaw brand opinions run deep, but the bottom line is a pro saw in Stihl, Husky, Dolmar, etc will put a big smile on your face every time you fire it up.

Rick,
I keep thinking about getting a "real" chainsaw. But I keep putting it off. Basically, I just dislike shopping, even for guy toys.
Obed

 

[Obed]

I have 11 pallets full of firewood. I had thought that that would be enough to get us through the rest of the winter. However, we have been going through the wood fast with the colder nights in the mid-20s. Also, since the wood is not seasoned like it should be, it isn't adding as much heat to the house as dry wood and requires more wood in the fireplace.

 

[Willl]

That's strange. Even with the missing clip I would of thought your pinch bolts would of kept it in place.

Are you lifting on the bar before tightening your pinch bolts ?

 

[Obed]

We have noticed in the last couple of weeks that the fireplace hasn't been drafting well. Opening the fireplace doors to add wood tended to let a lot of smoke into the living room. On Friday the fire was almost out when I returned home in the evening. I decided to let the coals burn out so I could clean the chimney saturday when we had a sunny forecast.

Saturday morning I fixed breakfast for the family and leasurely got ready for the day while it warmed up a little outside. I was 34 degrees F with no breeze when I went out onto the roof. I was wearing 4 shirts, long underwear, and two coats and was actually comfortable.

It took two trips to the chimney to carry the ladder and all my tools. One of the blue bags contains the rope. The other blue bag contains various tools including a screwdriver, a small hand brush, some gloves, etc. If you look carefully, you can see the top of the black chimney sweep brush beside the blue bag sitting on the shingles. Inside the long white bag under the ladder are six 5' long fiberglass chimney sweep rods.



I tied the rope around the chimney, then tied the rope to my rock-climbing harness. Tying that rope around the chimney was rather slow. My wife suggested that I might install a eye bolt to the side of the chimney framing for attaching a safety rope next time. I really like that idea. The time it takes to tie that long rope around the chimney and get it just the right length tempts me to skip using the safety rope. However, one slip climbing on top of that chimney would be disastrous.

When I removed the top off of the chimney cap, it became obvious why the chimney was having difficulty drafting. The creosote had almost completely clogged the vent holes around the chimney cap. You can also see the creosote on the sides of the stainless steal flue. While the chimney flue needed cleaning, I doubt it was causing the drafting problem. The drafting problem was caused by the clogged chimney cap.



I used a hand brush to clean the chimney cap and dropped the residue down the chimney flue.



I was then ready to clean the flue with my chimney brush. Cleaning my chimney is pretty easy using the brush and the rods. I just push the brush down the hole and move it in a reciprocating up and down motion as I work the brush down the chimney. When I have worked the brush down 5 feet, I screw on another 5 foot rod section and continue the process. I make sure the rod sections are screwed together snuggly using a couple of wrenches. I would have a real problem if the rod sections came apart in the middle of the chimney.



You can see how much creosote was in the chimney. Yes, I have been burning wood that is not well seasoned. I also do not always burn a hot fire in the mornings. We keep the fire smouldering with the combustion air supply turned as low as it will go most of the time. When the temps are in the 20s we may open the air supply up a little in order to get a little more heat into the house. I just figure it is easier to clean the fireplace periodically than to burn extra wood every day. With our wet wood, I doubt a hot fire would clean the flue anyway.



Maybe I'll have seasoned wood to burn next year???

 

[Obed]

That's strange. Even with the missing clip I would of thought your pinch bolts would of kept it in place.

Are you lifting on the bar before tightening your pinch bolts ?

Willl,
Yes I lift the bar up before tightening the bolts.

Obed

 

[MotorSeven]

"Maybe I'll have seasoned wood to burn next year???"

All of us wood burners need to be a minimum of two years ahead on wood(no, I'm not but that's fixin to change). I guess you already know that if that creosote had managed to catch it burns at 2,000 degrees...enough to melt steel and a house fire would be a real possibility. Sweep once a month when burning green wood which is anything that has not been cut split and stacked for at least a year. Smoldering green/wet wood is really bad and makes twice the creosote, but I know sometimes we do what we gotta do.........