Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[WinterDeere]

I have a Huskee Splitter with a B&S motor I bought used, well used, 12 years ago. The gas tank started vibrating more than normal. Then got worse. When I needed to hold down the recoil starter when I pulled the rope with the other hand I decided I better take a look. I took off the gas take and found the cowl the starter is mounted on had become very brittle - from vibrion hardening I guess. One of the right angle mounting ears was broken off and the other was partially broken. I put on a band-aid.


View attachment 3221607

On the other side there are a spider web of cracks emanating from the two bolt holes. I put another band-aid there too. All solid for now.


View attachment 3221608


gg

I have the original vertical shaft Briggs 675e from my Huskee, if you want it. Any price on the cheap side of fair, and it's yours, Gordon!

Then again, there's a certain satisfaction with keeping that old beast limping along. That's an itch my newer motor would never scratch.

 

[goeduck]

nah, most of us can convert just fine in our heads. I'm so used to seeing cm on rulers that I don't even think about it... 30cm = 1 ft and 2.54 cm = 1 inch. Easy.

But I'm just not used to seeing a tape measure that's only cm, so it plays a bit of a trick on the eye. All our tape measures here are either inch-only or dual-scale (inch/cm), never cm-only.

Speaking of tape measures, I recently bought an engineer's scale tape measure. Feet with decimal, no fractional inches. Haven't used it much yet.

 

[wolc123]

I have the original vertical shaft Briggs 675e from my Huskee, if you want it. Any price on the cheap side of fair, and it's yours, Gordon!

Then again, there's a certain satisfaction with keeping that old beast limping along. That's an itch my newer motor would never scratch.

I can understand why you need to maximize the efficiency from your splitter, processing 10 cords of firewood each year. That’s about 5 times what I do.

I don’t worry too much about efficiency while splitting, because we get lots of rainy days here, half way between Lakes Erie and Ontario. Those are the days that I like to split.

I’m kind of glad that my 20 year old, 5hp Honda powered 22 ton 4” Northern splitter don’t go any faster. Splitting a half face cord bucketload with it yesterday, in the horizontal position, was about the funnest part of my day. Unloading that, to top off the far end of the woodshed, was the best part.

I’ve got about another half face cord stacked in the splitter shed, waiting on the next rain. After all the rain that we had the last few days, it might be a while until I can get any more chunked up and hauled out the woods to add to that.

I’m kind of excited about starting on the second fill of my relatively new woodshed. I couldn’t quite fit the whole bucketload in the far end, after topping that last row off yesterday, so there’s about a wheel barrel or so that was left, now starting on front end.

I made a slight modification to the woodshed design on the second half, eliminating the center, outer support beam. That makes it easier to access it from the back side with my tractor bucket to load and unload. 7 ft long, vertical 2 x 6 boards, supported by just top and bottom, are plenty strong enough to hold the 1.5 face cord rows up, without that center beam.

There is enough room in between, for about 12 more face cords. With all the dead ash falling lately, the getting is pretty good around here right now. I imagine I’ll have that woodshed jammed pretty full, by the end of the summer.

I drilled a nice heavy (probably just over 100 lbs) front ballast plate yesterday, to bolt onto the front bracket of my dad’s JD770. That should allow me to load quite a bit more wood on the three point carryall, with each trip from the big woods over there.

I’m going to run over there after church this morning and try to get that plate mounted up. It drilled pretty easily. I’m just hoping that my holes will line up well enough to get the (4) 3/8” bolts in and that my 60 year old back holds up to the lift, to get it on there.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I have the original vertical shaft Briggs 675e from my Huskee, if you want it. Any price on the cheap side of fair, and it's yours, Gordon!

Then again, there's a certain satisfaction with keeping that old beast limping along. That's an itch my newer motor would never scratch.

Thank you very much, that is good of you to make that offer. I will remember that you have that motor. It seems that vertical shaft motors in the 6.5 hp range are getting hard to find.

gg

 

[wolc123]

The front weight attachment on dad’s little CUT went very well today. I thought the bolts that I grabbed were 3/8”, but they turned out to be 7/16”. He had 2” lg ones, over there in his shop, so I saved the longer ones that I had grabbed from my stock at home.

2” was just long enough for full nut engagement, a flat and a lock washer, and the tractor bracket. It wouldn’t pass, as a Navy Mil Spec job because there’s not 3-5 threads beyond the nut, but plenty good enough for a “farmer fix”. The hole alignment turned out just about perfect (I’d rather be lucky than good). I calculated the weight of the new front ballast plate at 106 lbs.

It looks like the lever to the back axle is about 3 times that to the center of the carryall, so I should be able to get at least 300 lbs more firewood on it.

With my spare time, I also removed the top back support board from the carryall, which was loose. That’s good for an extra piece or two of firewood on it.

It should be a real good firewood hauler now, with the chains still on the rear turfs for traction assist. They reported that another big dead ash went down over there, blocking a front woods trail, so I’ve already got a job lined up for it next weekend.

It was a little too wet today, after yesterdays all day rain, to get right on it. The ground dries real fast over there, compared to here, at home. Nobody really needs 4wd tractors in that neighborhood.

 

[WinterDeere]

nice work! Looks like an 855 or 955?

 

[wolc123]

nice work! Looks like an 855 or 955?

Just a wee little 770. Runs like a watch though and only has 2000 easy hours on it. A little cramped on the operators platform for me though, but way better than any atv for firewood work.

 

[mike0000]

Storm cleanup today on one of our trails.

 

[ArtMech]

View attachment 3229310View attachment 3229311

Storm cleanup today on one of our trails.

Does anyone know why tree trunks grow moss? I know, it's normal. But lately it seems that moss growth has accelerated and is total. Everything grows moss, trees, rocks, concrete, metal, rubber products, plastic... You leave something outdoors for a month, another, and it already grows moss. Maybe it's because of climate change or polluted air? It seems like it wasn't like this 30-50 years ago.
And I wanted to ask you personally, is it convenient to use this mesh box from the water tank to transport firewood? To load, unload. You probably transport it with pallet forks. Does the tractor easily lift it, especially when the wood is damp or of high density? I'm thinking about purchasing one.

 

[mike0000]

Does anyone know why tree trunks grow moss? I know, it's normal. But lately it seems that moss growth has accelerated and is total. Everything grows moss, trees, rocks, concrete, metal, rubber products, plastic... You leave something outdoors for a month, another, and it already grows moss. Maybe it's because of climate change or polluted air? It seems like it wasn't like this 30-50 years ago.
And I wanted to ask you personally, is it convenient to use this mesh box from the water tank to transport firewood? To load, unload. You probably transport it with pallet forks. Does the tractor easily lift it, especially when the wood is damp or of high density? I'm thinking about purchasing one.

Hi ArtMech,

Not sure on the accelerated moss growth, I’m not sure I’ve noticed it in the 50+ years i’ve been on this property.

I went to the tote cages a few years ago and really like them. I was handling the firewood way too much, before totes I would load log rounds onto my trailer ( pulled by RTV900) Then transport to splitting area, then split and back on trailer then to shed to stack.
My splitter is PTO driven attached to three point hitch, forks on loader to transport totes.
If possible I take tractor w/forks/ tote and splitter right to the tree or drag logs to a good cutting area. I set the empty tote on the ground and position it and splitter to an efficient location near logs/tree to be split. Split and fill the tote.
I then transport full tote to drying area, I cut the tote bladder top/bottom into a lid for the totes, wood is stored outside.
My tractor is a L3901 Kubota, I haven’t experienced a full tote it wouldn’t lift/transport, counterweight is essential, three point splitter is ok as ballast but I keep the forks as low as possible. I think I’m up to 7 totes and keeping an eye out for more. I also use my three point hitch splitter to lift 4 or more rounds to a good working height. I have added side “wings” that fold up when not in use to the splitter. As I age I’m doing everything I can to make tasks easier. Hope this helps.