Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[heavy hammer]

Our winters are like that here the past few years just wet and mud. It never freezes anymore makes trying to use the tractor tough. I do not care for the cold but I would take frozen for a few months over rain and mud for months on end.

 

[wolc123]

Winter just does not want let go, up here in the NW corner of NY state. I had to go out to southern CA for work over the last week but it was so cold here at home that my wife burned up every last piece of firewood I had left up on the porch for her.

They are calling for a few more days of cold temperatures, so I brought up another light bucket load of ash, which will put us at around 5-3/4 face cords for the season. I’m down to some cherry in the woodshed now, and I’d like to save that fur the coldest part of next winter. There is room in the woodshed for about 3/4 of a face cord on top of that on that end, and I’ll probably top that off with ash for next fall.

I started a little work on the west end wall of my splitting shed today, getting an exterior door and window that I recovered from our house during a recent kitchen remodel, and a 5–1/2” square hand-hewn white oak barn beam I salvaged from my great great grandads old 1880’s barn, to use as the base for that wall.

I recently made big swinging doors for the east end of that splitting shed (soon to be fully enclosed porch area between pole barn and woodshed lean-to). I like to split wood indoors on rainy days and I’ll be able to open up the man door and window on the new west end wall and the swinging doors on the east end, to get a nice cross breeze and carry away the fumes from my gasoline powered splitter. The covered roof will also be nice for splitting on sunny days in the summer.

 

[Dukeisok]

My log splitter is a Frankenstein's Monster of a device. I think my grandfather built it decades ago to run off a 3 point hitch. It has a 4 in bore 30 in stroke cylinder. There are removable blockk that allow you to reposition the cylinder away extend the split 6 or 12 inches, though I am not sure why you would ever want to split 42 in logs. My other grandfather was still heating his home with wood until the day he died so we repurposed the splitter with a 2 hp electric motor and small hydraulic pump. The controls and reservoir came off of some unknown implement that is at least 30 years older than me. With that cylinder it is terribly slow but you can't stop it. It was great for my then 12 year old to run without the risk of getting away from him. I don't do slow, so I welded a 2 inch hitch tube to it and plumbed 3/4 lines and a new control valve in parallel with the first. Installed three-way valves so you can still run the electric if you choose. I put flat face connectors on it so that I could run it off of my tractor rear auxiliary Hydraulics at 9 gallons per minute or and my preference, run it off of my skid steer at 40 gallons a minute High flow. It will flat out split some wood at 40 gallons a minute High flow. That's something like 75 hydraulic horsepower. Completely ridiculous Overkill but fun nonetheless when I'm not feeling crazy I just idle the skid steer and I think it has something like 16 gpm at idle

 

[Gordon Gould]

My log splitter is a Frankenstein's Monster of a device. I think my grandfather built it decades ago to run off a 3 point hitch. It has a 4 in bore 30 in stroke cylinder. There are removable blockk that allow you to reposition the cylinder away extend the split 6 or 12 inches, though I am not sure why you would ever want to split 42 in logs. My other grandfather was still heating his home with wood until the day he died so we repurposed the splitter with a 2 hp electric motor and small hydraulic pump. The controls and reservoir came off of some unknown implement that is at least 30 years older than me. With that cylinder it is terribly slow but you can't stop it. It was great for my then 12 year old to run without the risk of getting away from him. I don't do slow, so I welded a 2 inch hitch tube to it and plumbed 3/4 lines and a new control valve in parallel with the first. Installed three-way valves so you can still run the electric if you choose. I put flat face connectors on it so that I could run it off of my tractor rear auxiliary Hydraulics at 9 gallons per minute or and my preference, run it off of my skid steer at 40 gallons a minute High flow. It will flat out split some wood at 40 gallons a minute High flow. That's something like 75 hydraulic horsepower. Completely ridiculous Overkill but fun nonetheless when I'm not feeling crazy I just idle the skid steer and I think it has something like 16 gpm at idle

Interesting unit. Pretty neat how it evolved over the generations !!

gg

 

[wolc123]

I’ve got the day off of work for Good Friday and really should get outside and finish up the west wall of my splitter shed. It’s 30 degrees out there now and supposed to hit 32 around 9:00 am. Don’t look like much more freezing temps in the long range forecast, tonight and maybe again next Saturday.

It’s tough to leave the warm comfort of the house, in front of the wood stove, but daylights a burnin so I best do it.

 

[Jstpssng]

I’ve got the day off of work for Good Friday and really should get outside and finish up the west wall of my splitter shed. It’s 30 degrees out there now and supposed to hit 32 around 9:00 am. Don’t look like much more freezing temps in the long range forecast, tonight and maybe again next Saturday.

It’s tough to leave the warm comfort of the house, in front of the wood stove, but daylights a burnin so I best do it.
View attachment 859487

It's pouring rain here. On Monday my snowsled quit 2 1/2 miles out in the woods, and I'm just waiting for the weather to break so that I can go retrieve it. So far it's poured every day since, and looks like Sunday before it breaks. I had planned on dragging it out with my ATV but may be able to drive to it instead. If I had a trailer I'd go get it with my tractor.

 

[Gordon Gould]

It's pouring rain here. On Monday my snowsled quit 2 1/2 miles out in the woods, and I'm just waiting for the weather to break so that I can go retrieve it. So far it's poured every day since, and looks like Sunday before it breaks. I had planned on dragging it out with my ATV but may be able to drive to it instead. If I had a trailer I'd go get it with my tractor.

Is it to heavy to pick up with the bucket and some straps ? The snow came down dry here on Saturday and plowed good Sunday but on Monday when I plowed out a camp it was like concrete.

gg

 

[Rockbadchild]

Like I said, it was a heavy leaner hanging over my saw yard. Cut the face cut and when cutting the back cut internal pressure took over and it broke loose too early! but its down now so just clean up time left.

Sometime the internal integrity of the tree is compromise some tree are just prone to barber chair this one looks like one of them... pure bad luck and glad nothing serious happen...

Not to criticize, simply a observation/conservation and open for debate but to me your notch look like it was on the small side. Not to say it's not good or the main cause because it dose look like it's a perfect text book notch example at 1/4 of the tree diameter but myself I tend to go with at least 3/8 of the tree diameters with my notch's, espicially on heavy leaner and bigger diameter trees. I know there is multiples factor at play and lots of different opinion but this is mine in general...

 

[arrow]

Sometime the internal integrity of the tree is compromise some tree are just prone to barber chair this one looks like one of them... pure bad luck and glad nothing serious happen...

Not to criticize, simply a observation/conservation and open for debate but to me your notch look like it was on the small side. Not to say it's not good or the main cause because it dose look like it's a perfect text book notch example at 1/4 of the tree diameter but myself I tend to go with at least 3/8 of the tree diameters with my notch's, espicially on heavy leaner and bigger diameter trees. I know there is multiples factor at play and lots of different opinion but this is mine in general...

Making a sufficiently sized drop side notch is part of the equation and there are details about that I won't go into here as to the shape of the notch.
Heavy leaners almost always demand a strap cut where you plunge the saw into the tree at the desired hinge size and work your way back to the fall cut side but not all the way through leaving what's called a "strap" that maintains tree stance.
When you're ready to drop the tree, this strap is cut into like a regular drop cut.
This maneuver eliminates all the inside part of the tree that helps create the barber chair effect.
The species of the tree also is a consideration as to the type of falling cut even if leaning a little bit or hardly at all being predicated as to the predominant growth side of the crown itself.

 

[wolc123]

My splitter shed west end wall is coming along pretty good. It’s all framed in now and the window and door are installed. I put the window extra low, to equalize the upper and lower wall supports, and to make for a little more comfortable deer blind.

We’ve been having a mid-September antlerless gun season, the last few years, and they are often in my sweetcorn and clover fields out back at that time.

I hauled a selection of siding boards around from the east end, where I made the swinging doors a few weeks ago. Those doors work very well and are nice and level. Just a few more boards to nail up, and this project will be nearly finished. All that will remain to be done is the east half of the interior wall across the back of the woodshed.

Before I can build that, I’ve got to get rid of some longer (up to 16 ft) 9” square hand hewn chestnut and oak beams that I recovered from my great great grandads 1880’s barns, and that are stacked across inside. A guy is supposed to be coming to get them with a trailer but no telling when he will show up.