Cut-off guides for firewood

[JerryK]

I have an 18" piece of old oak chair leg painted bright orange and a yellow lumber crayon. I mark up the whole log and mark the bad crotches or other abnormal stuff shorter. Cut the whole thing up, split the nice stuff for dryings/burning some future winter, and take the abnormal green chunks into the barn to burn this winter... Everything smaller than 4" gets whacked up by eye and taken into the barn for this winter, except the little stuff, which I chip up.. Buggy areas or rotted stuff gets piled out on the burn pile to burn after the first snow.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

I have an 18 inch bar on my Husquavarna (sp). Between that and eyeballing it, I do alright. Oak, cherry, ash, maple, birch, poplar (bleah), apple all cut and split fine at 18 inch lengths. Elm on the other hand, is so stringy and tough, I have to cut to 12 inch lengths as I'm a luddite and split all mine by hand.

Oh, and I cut pretty much where it falls. Although I will take a peevee and rotate it, or lever it up off the ground.

 

[turnkey4099]

I don't get too **** about firewood length, so eyeballing it seems to work for me. If have a real brain fart, I'll go by the length of the saw bar (18"). As long as it burns, I'm warm.

I do wonder if some sort of gauge would help...
maybe one of those bright orange plastic tubes we put on the corners of snowplows would work.
Maybe it could be bolted through the bucking teeth, or a small attaching tab could be clamped on the bottom of the handle.

Whatever it is, it should/must be either easily and quickly removable or flexible enough to fold out of the way easily. Several very good suggestions in here on 'how-to'

Harry K

 

[o2batsea]

I have a piece of two by four with a stop block glued on it at 18 inches. Hook that to the end of the log. I just butt the bar up against the end of the two-by and start my cut. I suppose those who are doing it all day long would find it kind of a pain to add this step to every cut. I don't do that much fire wood.

If one wanted to mark the wood, make a big "compass" from a pair of paint stirrers or batten stock. Make a point on one leg and zip tie a crayon wood marker on the other. Wing nut at the pivot. Set the distance between the crayon and the point and mark up a whole log at one shot. Folds up when not in use! For even better stability you could add a cross piece that has holes drilled so you could set the legs at certain distances, forming an A frame. Wing nut fasteners.

 

[LarryD]

Wow Harry, I made one of those about two years ago. I too got tired of rotating the saw and my eye-ball just had me all over the place. My stove only takes 16" stuff and there always seem to be a few sticks that didn't want to go in with out a little coaching and that was a little WARM on the hands.

The rod fits on the Husky or my junk (poulan) saw so it's right there when I need it.

 

[DJ4wd]

Theres some good reading in all these post. Myself I just eyeball it. I don't sell it, and we stack it in 8ft tall by 8ft long, and 5ft wide. We accomplish it by using "bucks" or heavy duty scaffolding that I got from work. Our wood burner will accept 21' logs, and for years I cut them 20' to maximize burning,then I got tired of cutting them to long, and like someone else mentioned having to pull a burning log out lol, So now I eyeball it at 18' or so.
BTW great site!

 

[2458n]

I have a set up that I use when cutting downed wood left to right. It uses one of the very small red laser pen light marker type pointers. A hose clamp on the bar handle and some electrical tape keeps the light pointing at the just cut end of the log. 18" down the log is the chainsaw ready to cut. Nothing to hang up or knock off. 440 MS is a good saw and currently a favorite. Good batteries can be had cheaply at the Dollar store. It did help on large logs which I would always cut long and then have to recut when they did not fit the splitter. More of a for the fun of it project then anything.

 

[beenthere]

2458n
A pic of that would be great. I don't quite see how you have it attached. Seems the squareness and levelness of the saw would be very important to it working, but like the idea/potential.

 

[59 Sons]

When I collect firewood I cut it into measured 8 foot logs and then transport a bunch at a time to my trailer with my loaders grapple. Once I have a load piled at the trailer, I take two good sized logs and lay them side by side and cut a shallow saw curf every 16 inches across the tops. I then lay the third on top of them and I have a very quick visual cut reference.

Advantages: fast sight acquisition; higher cutting height,easier on my back; no worry of putting my saw tip into the dirt; no apparatus sticking out of my saw.

I set up right behind the trailer and the wife can throw it in as fast as I can cut it. The 8 foot dimension makes for easy cord calculation and straight stacks.

Don't have any pics of the firewood, just the slash clean up.

 

[jeffinsgf]

In the woods I carry a stick cut to 48", with marks at 16". 95% of what I cut, I cut into 48" lengths. If I have a piece above or below a crotch, etc., I cut it to 16". The 48" sections get hauled to my processing area. There I throw them into a sawbuck (on the heavy ones, I drop them in from the grapple), Mark two cuts, making three 16" pieces, and make the cuts with an electric chain saw, then move to splitting. I guess I don't worry about having a convenient gauge, since I'm throwing each piece in the sawbuck anyway...the saw's already put down. I see both sides of the argument. I can't imagine something sticking a foot and a half out of my saw, but I like the idea of not putting down the saw to measure. On the other hand, I don't feel a lot of pressure to move fast. I use the time I'm marking my 48" cuts to catch my breath and enjoy the woods.