Tractors and wood! Show your pics

   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #19,021  
After continually stacking, covering, moving, and re-stacking wood that first year, we set out for change. I set-up a little "production line" to build "pods" to hold and dry wood. A local hardware store has many left over hardwood pallets for sale ($2/ea).

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The first proto pod was built on a 48"x 48" pallet but the 2520 couldn't lift it when loaded. The final design is based on the more common 40"x 48" pallet. Heavy hardwoods and an aggressive fill sometimes creates a load that is all the 2520 can handle but becomes more reasonable 10 months later when the wood is dry.

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I built 3 at a time; I think each 'batch' used 9 treated 8' studs. The highest cost item was the corrugated roof sheets. Four pods hold a cord of wood. I built 32 pods and usually have 3 or 4 left full in the Spring when burning season is over.

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It was not a small investment but has been wonderful to use. When splitting, we place 2 empties behind the splitter and load them once. The wood is not handled again until it is used the next Winter. Love it!

The tractor has a front SB mounted through the Winter leaving the 3 point free for a rear blade or rear pallet forks. 2 pods are placed each week and the empties taken away. I do have to snow blow a path to and from the stash some weeks. The first year I had one issue when the loaded pods had froze to the ground; I could not lift several. The next year I fastened 3- 2"x2" runners to the bottom of each and laid treated 2x4's down on the ground before setting. Now the 2x4's have sunken flush and the pods lift off without issue. The system has been working well for us!


Not a fan of stacking. Once I got my tractor things changed.
I can't afford the metal totes ( $100.00 here) so I make mine out of wood pallets 42 x42. Almost all red oak. 3 pallets make a cord.
I try to stack them 2 high. I can't lift a full one ( freshly split and green weighs 1630lbs) to the top so I lift one 2/3 full and then top off.
After a couple of years year a full on is lifted just fine (1176lbs dry) A lot of water weight gone.
Then I top cover and one cover does 2 skids of wood (in the back row).
I tell my neighbor that I'm making a wood fence.
I have a few more skids to fill and stack then I'm done for now.
These pallet racks last for 6-8 years. The sacrificial skid on the bottom just 3 years.
If the bottom skid is frozen to ground leave it and lift upper skid
 

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   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #19,022  
Haha, I upgraded tractors pretty much just to be able to fill by IBCs up to the top and carry confidently. (800 lbs more loader capacity and SSQA to keep the forks close, far better now). So I guess you could say that IBC's cost me more like $25 grand lol.
:) Maybe LoaderMan was right about the real cost of wood :)

gg
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #19,023  
:) Maybe LoaderMan was right about the real cost of wood :)

gg
Haha yep. Or you could say, more like the cost of this whole lifestyle that i chose. It does take a lot of investment, tools and supplies to live deep in the woods! Could have bought a townhouse condo instead. But then i would be so bored.
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #19,024  
Haha yep. Or you could say, more like the cost of this whole lifestyle that i chose. It does take a lot of investment, tools and supplies to live deep in the woods! Could have bought a townhouse condo instead. But then i would be so bored.
I also live "in the woods".
My bride on the other hand used to be a woodsy person but has since altered to being a "beach" person.
Those 3 wks we rent a house on the shore are my most miserable time of the year.
Only thing that keeps me afloat is seeing the joy in my wife's eyes when she's down there.
I don't go on the beach. I fix things around the house we stay at.
There is nothing to fix there that entails a chainsaw and tractor however.
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #19,026  
I was back on the job about 50 miles from my place yesterday, and it was a REALLY busy day!

I spent the first half of the day cutting out down tree's and skidding them out for firewood,

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This pict. doesn't do justice to how steep this hill was that I had to skid over to get the logs out,

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After a late lunch, the "boss" decided he wanted to move his deer blind that was sunk out in a swamp! This was a BIG job, as the blind was built on one of those "runway" carts with "little" hard rubber tires and it had been sunk there for a LONG time. He wanted me to back out into the swamp, hook it to the tractors drawbar and pull it out. AND there's no way I was backing out in that wet, mud filled swamp, unless my "skidding winch" was pointing OUT! lol

Anyway, I ended up driving out into the swamp, running a chain to my loader and backing out a little at a time, putting logs and boards in the holes to keep the top heavy blind from tipping over.

I figured if I got stuck coming out backwards, I could use the skidding winch to pull myself out, but in the end I got it out to a skidding trail, turned around and pulled it to it's new spot, with a chain,

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With that done, the next job, was pulling boulders out of the ground. I'd drive my pallet forks into the ground under the boulder, grapple it, put the tractor in reverse and pull the boulder out of the ground,

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Some of the boulders were pretty big,

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It was dark by the time he asked me to go out in the woods and recover his tinkertoy deere tractor/rotary cutter that another guy was using. It was broke down with the 3 point lift linkage all bent up. SO, I went out and found the guy, took the bent parts off and used my pallet forks/hydraulics to bend things back straight. After getting it all back together, I sent the guy on his way out...

I was glad to have my day over, and they were glad to have there tractor fixed. lol

SR
 
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   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #19,027  
Sawyer, now here's a case where velcro might come in handy with your chainsaw carpet rest.
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #19,028  
Not a fan of stacking. Once I got my tractor things changed.
I can't afford the metal totes ( $100.00 here) so I make mine out of wood pallets 42 x42. Almost all red oak. 3 pallets make a cord.
I try to stack them 2 high. I can't lift a full one ( freshly split and green weighs 1630lbs) to the top so I lift one 2/3 full and then top off.
After a couple of years year a full on is lifted just fine (1176lbs dry) A lot of water weight gone.
Then I top cover and one cover does 2 skids of wood (in the back row).
I tell my neighbor that I'm making a wood fence.
I have a few more skids to fill and stack then I'm done for now.
These pallet racks last for 6-8 years. The sacrificial skid on the bottom just 3 years.
If the bottom skid is frozen to ground leave it and lift upper skid

Wish I could have something like you have there but the copperheads would take the place.
Have seriously considered building a woodshed lined with hardware cloth to at least keep the bigger ones out.
 
   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #19,029  
I took a couple pictures this afternoon. There was a good size (for fir) double tree close to the edge of the road. One stem leaned in towards the woods and the other out towards the road and power line. The one on the woods side died recently so I thought the other one would be close behind. Fir on my lot, when they reach that size, are near their end and can blow over any time. So I thought it would be prudent to take them down before they fell or blew down. I cut the dead one first. It had some rot in it but I have seen much worse on living trees. I cut the stump pretty high to be well above the wood pecker cavity in the back. I got a couple 12 foot logs from the top but the butt was pretty much wasted and I let it lay. I rigged a snatch block in the woods and used the winch to pull the road leaner back into the woods. To my surprise that stem was solid. I find very few butts w/o significant rot in trees that size. Here it is

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There is a lot of limbing when you can take a softwood saw log down to 6". The saw (orange spec) is way down there at 56'.

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I decided to pull out two 26' logs to make four 12'ers. I winched the whole thing ahead before I cut it to make sure the second 26'er would be clear of all the slash and come out easy.

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Then I pulled the hitch together and skidded it to the little landing.

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gg
 
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   / Tractors and wood! Show your pics #19,030  
Sawyer, now here's a case where velcro might come in handy with your chainsaw carpet rest.
I have a bungie that I sometimes use, but the saw stays put good enough that I rarely use it.

SR
 
 
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