Wood storage

[harley1782000]

Got a question for all you wood burning people, When you stack your wood do you put couple inches of stone down for draining or just right on the ground???

[nick1234]

usually put 2 poles 8 ft helps to judge  length of the run  and lets bottom wood dry 
and in winter when its covered in snow you know when you at the bottom and you should have cut more wood

[SteveCH]

You want it off the ground, at least a couple inches. It will absorb moisture thru the soil otherwise and be more likely to grow fungus and/or be home to insects and etc. If you are gonna be using it in short time, no big deal, but if it's gonna be sitting there a while, keep it off the ground. You spent all that energy getting it, keep it in good shape.

All sorts of options...old pallets, 2 x 4s, stones as you mentioned, anything to keep it elevated and it's best to have an air space below the stack.

[harley1782000]

I was going to lay about 6 inches of stone and then stack the wood on top of that.  That way no contact with ground and water is able to run threw the stones.

[TomW]

Jim;

I am not picky and I cut it to burn it not keep it for longer than a couple years.

I have access to haul them away and they are  yours pallets so I use them mostly so the wood is not frozen to the ground on the bottom.  Downsides are they do rot away in a couple years so they get a bit treacherous to walk over and eventually must be replaced.

Stone would work. Concrete would work.  I have used poles as mentioned by someone.

If I used stone I would use the bigger 2 inch stuff as it seems it would be less prone to getting stuck to the wood and hauled into the house.

Up here in snow country you need a cover more than you need a floor. This holds about 5 average years of wood for us mostly Oak, Walnut, HIckory and Hackberry (sometimes called Hornbeam):



Here is how I gather it:



Just how we do it here.

Getting it off the ground is nice but not essential.

I am not an expert but have burned wood most of my adult life for what it is worth.

Nothing beats a nice fire when the snow is deep and the wind is howling and the power goes out. Unless it is enhanced with lights from that same wind, of course

Tom

[harley1782000]

Like the 4 wheeler chain in the last pic.  Nice!  I got the old 8n for the moving and hauling aspect.  I have been burning wood for a couple of years now myself.  I just need a better way to store it.  I actually stored allot of it in my garage when I first started.  Filled the one bay up as far as I could get it.  Plus had a small electric log spliter and the some heat I was set to split all day long.  Now I got the gas log spliter and bigger stuff.  Thanks for sharing some info.

Jim

[Janne]

Hi,

This is my method for making & storing wood.. First of all, the bottom for the storage is lifted from the ground with concrete slabs and old car wheels, so that there is about 30cm(~1feet) of clearance between the firewood and ground. On top of those are laid some longer pieces of wood, and the first layer of firewood is layed by hand, so that they don't fall in between.



Usually i stard with larger pieces of wood, that I split with the tractor PTO screw splitter. From them it's easy to pile up the walls and create the first layer of wood.



After the bottom layer has been finished, and some additional firewood thrown in there, then the rest can be cut directly into storage with this quillotine type machine. It both cuts and splits in a single operation, so it's quite fast for the job.

[harley1782000]

I have never heard or seen of a screw spliter.  How well does that work?

[12AX7]

Hello!

I've seen a home made "screw" style wood splitter,  but not one that ran off of a PTO.   Is your PTO capable of running in reverse?

I'd like to see some video of both the splitter and your "quillotine"  machine in action!   

I wonder how one would go about getting them OSHA approved?

ax7
Mark

[Janne]

Hi,

The PTO will not reverse on my tractor.. Sometimes the log jams in the screw, but it's rather easy just to cut it with the chainsaw enough to weaken it enough to remove. It is quite fast, but you can't split as big of a logs with it as with a hydraulic splitter. Also, one needs to be really careful with the screw, as in not to get hit if the wood starts spinning, or not have any of the clothes stick to the screw.. It has a switch going to the fuel cut-off, but it takes a while to wind down from the working RPM, so getting anything caught in there would be a bad idea.
I'll shoot a video later on from the screw splitter.

The picture of guillotine machine is actually from our old machine. For this spring we bought a new very similar one, marketing video can be found here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE6TXEe3l6g&feature=player_embedded

It features a longer and wider conveyor, the biggest improvement is that it only very rarely jams, the old red one was jamming the conveyor mayby with every 20th wood you stuck in there.. really annoying. I like to work with a tad slower speed than what the guy uses in the video, that pace would bring too much sweat to the forehead..
The quillotine machine has proven quite reliable, like the old one we bought this new machine along with 13 other nearby households, and even with such a large use, the old one lasted 16 years.

[TomW]

Janne;

I think I asked this on IRC but I do not see that quillotine machine being useful on our northern hardwoods here. Stuff like Oak, Hickory and Hackberry woiuld probably stop it in its first inch of cuttoff travel.

I used one of those screw splitters driven off a pickup rear wheels position.

Scary device but it did work.  I also found it was very limited on size of the stick you could split and it was flat useless on anything like White Elm that is stringy.  When it ate the Black Sabbath T shirt right off me I quit using it. That was in the '70s sometime.Scared the bejesus out of me which was not a trivial thing to do in those days

That quillotine machine would be very slick on the right material and fed from a rick of small diameter logs.

Thanks for the share.

Tom

[12AX7]

Hello!

"The picture of guillotine machine is actually from our old machine. For this spring we bought a new very similar one, marketing video can be found here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE6TXEe3l6g&feature=player_embedded"

*YIKES*    forget OSHA!

I agree with Tom,  I doubt that that blade would "swing" through some of the hard wood I've split.
Who ever feeds that machine had better keep a close eye on his fingers, hands, arms and neck!

ax7

[Janne]

TomW,

Indeed, for hardwoods it's not so effective. Sorbus is one from the harder end around here, and those are limited to a maxium of around 12cm (5inches) in diameter, any larger than that and the blade will usually be really well stuck into the wood.

Most of the raw material for firewood around here is birch and alder, soft enough to be cut to 20cm and above.. In my album there are also a couple of more pictures showing the kind of wood the quillotine is suited for.. http://pics.ww.com/v/Janne/puuntekoa/

[Janne]

I shot a couple of short clips while working with the splitter. Picture quality is not so good, but the best i can do with the camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd6lFfCUtj8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vl_44cEq_I

[12AX7]

Hello!

Thanks for the video.  I had imagined it working differently,  thought the "screw"  pressed the 'head' into the wood.
It looks...  fierce!, any chance of a close up (picture)of the screw/wedge head?
It appears that the thread is non-aggressive, feeds into the logs both smooth and easy.
I could see where a log could "get away" from one,
The video makes the operation look simple,  I've buried one and two iron splitting wedges in our wood here (not sure what kind of trees)
the wood is very fibrous,  only way I could describe it would be with a whole bunch of four letter words.. does burn nice though..

ax7
Mark

[harley1782000]

I think that screw slitter is pretty nice.  I borrow my father in-laws hydraulic log splitter and I really don't like it.  Pain in the butt to move all the time.  I always have the ford 8n out when I am doing wood so that 3pt type screw splitter would be nice.  As to the safety concerns of the screw type.  Ya I can see some problems there.  But in my book anything that is run by an engine and sometimes not can be dangerous if you do not use it properly.

Jim 

[TomW]

Jim;

Does that 8N have live hydraulics?

If I had that my splitter would be run off that and they [or you could] make 3 pt  splitters.

Just a thought in case it didn't dawn on you to try it.

More than one way to defur a feline, bud.

Just tossing stuff on the wall to see what sticks.

Not enough cash on the planet to induce me to use a screw splitter again. But then, I ain't 20 anymore. Or 30, or 40 or even 50.

Tom

[Norm]

Not enough cash on the planet to induce me to use a screw splitter again. But then, I ain't 20 anymore. Or 30, or 40 or even 50.

Tom

I read this before I read the first part and thought they were
talking about a screw driven wedge splitter....something like a friend
of mine had with an electric motor and always thought it was a
neat economical way of splitting....so I was wondering what the
heck you were talking about until I went to the first part of this thread
and saw a pic of a screw splitter...

Oh No! I've never split a log in my life but I think I would rather split
all the logs with a wedge and a maul than try even one with that!

[fabricator]

Until I started making bio diesel and burning it in an oil furnace, I heated with wood, big old farm hose my shop and sometimes part of the pole barn, I built a wood boiler, the boiler is in my shop so some radiant heat heats the shop, I usually burned 10-15 cords a year, so for 30 years I was basically a professional wood cutter splitter and burner
I have a splitter I built that has a log lift so I can roll four foot oak slabs on it then lift it to the beam, the wedge is a four way wedge so it splits stuff into four pieces, then it gets pushed off the apron onto a hydraulic conveyor driven by the pump on the splitter, the conveyor drops it into apple boxes 4'x4'x3' deep, then the hilo stacks the apple  boxes.
when it's time to burn it the over head crane in the pole barn moves it to the boiler, I love the evenness of wood heat, but I hate cutting and splitting wood so I made it as painless as possible, that rotary splitter thing is cool as hell but around here we would call that kindling or gofer wood, I'd have to stand at the boiler 24/7 throwing that little stuff in.

[harley1782000]

No I don't have any remotes on my 8n.  All I have is the 3pt and the power take off.  I was going to build a wedge type for my 3pt and run the pump off of the pto.  But the screw has just caught my eye.  Probally because the darn thing could kill me is why I am intrigue by it.

Jim

[smidy]

here is a comersial  videoclip of the machine that i use to splitt my loggs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViFi01iyiJQ  but my is the tractor/pto verision.

[Janne]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E17m8mmJVm0&feature=related

This year I also set up the camera for a short clip of the guillotine machine in action.. With a couple of days of practice behind it's actually almost as fast as in the marketing video
Like fabricator mentioned earlier, it makes quite a lot of small kindling, but with the type of boiler(underburning) we have there it's not a very big problem. The burn time per one loading stays rather constant no matter if the wood is small or in bigger logs. Just the air inlet of the boiler needs to be adjusted accordingly.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Diverging from, but related to, the original question:

Be sure you DON'T rack the wood up against the side of a house.  A woodpile is a "termite antenna" so you want a nontrivial number of feet of gap between your wood and your buildings.  Inconvenient for getting wood in the snow.  But lots more convenient than having the house collapse.

[Boss]

... so for 30 years I was basically a professional wood cutter splitter and burner   

I have a splitter I built that has a log lift so I can roll four foot oak slabs on it then lift it to the beam, the wedge is a four way wedge so it splits stuff into four pieces, then it gets pushed off the apron onto a hydraulic conveyor driven by the pump on the splitter, the conveyor drops it into apple boxes 4'x4'x3' deep, then the hilo stacks the apple  boxes.  

    My god man, you always go overboard don't you?

[Boss]

Diverging from, but related to, the original question:

Be sure you DON'T rack the wood up against the side of a house.  A woodpile is a "termite antenna" so you want a nontrivial number of feet of gap between your wood and your buildings.  Inconvenient for getting wood in the snow.  But lots more convenient than having the house collapse.

In the Southwest (USA) we've got more bark beetles than termites, same rules though