Chainsaw Sharpener

[Bill Stockard]

... I am sure you have all helped family or friends with their chain sawing needs as I have and they are looking for your "expertise" to fell a tree in a tough spot or something, they have a saw and you go to use it and it is wth is this, have you been digging trenches for the sprinkler pipe with this thing or what might as well break out an axe it would be faster and safer.

Yep, been there and done that and I thought I was the only one... :-laf :-laf:-laf

Bill

 

[BIGNASTY]

If I have to drop a tree Presicley I hand the saw to my BIL he's better than me at it and if it goes wrong I can always be mad at him. :-laf

 

[Alan Reagan]

I always prefer to hand the saw to somebody else. Especially the guys that want to keep telling me how to use it. I have just finished cutting, splitting and stacking 5 cords of hickory and oak for next winter (or three). I burned a lot of wood this year. Where were you guys? I would have bought the beer. I'm glad to be done with the 24 inch rounds. Thank goodness for hydraulic splitters.

 

[Bill Stockard]

I always prefer to hand the saw to somebody else. Especially the guys that want to keep telling me how to use it. I have just finished cutting, splitting and stacking 5 cords of hickory and oak for next winter (or three). I burned a lot of wood this year. Where were you guys? I would have bought the beer. I'm glad to be done with the 24 inch rounds. Thank goodness for hydraulic splitters.

We burn wood in the winter also for supplemental heat, but nothing near 5 cords. I cut, split (34-ton hydraulic splitter), and stack my wood at least a year before I burn it. I have enough stockpiled right now to last two winters. I only cut down diseased, dead/dying, or storm damage/broken oak, hackberry, persimmon, and hickory trees in our fence rows for firewood and haven't run out of a supply yet.

Bill

 

[Alan Reagan]

We heat primarily with wood in the winter. The Buck insert will keep the house at 68 - 70*. I use about 1 to 1.5 cords per year. I also cook a lot (up to 40 butts at a time) of pulled pork in support of a local girls travelling volleyball team. I also do some catering for various Coast Guard change of commands where I cook pork and chicken. That eats up some wood too. Then there is the wife's fire pit. :-laf Oh, yeah, my sister in law has to have her cut (no pun intended). The 5 cords will last me for a couple of years. There is a local tree service that will give me their overflow when I want/need it. This time is was two monster oaks and a big hickory. The down side is that their chipper truck was broke when he called me and I had to take all of the limbs as well. So I spent a full week skidding out the big logs so that I could get to the limbs, cut them up and haul them off. I'm set now for a while. I have a good seven months to cure the wood. My stack is 36 X 3 X 6 which is right at five cords. I will let it sit for a couple of weeks then cover it and let it cure through the summer. I still have about 1/2 cord left of my good cured wood. I'm using a Timberwolf TW-6 with a hydraulic lift and 4 way wedge to split. My wife thinks I should sell it but doing it by myself to way to much work for the money.

 

[Bill Stockard]

We heat primarily with wood in the winter. The Buck insert will keep the house at 68 - 70*. I use about 1 to 1.5 cords per year. I also cook a lot (up to 40 butts at a time) of pulled pork in support of a local girls travelling volleyball team. I also do some catering for various Coast Guard change of commands where I cook pork and chicken. That eats up some wood too. Then there is the wife's fire pit. :-laf Oh, yeah, my sister in law has to have her cut (no pun intended). The 5 cords will last me for a couple of years. There is a local tree service that will give me their overflow when I want/need it. This time is was two monster oaks and a big hickory. The down side is that their chipper truck was broke when he called me and I had to take all of the limbs as well. So I spent a full week skidding out the big logs so that I could get to the limbs, cut them up and haul them off. I'm set now for a while. I have a good seven months to cure the wood. My stack is 36 X 3 X 6 which is right at five cords. I will let it sit for a couple of weeks then cover it and let it cure through the summer. I still have about 1/2 cord left of my good cured wood. I'm using a Timberwolf TW-6 with a hydraulic lift and 4 way wedge to split. My wife thinks I should sell it but doing it by myself to way to much work for the money.

We use a Lopi energy efficient wood stove for supplemental heat during the day and it's our only use for firewood. Our dead wood cleared from the fence rows is practically free since it would be cut and placed on a brush pile and burned otherwise. We custom built our all electric home 9 years ago to be very energy efficient so it doesn't take much wood to keep it around 74 degrees during our comparatively mild winters. Once the wood stove is going in the early morning, the heat pump doesn't cycle on the rest of the day. We don't run the wood stove overnight or when we are away from home.

I don't have a Timber Wolf TW-6, just a lowly 34-ton Speeco/Huskee from TSC. It beats either a wedge and a mall or an axe which is what I used as a teenager in the '50s.

Bill

 

[Alan Reagan]

I know what you mean about the wedge, axe and maul. That's what I split with until about 5 years ago. The only reason I have a Timberwolf now is because I picked it up at a pre-auction sale 5 years ago at one heck of a price. Cheaper than what I could get the Northern Tool one for. It is a heck of splitter and the hydraulic lift and catch table makes all the difference in the world when splitting. I would like to have the 6 way wedge but refuse to pay $650 plus shipping for it. The auction had the conveyor to go with it but I didn't have a way to get it all home that day. The splitter was/is in excellent condition. Not one minutes problem with it. A firewood processor company had bought it and the conveyor to handle the larger logs that their automated processor couldn't handle and then went bankrupt. That automated processor was really nice. It was over $20K new. When I do the big rounds, I just pull the splitter to the round, lift them in and split.

Like you, our house is an energy efficient house. The heat pump only kicks on early on cold mornings if I don't get my lazy rear up and throw a couple of logs on.

Sounds like we have a lot in common. If you ever come this way, let me know. I sure like travelling to Texas. Especially when I can squeeze in a visit to Cooper's BBQ. I like to swap tips with their BBQ master when I go there. We don't do much brisket around here, mainly pork.

 

[BIGNASTY]

Splitters are both DR Power Equipment. I had a vertical splitter that mounted to the 3 point hitch on my tractor and used its hydraulics to operate. When the Family got me the Rapid-fire as a gift they also went ahead a bought the set

Both are 34 ton electric start, with the Subaru Motor. Haven't done any reading on the Motor but as of now they are a reliable motor that has given me no grief. DR is a Great company to do business with, I did have a Starting battery problem with the rapid-fire no questions asked just took it back to the shop and they gave me another. Also have one of their Giant Weed Eaters on wheels, with as many trees to work around and as much fence line to weed eat under its so nice not to have to carry the little weed eaters. Penny drives the tractor with a brush mower and I get under the trees with the Weed eater.

Like you, I cut dead or diseased wood first and burn on the previous years work. It took us awhile to get ahead of the game but now we have enough wood cut that my cut & stacked wood will get a 2 year wait between its cut & burn. I cant tell ya how much wood we use per year all of the family homes use the wood and are always there when we have Marathon Weekend wood splitting events.

 

[TFucili]

Big, the Subaru engines are made by Fuji, the mother company of Subaru, and were originally sold in the US as Wisconsin-Robin. I was a dealer when they first came to the US. The US importer/distributor at the time was Teledyne-Continental, hence the Wisconsin label. In the end, Teledyne was not getting the job done, and Fuji set up their own operation in the US, and now emphasize the Subaru name, and pretty much don't push the Robin name anymore. Back then I was in the power equipment business, and sold a ton of Homelite generators and pumps. The B&S engines were so riddled with problems, and had such a short service life I got to where I would only sell Robin powered units for commercial use. Even in severe use, abusive environments, they would keep on chugging away.

 

[TFucili]

Does anyone remember the Chopper Axe? I know the two guys that developed and patented it.

 

[Alan Reagan]

5 1/2 cords of hickory and oak cut, split stacked and ready to cure. Finished up the hickory yesterday and got it all stacked.

 

[Sled Dog]

Ya might find this interesting.

http://www.timberlinesharpener.com/shop/timberline-chainsaw-sharpener

http://www.timberlinesharpener.com/video

 

[BIGNASTY]

It looks pretty fool proof, I guess like other things there are more ways of doing it, than just one.

 

[Alan Reagan]

I had looked at those, Sled Dog. The initial cost plus the cost of the correct sharpener was just too much. If I remember right, the sharpening tool that came with it was the wrong size for my saw and the tool (grinder) is about 24 more bucks. Ouch. It is a neat system though.