What did you do today?

[Adam Roby]

That tree looks massive, must have weighed a (few) tons.  I imagine you've cut down many in your lifetime and can predict how they will fall.  I have a few to fell myself this summer at the cottage.  I have watched tons of videos but have never really done any more than 6" in diameter myself.  Would you recommend I wait to go with someone more experienced,  or are the video's enough to keep me safe?

The mill must need sharpened on each pass?  I can't seem to keep my chainsaw's edge for more than a few cuts...  Starts smoking after a few passes... would never do the length of a tree like that.

[kenhill]

Did you use the rip chain?  With spruce it was slow going and used lots of fuel for me!

[Don_P]

We got the second one done and over to the jobsite today, we need to make four 20' 6x8 tie beams to fit between those 60' long plate beams tomorrow. We moved them 3 sided so they would be deeper and thus stronger for the trip. We figured they contained about 1000 BF of wood and weighed about 3700lbs, they should be down to about 2600 lbs for the final lift. Although the sky trak is rated for 6000 lbs the center of gravity was way out there. It had to back up a bit of a slope today and the rears began to come up but all is good and it's back on solid ground at the worksite.

It's hard to judge scale on that saw, that is the largest Husky made and it takes that kind of power for continuous ripping, we still nurse it to keep the revs up and let it do the cutting. We are running a rip chain and on clean wood can make 2 cuts of that length before changing. On logs that have been drug we get about 6' before it starts dulling and fight the chain for the rest of the cut. It would be interesting and probably depressing to get a head temp at the end of the cut. The top end will probably need rebuilding by the end of the job. I have burned up a saw ripping before, it is very hard on them. We refueled about every 20', each time we moved the scaffold, not empty but well down. Sharpness plays a big role in fuel consumption.

I call in the pros if a tree is near anything of value. I tell them to put it on the ground and I'll clean up, that helps with cost. I've been thrown 20' in the air by a relatively small white oak that barberchaired, broke a rib and I was trying to get rid of a running saw in flight. If you are facing a leaner and don't have a lot of experience and a very firm grasp of the forces at work, walk away, it isn't worth the risk.

These trees are out in the woods but we are still bore cutting, wedging and directionally felling them. I'll bore cut just about any tree that is big enough to do that. It is about the safest way to fell a tree and you aren't trying to race to get to a small enough hinge. It allows you all the time you need to set it up. Only then do you pop the back strap and release the tree.

[NathanS]

"To Fell a tree" is an awesome book on safety and felling methods.

I'm not sure if it's in canada, by in new York there are also courses called "game of logging" which are highly regarded.

[Don_P]

The crew set the first plate beam today, we should set the ties and second plate tomorrow, woohoo! You can see the batterboards for the equipment shed on the left side of the first pic. There is a loft 10' off the cribs in the second shot, both of those will have long plates and there is another wall 10' closer to the camera in the second shot that will be timberframed and carry the last of that long slope of roof.Another shed runs off the far end down to a timberframed wall over the new block wall at the far right of the cribs in that second shot, it was quite a barn in its' day and hopefully will be good to go for another 170 years  The original rafters that were over the log cribs are in the foreground of the second pic. From one far corner diagonally to the opposite corner the overall was 5' out of level but the barn had been worked on at least three times to add wings. All the rafters were undersized and have a permanent deflection set some were broken, some had rotted from leaks. We'll go through them but I suspect we'll need to replace them all.





One thing I try to do in the woods is leave as light a footprint as possible, that is part of learning to fell well, and I do use cables and snatchblocks as well but go very carefully there loading up a tree when felling, that can cause one to split and barberchair. We do try to clean up, remove invasives and bad trees and generally set the forest up to improve the stand when we leave.

[MountainDon]

Very   

[Adam Roby]

Nice structure...  I can't wait to start a build of my own.

Found this interesting Spyder concrete buildings on Facebook, youtube video of it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLKMuc3fO8o

Maybe this link is a better one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVWS47MxnwI

[azgreg]

The fire was a nice touch. 

[Don_P]

We got another big beam out to the job this morning and needed to go back to the "store" which took us up higher and deeper into the forest than I had been yet, we saw some pretty good sized trees this afternoon, apparently there is a really big poplar much higher up on the mountain. I'd say this one is close to 4' diameter which is bigger than we need.


That image is about 55kb

[Don_P]

Put 50 chickens in the freezer yesterday... forgot to take pictures 

[Adam Roby]

That's a big tree....

Chickens... I just picture you with a bag of grain trying to make these chickens walk the plank to your freezer. 
There has to be a story here... wanna share?

[Don_P]

We've raised several flocks of layers and meat birds over the years. Last year either the minks or weasels found us and began preying on our Cornish meat birds. They are pretty much bred to eat and get big, they don't have a lick of sense. Some friends took them in and we slaughtered them together. This year they raised the combined flock, we bought a cross of Cornish with a heritage breed so they have hopefully good weight gain with better flavor and a bird smart enough to somewhat take care of itself. Seemed to work.

Slaughtering is a lot of work and for sanitation as well as good attitude, works better with many hands so this works out well. In the community we get together for chicken slaughtering and jobs where many hands make lighter work. The log job above got bigger than we could handle with just the two of us harvesting and sawing on site so I called some friends and asked them to run the "bycatch" of logs that were either too big or cutoff ends of trees on my sawmill at home whenever they have free time, they've sawed several trailerloads of boards that will become roof sheathing and hayloft flooring while we keep the barn crew in logs and timbers. Anyway for chicken slaughter one person dispatches them in the killing cone, then scalds them to loosen the feathers, then a couple of pluckers, then cleaning, then final clean and bagging and into ice and finally tons of cleanup and off to the freezers followed by a pizza and beer pigout, we were at it for about 12 hours yesterday, 4 of the birds will go to a charity fundraiser meal including food from many more local folks.

The big tree, I thought you'd like that one. We were looking for a 40' 12x12 yielding red oak which would be a 24-30" diameter tree at the base and headed up into those woods. When we got up there and started walking it was pure fun, as you can see around that poplar it is quite open and a number of beautiful large trees. We decided to just clock out and wander around the rest of the afternoon up there.

Today was spent deep inside the Ranger engine blowing out lifters and cleaning it clear down to the camshaft trying to figure out why it threw a pushrod, hopefully I'll remember where all those funny parts go. Yeah life on the farm is kinda laid back 

[Adam Roby]

I am currently shopping for a 4-wheelers (quad).  Reasons are several fold... first being I want to have some fun.  With that out of the way, I also would like a work horse.  I have several acres of land in NY state that is hard to access, even with my Jeep.  Up north I have the cottage with miles of Hydro trails right out the back.  My old motorcycle buddy (we rode together for 20+ years before my back surgery forced me to sell the bike) has now purchased one, so the idea of having a riding buddy again sounds intriguing. 

Came across a 2005 John Deere Buck 500.  First time I ever heard of a JD ATV.  They sell a lot of utility vehicles (aside from the commercial and farming equipment), but not sure how long they sold 4 wheelers.  It looks like a Bombardier Traxter rebadged with the JD tag... not sure.  Anyone ever have one, know stories, good or bad? 

[Adam Roby]

Hope people have access to this, I found it on Facebook.  Its basically a tree carrier for ATV's.

https://www.facebook.com/WorldEngineeringNetwork/videos/462362344119396

[John Raabe]

In these last few posts some members have posted product information and links to short videos that could be called advertising.
I am not going to reject these as they have good information that may be helpful to some of our owner-builders.

BUT! If you find a post that crosses over the line into product promotion or spam, you can report it and one of admin team will review it and may delete or warn the poster.

John

[ChugiakTinkerer]

Adam, that's a log arch.  They run in size from hand-held to tractor-towed ones capable of hauling multi-ton logs.  There's plenty of guys who have made their own over at the Forestry Forum.

Me, I just got a woods trailer from Woodland Mills.  A little more general utility than a log arch.  I need to post some pictures of it.  I thought about making my own but I'd probably still be welding the frame come this winter.

[Don_P]

Actually we've cooked them three different ways and I'm not overly impressed with that breed of chicken 

Adam, google logging arches and fetching arches and you'll probably find tons of different types. They are a good low impact way to move timbers around... and they keep the logs cleaner which is big if you start sawing through dirt and rocks. The young logger we had round up the first 75 trees on this job was fast but he drug them on the ground and we have sure paid the price.

we've been working on this beam the past few days. It's a red oak, I didn't measure the base but around 32-36". Primarily we were after a 40' 10x12" beam, you can see we're taking a 4x12 joist on the way and we'll get a number of 3x4 girts and 4x6's for braces out of the slabs.

We're using "Artie" the articulated loader to move logs around with. I did have to belly drag the beam out so one side is dirty. The joists will need to be drug out but I can lift one end up on those, I took the slabs out at 13' so could carry a couple of them out at a time on the forks wiggling through the trees, we weren't too far in at all, you can see the pasture just beyond us. We've taken out a truck and trailerload of firewood from this one so far and there is at least that much more. We've stocked up and have supplied another couple with enough for a couple of years and still have tons of firewood in the woods to get up. I've called in a church group in the past, that is one possibility.

Whoop I see CT beat me to it... what he said 

[Adam Roby]

Heheh... thanks for the feedback.  Never had any experience with this stuff, thought it could be handy since I just bought my 4-wheeler.  I was planning on dragging them out, and maybe using the winch with a pulley on a tree to lift them to a cutting area, to avoid hitting rocks in the ground with the chainsaw.  I will search Google a bit more to see what other (easier) options exist as well.

That's one massive tree and beam.  Can it be used from a fresh cut or does it need to sit for a year to dry out?

[MountainDon]

We watched the rain fall, on and off through the day. Took a walk through the woods (3.5 miles) during an afternoon lull. Marvelled at all the mushrooms sprouting; it is that time of year in the Jemez. I felled a 75 ft ponderosa that had the top going brown. Maybe tomorrow, pending weather we'll delinb and cut to firewood size.

[Don_P]

I prefer to use dry wood but this is going up in the log barn project as we mill, that beam will be holding up rafters next week.

For firewood I usually just cut it in the woods, easier than trying to skid logs. I'll buck the limbs in air where I can and drop the wood to the ground where I have to then cut most of the way through all the pieces of firewood on the stick and roll it over to complete the cuts... not saying I haven't cut some nice grooves in rocks every now and then.

I pile the small sticks cross slope or across gullies to help with erosion control, natural silt fencing with built in wildlife habitat.

We skidded that beam out as the rain started yesterday, got 4" overnight. I wanted to play on the bobcat over the weekend and get some stuff ready before shoulder surgery but am sanding and staining in the shop instead, I'd make a mess in the mud. Need to get all my timbers here under roof and in the dry. Hopefully it'll dry out over the weekend. Anthem emailed yesterday that they are going to drop out of ACA in VA next year, I suspect they'll find a way to weasel out of paying. Big thanks to the idiots in DC who do have lifetime coverage that I pay for  .

[bayview]

Interesting concrete design.   I'm surprised there isn't concrete "blow-out" - The weight of the concrete blowing out the walls during pour.

Nice structure...  I can't wait to start a build of my own.

Found this interesting Spyder concrete buildings on Facebook, youtube video of it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLKMuc3fO8o

Maybe this link is a better one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVWS47MxnwI

[Don_P]

An ICF without the insulation and using a lot of form wood  . With ICF you run around the pour in lifts to avoid blowouts, I've had a couple of blowouts, all pilot error 
around '95 we had one contractor in the Black Hills that was using an ICF system where they supplied boxes of plastic ties. 2" foamboard was ripped to 8" tall and the tise were inserted between the inside and outside rows of foam. Worked well and avoided some of the bulky shipping of ICF forms but took much more prep of the foam, haven't seen that since. I assume and early alternate that didn't pan out.

[Don_P]

We moved the mill up to one of the higher ridges in the county yesterday, nice view from up there. These are mostly red oak, ash and cherry logs from dead trees on that property.

[NathanS]

That would be a nice way to spend the day.

It looked like that around here last week, now we have a foot of snow on the ground and it's pretty well snowing for a week straight with temps about 10 below the average.

I am ready for spring.

Nice tractor by the way.

[Don_P]

We made it through about half of the pile by yesterday afternoon, woke to snow and high wind today so no go. Definitely ready for spring. We'll put the slabbing bar on the mill and make table and bench slabs out of the big logs on the bottom of the pile when we can get back up there. That is a nice tractor, it moved and stacked everything you see there, it belongs to the landowner. His hired hand has been helping and has been great help.

Well a friend just called inbound with a few cedar logs, so much for playing hookey from the cold