Thread: Fire wood blocking Saw

Originally Posted by Krunchie

a friend and i cut 448 railway sleepers in 2 days

and?

thats only 110 a day each.

Her is my brothers - he just sits it in the back corner of the trailer - but we only do up to 150mm 6" the rest with the chainsaw - buit when cutting a whole tree into firewood this is far quicker than a chainsaw on the small stuff.

Sorry about the photos but a mug using a phone camera does nothing for quality.

Cheers

Cheers Calm those pics were handy and showed me what I need to build one.But I was hoping to buy one secound hand here in QLD. Wouldnt mind a law saw too. Sigidi thank you for that with the Lucas I ve got to go to Gympie next thursday would you mind if i swing by?

should be easy enough to build, would have it done for a lot less than $1000. just gota find an old saw spindle someware.

Tank full of fuel lasts more than 1/2 day 5 hours at least.

The 2 Vee belts just run on the existing tractor flat belt pulley..

We can start it with the rope on the motor or wind a rope around the blade shaft pulley and pull like hell. It has a starter but we never bothered with a pulley - just start it and leave running all day. The blade acts like a big flywheel.

cheers

Originally Posted by Stopper

Although I use a chainsaw myself, I have seen these trailer mounted dockers in action and if set up properly they are a good labour saver. All you need is a couple of infeed skids and a small petrol outfeed and you can produce a heap of firewood without bending your back.

cheers
Stopper

You still have to get the wood into the thing!! only one way I know of doing that without bending your back and that envolves a loader. It is a hell of a lot easier to lift the 8 to 15 kgs of a chainsaw than a log that may weigh several hundred kilos. most of the dockers will not cut much over about 8 inches in diameter which really is barely big enough for firewood especially if you are looking to sell it Most people I sel too complain if more than about 5 or 10 percent of their load is anything other than split on at least 3 sides and although there is some stuff I cut down to about 4 inches diameter the majority (95%) has to be cut from stuff larger than 12 inch or they simply will not buy it.

The firewood docking saws are also notoriously dangerous!!!

there was a not bad stihl 084 chainsaw the other day on fleabay which went for about $650 would be a far better investment I reckon!!!!

I didn't think it got cold enough in QLD to need a fire any way...lol

Originally Posted by Calm

Her is my brothers - he just sits it in the back corner of the trailer - but we only do up to 150mm 6" the rest with the chainsaw - buit when cutting a whole tree into firewood this is far quicker than a chainsaw on the small stuff.

Sorry about the photos but a mug using a phone camera does nothing for quality.

Cheers

Thats fine but why would you bother, chainsaw is much faster and by the looks of the old antique, safer

Will you chainsaw block 10tons of firewood a day with one blade sharpen. Do you cater to a market that tells you it would like round logs too 200mmx 300mm split an unsplit are you sourcing fire wood from a verity of different area s requiring you to cut wood to 12ft lenghts for safe transport so that your back at yard able to cut and service customers at the same time. Do you employ some one to make deliverys for you?
Do you want to make use of timber before a developer or farmer bulldozers it into a pile an wastes it? Are you looking at the big picture or are you looking at the trees not the forest? Are you still hanging on to that chainsaw for a return of about $16p/h. I am not I am not losing time blocking with chainsaws because of them going blunt on bark and dirt and needing a sharpen. I am not giving a 17 year old kid with no chain saw experince a chainsaw either nor will I pay him to drive out to where we are collecting from When he/she can be taught how to use a docking saw saftly or can do other constructive tasks. Time in motion = $ right tools on the Job=$ expirence earned using a verity of process an tooling =$.

Originally Posted by johnnyroberts

Thats fine but why would you bother, chainsaw is much faster and by the looks of the old antique, safer

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but when someone posts to a thread, with information that is actually on topic and informative and accurate then you/or another member puts up a post that makes statements like chainsaw is much faster and safer i wonder why i bother. You have also directly linked to my post.

I have explained several times the bench is faster than a chainsaw up to 6 inch logs, this has been proved every-time i help my brother cut wood.

So where the hell is your expertise coming from or is it just an untested opinion of yours.

Antique - well i will ignore that - from the quality of the photos you have no idea.

Safer well you can see the guards, the table is spring loaded, so why is a open chain safer than a saw bench?

Do try to stay on target and be accurate if you intend to contribute to threads or just read and keep stupid comments to yourself.

david

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

You still have to get the wood into the thing!! only one way I know of doing that without bending your back and that envolves a loader. It is a hell of a lot easier to lift the 8 to 15 kgs of a chainsaw than a log that may weigh several hundred kilos. most of the dockers will not cut much over about 8 inches in diameter which really is barely big enough for firewood especially if you are looking to sell it Most people I sel too complain if more than about 5 or 10 percent of their load is anything other than split on at least 3 sides and although there is some stuff I cut down to about 4 inches diameter the majority (95%) has to be cut from stuff larger than 12 inch or they simply will not buy it.

The firewood docking saws are also notoriously dangerous!!!

there was a not bad stihl 084 chainsaw the other day on fleabay which went for about $650 would be a far better investment I reckon!!!!

Wow I expected a more constructive approch from you Travis because you usally make a quite bit sence but I do value your in put never the less inregards to the split non split timber I do both in my experience a split log burns hotter an faster
whilst we all want more money I look at my customer base most are pensioners a nice non split log on the fire or in slow combustion stove over night gives coals in the morning and keeps the chill off an doesnt burn as quick we cut smaller logs so they are lighter and less akward . If people have other specs they get what they ask for. Islanders like 9 ft lengths for cooking pigs an hungis ,We cut 12ft sections to transport we try an beat the dozers in on development sites an fence lines an the like . With using the fire wood saw its a means to an end. When the moneys in the bank we ll scrap it and then move on to a tow behind fire wood processor. This will reduce labour requirments as cutting an splitting will be done by machine. In regards to chainsaws We are using Makita 6401 s biggest bunnings carry and they replace em when I ####em or think I need a new one with in 12 months as I ve said in the past if you start cheap upgrade ASAP or your budget allows. I wont go to sthil despite being good machines they are only as good as their back up an service. If I was where you are Travis then I d buy one

why wont u buy stihl.

no wonder its slow if y using a bunnings chainsaw.

Honestly for myself I prefer the smaller stuff unsplit, but most people buying firewood where I am demand that it be larger split section timber, there is a strange mistruth instilled in people around here that it must be better if it is split. They figure also that it is cleaner.

As for the $16 an hour swinging off a chainsaw, I would not even walk to the shed to get my saw out for that.

Your initial post didn't include the fact that you are employing people to cut it for you and as for the 17 year old with a chainsaw I was swinging off of one at a younger age than that and by 17 I was felling huge Ironbarks in NSW and converting every bit of them into useable product, mostly with a chainsaw. when educated to use a chainsaw properly and safely and provided that the teenager has a modicum of common sense it can be quite safe and also a good thing for them to learn how to do. This said however I can see that Yes teaching them to use a docker would also be a good thing.

As for the 10 tons of firewood bit, I often cut 5 or 6 cubic metres and split it in a day and generally wouldn't start till 9 or 10 am and finish by 4 pm and usually have most of it stacked in this time as well. The missus often helps with the stacking bit as I am usually ready for a beer or ten by that stage.

I have often thought of getting a docking saw and even thought of getting a proper firewood processor but all of the wood I cut is cut onsite, and split there, so I do not have to deal with the rubbish at home, and most of the wood I see is bigger than 10 inches in diameter, and what smaller stuff I get out of a tree (down to roughly 4 inch) is minimal (less than 5% usually.) SO to me a docker is impractical as I can generally dock up the small stuff that there is in less than 10 minutes with my chainsaw. I have had some instances recently where it has taken longer to saw 2 rings from the main trunk and split them than it has to cut up ALL of the smaller limbs of the tree.

I do disagree with johnny roberts statement that a chainsaw is quicker as I have seen a docker or two in action, and if you have a length stop setup on your saw you get perfectly consistent lengths which can look good from a sales perspective and can also assist in stacking your timber. (yes I stack all of my cut timber, for a number of reasons.) As for the debate on safety more people have been injured by chainsaws in the overall scheme of things but there are also a lot more of them out there!!! I have personally seen people very severly injured using dockers and 9 times out of 10 it was due to no fault in the way they were operating or through lack of training or awareness.

I actually recently saw some very good looking ones on Ebay that were made by a mob somewhere near either ballarat or bendigo, can't remember which at the moment, but they looked the goods and were fairly reasonably priced and looked like they had all of the safety features you could want.

With the makita saws, I do not know if bunnings will do it for you, but my local Dahlsens/mitre10 will get the bigger saws in upon request. I got a quote recently from them on the 79cc one and it was about $1200 but the HD filter kit was another $270 which makes them not much cheaper than a stihl or husky which have the filtration standard and the 73.5 cc shindaiwa was about $1250 with the good filter setup standard (I have been told by a couple of people that the shindaiwas actually have about the best filtration of all of them.)

Any way that is why I do not want a docker, oh and the fact that I am always fixing my mates one up and doing his sharpening for him.

Originally Posted by Calm

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but when someone posts to a thread, with information that is actually on topic and informative and accurate then you/or another member puts up a post that makes statements like chainsaw is much faster and safer i wonder why i bother. You have also directly linked to my post.

I have explained several times the bench is faster than a chainsaw up to 6 inch logs, this has been proved every-time i help my brother cut wood.

So where the hell is your expertise coming from or is it just an untested opinion of yours.

Antique - well i will ignore that - from the quality of the photos you have no idea.

Safer well you can see the guards, the table is spring loaded, so why is a open chain safer than a saw bench?


Do try to stay on target and be accurate if you intend to contribute to threads or just read and keep stupid comments to yourself.

david

Ease up, I can have an opinion can't I ? I do have experience to speak from thanks.If you don't like what I say, too bad, it's a forum, keep your advice on what I can and can't say thanks