This ?
Attachment 516582
This ?
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Super wussy!Quote:
Originally Posted by auscab
Last night I tumbled across this firewood cutting rack on you tube
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Based on the one above this morning I came up with these variations for splitting along the grain with the chainsaw
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These mean you only
Honestly I have been ripping firewood logs on a bandsaw for years and looking at all the problems of noise, fuel, sharpening chains, cleaning saws and the mechanical issues they present doing it on a bandsaw is a breeze. In all those years I am still on the first carbide blade and I wonder how much money I have saved by not using my chainsaw which is reserved for crosscutting to length on the stuff I can't do on my mitre saw.
For ripping with CS 'across' the end of billet I just place the piece upright on top of my splitting block, which is tall as I like the strike height for splitting to be at elbow height. That's also a good height for using the CS for that cut.
If I'm ripping along the length of the piece, which can be the only way to get through crotch pieces, I use my firewood bucking horse. That also brings the piece up to a good working height for the CS. I can add or take out the pegs to fit/secure the piece so it's centred along the beam. I also use this for ripping larger turning bowl blanks that won't fit under my bandsaw.
That is the bucking horse that I designed for myself for cross cutting firewood with one/two man saws, which I do for exercise. It has three legs so that it can be used on uneven ground, which is often the case for where I'm using it. It also folds down a bit for moving about. The third leg is driven into the ground and the distance between the other two is adjusted to level the beam (old railway sleeper). I have an arrangement for securing the piece to be cut with a treadle bar when crosscutting, but that of course won't work for ripping.
I reckon we need a separate forum for all aspects to do with firewood, which I would definitely use from time to time. The homesteaders in Nth America have online forums that cover the topic, but their firewoods are so different to ours.
Going through the scraps I had laying around to hand, I ended up making something very similar to the one Auscab pictured, which works well enough.
All in all, it made the job so much easier that I'm wondering why I didn't bother to think about making one waaay before this.
I'm not a fan of the vee type supports though, as when riping all the way though you end up with both halves of the billet losing support and wanting to drop, binding the chain. Nothing serious, but it's an extra something to keep an eye on which could've been avoided.
Mind you, to save chain wear 'n tear I only wanted to rip halfway and then use wedges... but I must admit that there were a couple of times I just thought 'stuff it' and finished the piece with the saw. :rolleyes:
When this one inevitably falls apart, I think I may steal NeilS's design for it's replacement. :wink:
Your welcome to that Andy and if you do just post any improvements you make.Quote:
Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!
Sounds like a good idea. Even if it was a sticky in the "My Rural Block" section of forum.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilS
I have a starter question .
What size do you find it best to cut your fire wood? Compared to the size of your fire box or wood heater door?
Ive tried Big as I can . But they only fit one way in the heater. And that's not ideal.
I have now swung to try smaller faster drying and easier to handle sizes that fit any way in the fire box.
Think I like the smaller size now.
I also experimented on this.Quote:
Originally Posted by auscab
The biggest my firebox would take was 450mm - 18 inch - and this certainly minimised the amount of cross cutting. However, splitting with our often knarly logs was sometimes rather difficult.
Then there were 300mm lengths - a lot more cross cutting, but splitting was really easy.
The best compromise was 375 mm - 15" - which required a little more cross cutting than the shrter size but splitting was a lot easier than the 450 mm.
Firewood timbers were mainly peppermint gum, sheoak and the Tas oak mixture.
Our wood heater has particular requirements. The firebox is a cylinder that runs north-south with the door at the end of that. Inside the firebox is quite deep and theoretically could take pieces up to 500mm long, but in practice 450mm is the longest to get an efficient burn. I do load pieces up to about 450mm long to get an overnight burn, but otherwise have settled on pieces of about 300mm in length for ease of splitting, stacking, drying and moving.
Our firebox also has limits on the width of the individual pieces it will take, which involves a lot of splitting or using branches of the required size cut to length.
The wood is whatever I can get, plus rejects and offcuts from the workshop. The last time I bought wood was over 40yrs ago when it was about $30/t for completely seasoned redgum, including delivery. At the rate of inflation since then the cost should now be about $135, but as we know all too well it ain't! Not sure what I will do when I can't do my own firewood getting anymore.
A full wood stack is a very satisfying sight, but it goes all too quickly...
NeilS,
I have a wood burner made in NZ called Pyroclassic ,with a cylindrical firebox too. At the beginning I didn't particularly like it because there was some piping with the option to heat water, if connected. The space occupied by the piping reduced the diameter of the cylinder and made stacking the box with wood for an overnight burn quite difficult.
At the end, the piping was removed so that bigger diameter logs could be used. This really did the trick and we now get 8-10hrs overnight burns.
Very nice stack of wood BTW!
Cheers
Yvan
Yes, Yvan, we have the Pryoclassic IV. We selected it at the time as it had the lowest emissions of any of the wood heaters that had been tested to meet the standards as they were back 10yrs ago. The Standards were updated in 2014, so I'm not sure how it would perform on those now. Because of the amount of wood burnt for heating in NZ, their standards required a higher level of efficiency than here, at least back then.Quote:
Originally Posted by yvan
The Pyroclassic was developed by the equivalent of our CSIRO in NZ (their Department of Scientific and Industrial Research) before commercialisation. As I understand it, those pipes inside the main firebox are not part of the water jacket arrangement, those would go inside the secondary chamber above the firebox, if fitted. The pipes structure inside the main firebox are there to limit how much you can load into the firebox to ensure that there is sufficient space above the fuel load to allow for the efficient burning to achieve the published test results.
Without that structure inside the top of the firebox you would definitely be able to load chunkier pieces of wood into it, but I'm not sure what that would do to the efficiency of the burn.
One thing that our visitors are surprised about is that our wood heater is going when they come into the house because they couldn't see any visible smoke coming from our chimney when they arrived. That happens when a load of wood reaches efficient burning temperature. We certainly noticed an improvement in efficiency in terms of needing less wood to maintain the temperature inside the house when we installed this wood heater. It does, however, require more attention to 'drive it' than our previous wood heaters and it is not one I would recommend unless you have the time and are prepared to do that. I think of it more of an F1 than an everyday commuter that you just load up then forget about for 6hrs.
Yvan, what has been your experience with efficiency of you Pyroclassic since removing the load limiter tubes from inside the firebox?
NeilS,
We've had the Pyroclassic since 2013 and it is only now I understand that the piping is a limiter rather than anything to do with water jackets...:doh:
Removing the perpendicular elbows to the pipe frame made a significant difference to the amount of wood I can load. An overnight burn was quite difficult to achieve before. I must also say that it has taken me a long time getting to grips with this wood burner. I am still using the first burner we acquired in 1984 and it is quite a different beast. The intensity of the burn is easily controlled by a baffle regulating the air intake.
I found the Pyroclassic baffle quite primitive and difficult to adjust, to extent that I "blocked" the air inlet with a bearing ball and I make sure that the ashes in the firebox always cover the ball! I now use the door as a baffle instead, and control the air intake by using the handle of the door which, as you will know, screws shut.
It also took me a long time to realise that when I start the fire it needs to burn quite hot for a significant amount of time to make sure that any moisture in the wood and as much of the creosote have burned hence no smoke blowing out of the chimney. I also noticed that if the fire is not hot enough, a film of creosote - and whatever else - will soon form on the glass of the door. Once hot though and back "down" a slow burn it is very efficient in terms of heat generated and it will burn 8-10 hours overnight - literally !
All in all we are now very happy with it as it warms things up quickly.
Cheers,
Yvan
Interesting points there, Yvan.Quote:
Originally Posted by yvan
I have removed the front panel on ours (the one above the door that slides up) to make some adjustments to the primary air intakes located behind there to improve air control. Had to be very careful to ease the panel forward in the middle as I pulled the panels up to avoid dislodging the the fireproof insulation patch stuck to the back of the panel. I forget if I opened or closed the gap between the air intakes and the panel, but whatever I did it improved things.
Ours runs 24x7 during winter, including overnight (about 10hrs) and then just reload on a few coals in the mornings. Best run that way as it sucks a lot of heat to get it warmed up to begin with, but very easy to keep it going with that very thick refractory cylinder acting as a heat sink.
I recommended other wood heaters for our kids because they are more inclined to run theirs of an evening, but ideal for us as most of the time one of us is at home and able to keep it puttering along.
A separate topic thread would have been better for where this discussion has gone (apologies to Skew the OP), so we definitely need a separate sub-forum somewhere for firewood related topics where this can be done. The Small Timber Milling forum members have been polite, but there is a limit to their tolerance if discussions on wood heaters and the like start to creep into their domain...:~
NeilS,
Maybe a thread in the "Nothing to do with It At All" sub-forum would do the trick?
Happy warm winter days!!!!
Cheers,
Yvan