I know the forum members like pic's so thought I would post some showing a nice wack of bundled firewood that we accumulated in the September time frame. What you see is less than one months supply based on our customers demands.
We take a lot of pride in being a green operation. All this wood either comes from sawmill cutoffs, tree surgeon removed yard trees that are not really fit to mill, or from the tops of trees left behind from logging operations.
There are about 3200 bundles of wood in these pictures. Now comes the physical labor of loading the truck and trailer.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/20110608_11.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/20110608_4.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/20110608_5.JPG)
Oldest Daughter, Samantha lends a hand sweeping up the building to keep the work area safe and free of debris
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/20110608_6.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/20110608_9.JPG)
I am 6 foot 2 inches tall and as you can see, many of the piles are taller than I am. In fact the one in the rear of the building is almost 9 feet tall. As a point of reference, the office area is 9 foot tall to the base of the storage area above the office.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/20110608_10.JPG)
Fully loaded truck being delivered to one of our customers. With three people, it takes us just under and hour to load both truck and trailer. There is 750 bundles on this load. Our maximum capacity using this truck and trailer combination is 800 bundles.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/Greg_Wood.JPG)
Always nice to be busy as long as there are customers calling. 8)
Amen to that Swampdonkey
How many bundles does it take to make a cord on average? Looks good but for around here it's not really feasible unless you truck the loads to the city. In these parts birch is the big seller due to the species that grow around here along with the volume available. Aspen is the most available and only brings about 1/4 of what good seasoned birch does.
Coon
A cord is 128 cu ft, and each bundle is .75 cu ft. So if you do the division, each cord produces 170.7 bundles
Busy Beaver Lumber, If you dont mind me asking? how much are you getting per bundle delivered to your retailers. we are on the verge of doing the same with our vendors and they are balking about our suggested price right now! I know what they are selling for in our area, but they all want to make 100% profit on our hard work and labor! Tim
Quote from: T Welsh on December 26, 2011, 09:22:06 AM
....................... but they all want to make 100% profit on our hard work and labor! Tim
By that, do you mean they want to sell the bundle at twice what they pay you for it?
If so, not really 100% profit ;)
Quote from: beenthere on December 26, 2011, 10:46:16 AM
Quote from: T Welsh on December 26, 2011, 09:22:06 AM
....................... but they all want to make 100% profit on our hard work and labor! Tim
By that, do you mean they want to sell the bundle at twice what they pay you for it?
If so, not really 100% profit ;)
beenthere, Actually 100% plus some! The retailers we have talked to only want to pay a set price for bundled wood and want a price break for buying bulk. what they are offering us is not making dollars and cents for the extra amount of work and costs to bundle and deliver. Tim
T Welsh
Sent you a PM with current prices and terms. I will not haggle much on price, but I take good care of my customers too, even going as far as to provide same day, last minute deliveries and even deliveries on Sunday if they really need one due to excellent weekend sales that exceed normal expectations.
It is not unusual for the retailer to mark it up 80% to 100% more than what they pay for it.
Get guys try to underbid me from time to time, then the sell 200 bundles to the customer and go out of business leaving the customer high and dry.
Busy Beaver Lumber, Thank you for the explanation.
I am seeing how the bundled firewood works now! We have not sold to retailers yet and what they want to pay us for the product delivered is not lucrative enough to start doing this full scale. we will try a local store and see how it pans out. we plow the store and are there everyday for coffee and or lunch. the owner knows we sell bulk firewood and have a processor and has said to us why dont you guys bundle and sell! It will be a good example of how the game is played and weather it will work for us or not! Thanks for all the comments. Tim
BB Lumber,around here we call that getting lucky wood,I have seen it going for almost $5.00 a bundle locally.Campgrounds is a good place to set up a display.The time is rapidly coming when firewood for commerce will have to be kilned or treated for insects. Frank C.
What is the gvw on that three axle trailer, busy beaver?
Tim, stick to your guns, all bundled firewood is bulk or you don't want to have that customer and all retailers will try to pay as little as possible. Find out the average retail price for wood of comparable quality size and weight and figure on a 50 percent mark-up. If you can make money on that don't worry if a retailer sells for more. You could probably ask more if you are willing to provide the loan of a storage receptacle. Around here companies will supply cages for firewood or propane exchange and merchandising freezers for bagged ice. Stores that want to supply their own storage generally get a bit better price. Busy Beaver where do your customers store their supply of bundles generally?
R.MAN
That varies from customer to customer. Some campgrounds store it under a shed roof, others must lock it a building to keep it from being liberated during off hours. I would say the majority of customers have it under lock and key and under roof. Do have a few 24 hour stores that keep it under building overhang and on pallet in front of store
Quote from: Busy Beaver Lumber on December 19, 2011, 01:28:35 PM
I know the forum members like pic's so thought I would post some showing a nice wack of bundled firewood that we accumulated in the September time frame. What you see is less than one months supply based on our customers demands.
We take a lot of pride in being a green operation. All this wood either comes from sawmill cutoffs, tree surgeon removed yard trees that are not really fit to mill, or from the tops of trees left behind from logging operations.
There are about 3200 bundles of wood in these pictures. Now comes the physical labor of loading the truck and trailer.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/20110608_11.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/20110608_4.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/20110608_5.JPG)
Oldest Daughter, Samantha lends a hand sweeping up the building to keep the work area same and free of debris
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/20110608_6.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/20110608_9.JPG)
I am 6 foot 2 inches tall and as you can see, many of the piles are taller than I am. In fact the one in the rear of the building is almost 9 feet tall. As a point of reference, the office area is 9 foot tall to the base of the storage area above the office.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/20110608_10.JPG)
Fully loaded truck being delivered to one of our customers. With three people, it takes us just under and hour to load both truck and trailer. There is 750 bundles on this load. Our maximum capacity using this truck and trailer combination is 800 bundles.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/Greg_Wood.JPG)
A lot of pride in being a green operation with plastic wrapped / plastic taped wood?
Unbelievable
3200 bundles of firewood rescued from scrap wood piles, mostly from wood that would have been pushed into a landfill or burned in a burn pile emitting tons of smoke for days, and all you can do is criticize me for using a minute amount of plastic wrap to bundle the wood and put it to good use.
Do you even have any idea how little shrink wrap it takes to do a bundle? Well let me help educate you.
It takes approximately 6 grams of shrink wrap to make a bundle of wood.
By comparison, and empty 16oz plastic water bottle weighs in at over 12 grams and an empty milk container weighs in at over 60 grams, so i guess being as concerned as you are about plastic waste, you will no longer drink any beverage from disposable plastic bottles or buy your milk in plastic jugs, since your empty milk carton has more plastic in it than it takes me to wrap 10 bundles of wood.
By weight, plastic packaging makes up less than 4% of discarded products in the municipal waste stream. You want to save the planet, you better look at the bigger contributors to our waste dumps.
You probably throw away more plastic worth of empty bottles and wrap from your home than i use to bundle 25,000 bundles of wood a year. Just a 1 gallon milk jug a week equals me wrapping 520 bundles, not to mention all the other plastic used to package and transport your food and other store purchases.
Guess "Loggging logging logging" has nothing positive to contribute and feels the need to criticize others who do strive to be productive forum members. It is no wonder why you give no personal information about yourself. If that was the most intelligent, no productive comment I could come up with, I would not want anyone to identify me either or disgrace the state I lived in. Get a life
I stand by the fact that we are a "green operation". Green does not mean zero pollution. It means recycling all that is possible (glass, plastic, paper, metal, leftover food, and grease) and reusing useful items, (such as scrap wood headed for a polluting burn pile or land fill) a person can minimize his/her waste. This helps decrease the need for landfill space and conserve energy. If a responsible camper wished to recycle the plastic wrap, I would see no problem in them doing so and then I have produced no waste at all 8).
Yes the plastic wrap is wasteful and not green. I could also salvage wood and do it without the plastic wrap... and not even make claims of being green. Thats just called not being wastefull. LOL the plastic is un nessary. You are NOT a green operation
FYI i dont drink bottled water or bevrages from plastic.... I have my own well water.... and I recycle any and all plastic.... Infast we recycle and reuse everything from compost to whatever. We dont even have garbage collecting because we have no garbage. You let me educate you .... That plastic is unnessesary and you my frind don't even know what Green is. You must be a flat lander!
Quote from: Logging logginglogging on March 20, 2013, 07:57:21 AM
FYI i dont drink bottled water or bevrages from plastic.... I have my own well water.... and I recycle any and all plastic.... Infast we recycle and reuse everything from compost to whatever. We dont even have garbage collecting because we have no garbage. You let me educate you .... That plastic is unnessesary and you my frind don't even know what Green is. You must be a flat lander!
Good points Logging. What would you suggest as a alternative packaging method?
:D ----and pump water with a windmill and cut firewood with a bowsaw too no doubt .How nice !
Pirates like me run old noisey smoke spewing chainsaws and drink beer from aluminum cans and bottled water from a plastic bottle plus use electricity to pump our water .Plus have toilets that flush with water ,a tad more I might add than those works of wizardry that flush on a gallon that it takes three flushs to get it all down .Although I suppose we could wee wee in the woods like the bears if we choose to .
Ah yes ,the oil wars ,the punctuation debate ,the gasoline debate and now who's being "green " not to be confused of being a green weinie in a manner of speaking .Funny how the pot is always trying to call the kettle black . 8)
I suggest wooden home made pallet type things like in one of the other posts on here, or no packing at all ...
Used to see bundles with burlap yarn wrapped on it. Just burn the yarn like burning grass. I've used lots of the stuff when sewing by hand 75-100 lb potato sacs.
Quote from: Logging logginglogging on March 20, 2013, 10:55:44 AM
I suggest wooden home made pallet type things like in one of the other posts on here, or no packing at all ...
Doubt the firewood buyers that now pick up a small $5 bundle of wood for their one-time use in their fireplace would want to buy a home-made pallet type thing of wood, nor would they want to buy from a pile dumped out at the local Mart.
Selling wood by the piece, or maybe weighing it like a batch of bananas might work for the Mart, but I think plastic wrapped bundles or bundles in the mesh bags will likely prevail as the best method.
Makes me curious how, or why, logginglogginglogging thinks he knows what "green" is or how it can possibly be defined.
So typical to call out others as being wrong for doing things different than ones' self.
Just to point out those little shrink wrapped bundles are for retail sales at gas stations and what not .How else could you sell it .5 gallon metal bucket maybe ?
The people that buy them don't want a whole pallett full of firewood .Just a bundle or two for the ambiance in front of a fireplace .
Now think about it .Perhaps a nice fire ,soft music ,little sip of wine ,pretty lady .How can you beat a deal like that? Now come on people I'm 65 years of age and can remember that stuff still .Not a bad way to spend an evening shrink wrap or not .
I suppose if a person were really really commited to this green business they could recycle the shrink wrap to use on a sandwich .Might be a little gritty though .
Now there ya go good ole Swamp to the rescue.Old burlap bags full. Problem is where to get the bags .The old sacks went the way of the passenger pigeon I think .Wouldn't go over too well to sell 5 bucks worth of firewood in a 6 dollar sack I wouldn't think .Deposit on the bag maybe ,popular as a turd in a punch bowl no doubt .
I suppose a person could make a statement and use a green dyed sack .Green shrink wrap would be cheaper though . ;D
Busy beaver and I had a discussion a while back about shrink wrap versus burlap sacks and he made some good points. It is hard to determine how green something is unless carbon footprint of production and transport of everything is considered as well as many other factors. Is an electric firewood processor greener than a diesel and are both greener than chainsaws? I have an opinion and we all know what that is worth. Play nice, the other forum members are more like you than most of the rest of the population.
Al I said the yarn, not the sac. But they still have the sacs I'm sure. They're not $6 though, if that was the case the sacs would be worth more than the taters. We used to get them in 1000 sac bundles hay wired together. You just need to live in tater country. ;D The yarn is in most hardware stores, even the dollar store. ;D Wouldn't keep real dry though out under the eve drip of the filling station where a lot of that stuff sits. :D
Personally, I don't like to see someone attack someones else's business, who is obviously well established. The consumer knows what they want and can decide for themselves. No one need feel they need to save us from peril and make a rant on about it. ;)
What kind of a yarn are you refering to ? Those you and I tell or plain old baler twine .Maybe Canadian taters come in a burlap bag but ours come in a paper sack which I suppose you could pack full of firewood .Hey why not ,burn sack and all .I mean it is paper and paper is wood ,kind of .
Geeze that's it,end all arguements about shrink wrap .Green paper sacks or better still bark colored which they are any way unless the paper is dyed .Swamp comes up with the plan and I sell it . :D
Jute baler twine, not the plasticized stuff. ;) You want to see a mess of plastic, I can show you behind a dairy barn a mountain of the stuff. We thinned a site one time next to where they dumped the stuff down a trail. I never heard the end of it from the guy that came around to monitor the work. None in our work area, but beside it. :D
baler twine is an excelent idea.....the non plastic kind!!!!
It is unfortunate you choose to belittle someone who is sharing their successes for all to see.
Maybe something a little bit more constructive instead of your green attacks and name calling would be more helpful.
I haven't seen you offer any real alternatives.
And it also isn't possible for everyone to drink their own well water for your information.
How should they bring their water home?
Well to tell the truth I have not seen burlap bags or regular bailer twine for years .Worse yet no bailing wire .I have no idea how they expect us junk yard dawgs to fix anything with no wire .Duct tape is only good for so much .
Here's an idea! The customer purchases a "green bag" from the store. Then purchases the wood from a bulk stack and pays by the piece. 8)
Quote from: Mooseherder on March 20, 2013, 02:15:18 PM
It is unfortunate you choose to belittle someone who is sharing their successes for all to see.
Maybe something a little bit more constructive instead of your green attacks and name calling would be more helpful.
I haven't seen you offer any real alternatives.
And it also isn't possible for everyone to drink their own well water for your information.
How should they bring their water home?
:D Oh lots of ideas on this one .
Now I can't help but wonder if you can't recycle shrink wrap . Lawdy you could get a mile of it inside a plastic bag then recycle the whole mess .Kill two birds with one stone so to speak .
The jute,baling twine,not the plastic type would be hard to keep the wood together,unless someone wants to gently put each bundle down when loading and unloading. And to get it tight would be just about on it's way to it's busrting point and one good heave into the pile and the bundle would be wide open.
That soft stuff Swamp was taking about for sewing sacks is not like tough old sisel baling twine .Regular old sisel bailer twine is rated at around 130-140 pounds breaking strength .
Back when I was kid slinging bales for 75 cents an hour they either used sisel twine or wire .Sisel would handle 90 pound bales and with wire they were so heavy you couldn't hardly get a hay hook in them under certain conditions and how much of a miser the farmer was .Some of them were so tight they squeaked .Pound all they could into a bale ,Wisconsin baler engine giving it all it had .
Now there go ,sisel burns right up better than the wood .
Jute is pretty strong, it held 100 lbs of taters from rolling all over the floor. ;D I think it will hold 20lbs of firewood. ;D Always used to see it around dry wood, during the days of paper grocery bags.
I have seen two types of wood bundled with old style baler twine, I supplied the twine for the one. The first was small hardwood veneer core slabwood, take a veneer log, debark it, peel it down to its heart and then run the smooth round heart through a gang saw to produce pallet material. The waste from the last operation is small smooth barkless slabwood of a consistent size over its length. It ties nicely into a round bundle, your choice of size and the baler twine works great. I have also seen it used for regular hardwood firewood and it doesn't work very well at all. If there was a mechanical means to get the wood tight like a hay bale it would be better.
We used jute twine to sew up wool sacks which were giant burlap bags with 350-400 pounds of wool stomped in them .
I just think with the bundles being thrown around the wood will fall out. I've seen them unload it at a store. They unload from a back of a truck and just tossed it to the pile.Looked good and neat when they left. Guess they done it a few times. ;)
I don't know how we survived without plastic to save us. ;) You get that feeling when you see those ads by the plastics council, or whoever they are, and they are in a hospital setting with their big TV ad.
No disrespect to Busybeaver and his business, he knows what works for him. I think the thread has spun into a discussion on alternatives, but we are just fielding ideas so to speak. At least that's all I'm doing.
I've seen strawberry boxes, made from one of the most abundant tree species/groups on the continent, aspen, squeezed by plastic boxes. You see them with imported berries here. But Maritime grown strawberries are still delivered in aspen boxes. I've been in a berry box making shop, and it's got to be about the most benign method to make a box. Just load up an 8 foot long aspen log on a lathe and knife off a sheet of veneer, cut it to width and staple it together. You'd never run out of a source of berry boxes for centuries with about zero effort to recycle them. Just toss them on the dung heap. :D
Might just as well talk about a big thick steak on a grill. Had to turned to food!!!!!!!!
One thing about regular sisal baler twine is it doesn't stand up well at all to the weather. Leave it out in the sun and rain and it deteriorates in a hurry, it is also susceptible to sharp edges like found on split firewood.
Yeah it won't take much weather at all .Now here's one,paper twine .Don't giggle too much it's pretty strong stuff .It's degradable and like sisel you could just toss it in the fire and be done with it .
Geeze all this brain storming just because some gent wrapped up some firewood in shrink wrap and someone else thought it was a sin against humanity .What next ,steel beer cans again ?
No I'm not going to buy it in the oaken barrel with a 6 horse team of Clydesdales pulling around a big wagon full .It won't fit in the refrigerator .
Plastic baler twine works good for me. I use it for tying transplanted trees, for holding down tarps, and numerous other tasks where a strong twine is needed. It lasts longer in the sun and weather than the baler twine. One box or roll has lasted me for a good number of years.
But if your going to use plastic baler twine you may as well use plastic wrap.
:D Oh stop already .We got the oil wars ,the gas wars ,the chain wars and now the great debate about plastic .I'd mention the punctuation debate but I can't rattle the ole boys' chain any more .Must have lost my touch .
What next expect the ladies to give up their nylon stockings and underwear and instead wear cotton pantaloons and hoop skirts ?That will be the day the sun rises in the west .
OWB wars are kinda fun too Al. :D I see you did not mention the punctuation wars,Ataboy on that one. I won't mention the blade lube war either. :D
:D I catagorized the punctuation under debate rather than war.
I didn't want to delve into the bar lube thing for fear the greenies would take a fit and suggest KY Jelly or something which could get into the "red " zone .
You know I've wracked my brain ,what little is left of it in hopes of a solution of what to do with left over shrink wrap. Nothing so far.Seems funny though because even on strawberry boxes make out of basswood they use a little piece of it. Have for decades .Nobody complained much about it then . ???
Here it does make a great living a guy i know his father even used cottonwood in the bundles and sold them for up to 7 dollars a bundle in seattle. The company went under when he passed away but I just remember the fancy car he bought and the house he bought all from the business and the trips he would take. It does make a good living. I remember a story a while back in new york a man burnt up 1 million in cash to keep warm. Everytime i see these bundles for sale i think of that i would rather cut split and stack my own wood. :)
Thanks everyone for your comments and support. You are giving me a good chuckle with some of your responses. Just for the heck of it, I took the wrap off a bundle tonight and compressed it as tight as i could get it, it wound up being about the size of a marble. Just don't see that as a big source of pollution or feel like I am ruining the world with that level of waste, and like I said and others have said, if you want to recycle that marble size piece of plastic, feel free to do so. I always get a kick out of those that claim not to generate any pollution and live off the land. Go and observe them and you usually find out they are not quite as pure as they claim to be when all is said and done. Had a guy at a campground give me a hard time about throwing a cardboard box into the dumpster instead of burning it in my fire ring and then watched him dump about 20 empty beer bottles into the very same dumpster the next day. All you can do it laugh at folks like that :D
I have seen the plastic mesh sacks and I even tried them when we first started bundling wood. A lot harder to work with and a lot more plastic in each sack than is used to shrink wrap a bundle. The shipping weight alone on the empty plastic sacks will confirm that. Shrink wrapping makes for very compact, strong bundles of firewood that will take a fair amount of abuse in loading and unloading operations. Cost wise it is very hard to beat.
As also mentioned, remember bundled firewood is primarily for recreational users that want a few bundles to have a camp fire once in a while. Most seasonal campers buy their wood by the truck load or by the cord. They would go broke spending the $5 plus most places want for bundled wood, and i have yet to meet anyone that buys bundled wood to heat their house for an entire season ( although I have sold some bundles to people that buy cord wood and just ran out a few weeks before heating season ended and did not want to invest in another whole cord ).
There is always more than one way to skin a cat and i bet we could come up with 20 ways to bundle wood. I even know one fellow that slices rubber tire tubes and uses then to make wood bundles and another that uses plastic banding. Yet another uses spools of old rusty wire he picked up at an auction for next to nothing. I will tell you that all of those ways are many times slower than shrink wrap and a good bundling machine. You also have a good chance of cutting yourself on the wire or plastic banding.
Moosehearder
Thanks for the support.
Maybe you missed it. Logginglogginglogging did offer an alternative to the use of shrink wrap plastic to get wood to market. He recommended the pallet option shown elsewhere in this forum section......you know the one that uses shrink wrap around the top to keep the side rails from spreading.
Am i the only one that finds that comical, that he recommends an alternative using the same materials that he jumps my ship for using :D
I got to get in on this topic, even if a bit late - In my area, firewood bundles sell retail for about 5-7 dollars/bundle and are sold a lot in the local campgrounds. I have a friend with a 35 unit campground about a mile away. I tried to supply him some slab wood cut and bundled for firewood. I tried using old sisal baler twine and it failed. Could not get it tight enough and the slabs tend to slide easily. I also tried shrink wrap, with better sucess, but found I had to use a lot of wraps [about 2 times more than for a bundle of slpit wood] to keep the slippery slabs together. Fianl solution was to fill used feed sacks [ old 50 lb woven plastic oat bags] and this worked OK till I ran out of bags. Got some bags returned, but the campers seemed to like to keep the bags to carry the wood in their trailers. ALso bags held about 2-3 bundles $15 dollars worth and therefore a bit different market. If you have a big horse industry nearby for used bags, then it has potential.
My 2 cents worth. Tom
ST Ranch
One thing that is very important is to have a tight pack before you apply the plastic wrap. Our firewood bundler has two square tray brackets that hold the wood. We pack it in very neatly and tight so the finished product is very much void of pockets that would allow shifting and for the wood to become loose.
Here is a good picture of the arms that hold the wood. Note we went for the ones that make square bundles, that in our opinion stack better. Round ones are an option as well. You cant see it, but at the end of the arm that holds the plastic wrap, there is an large aircraft nut, washer, and spring, that are used to apply force to the plastic wrap tube and control how tight or loose the plastic is for each wrap. For reference, that roll of plastic on there is brand new. It is enough to wrap approximately 250 bundles of wood, at three turns per bundle.
And well doggie, lookie here, there i go being all green again by bagging my employees aluminum cans and saving them for the local scout troop to recycle.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21313/2682/Picture_003.jpg)
Along these lines, smaller split pieces are easier to pack in tightly, but take a lot longer to load each tray since you may have to use 20 pieces to make a bundle as opposed to say 8 larger size ones, and these pieces will burn much faster, which may not make the end user as happy when he has to go buy more because the smaller pieces burn too fast.
The next thing is you much have a machine to use that allows you to adjust the tension on the wrap. If you try to wrap it by hand, I cant see you ever getting a tight bundle. You need to get be able to adjust the tension of the plastic when wrapping and want it under some stress so that even when it relaxes a bit, it is still plenty tight and pulling in. Hope this info helps.
:D It'a lot of hoopla about a rather trival matter being on a campaign to rid the world of plastic .'taint never gonna happen .
However a man is entitled to an opinion though but I guess so are the rest of us .Geeze though if you took all the plastic away from an automobile there wouldn't be much left of it .Driving down the road on the frame sitting on a 5 gallon bucket maybe .
I suppose a person could get a horse but then somone else would whine about all the road apples .You can't please everybody so you'd just as well please youreslf . ;)
Well said Al. I especially like your comment about if you took all the plastic out of a car, all you would have is a frame to ride in. Give them time and that statement will not even be true. I have seen some futuristic car designs that use carbon fiber for some suspension and frame components.
Well quite frankly in some applications high tech plastic works out better than metal .I mean common sense will say you can't make everything out of cast iron .
I'm almost certain the complainent is not typing posts on a cast iron computer powered by a wind mill . :D
Your cracking me up Al. :D My wife got a good laugh out of his replies. She commented "Who is he...Gizzly Adams? But the last time I watched that show he had a bear, not a laptop computer". We made almost the exact same comment you made about the computer he was using to access the forum and where he was drawing his power from. He will probably reply now that he does not use commercial power, churns his own butter, uses leaves instead of wasting toilet paper, does his laundry in the nearby creek, and sneaks over to use the neighbors computer and does not own one of his own.
Plus is comment about me being a "Flat Lander" was humorous as well. Unless you live in a cave or on an isolated island with no contact with the outside world....everyone knows Indiana is know for being extremely flat. Its about as common knowledge as knowing that Florida gets hot.
Well Al,another war to add to the list,plastic. :D
You want to see flat ? Take a little drive on US 30 about 60 miles east,I'll show you flat .I'm about 3 miles south of the "Great Black Swamp " area .Once home to the largest oak trees that ever grew on this green earth and probabley at least half of the known mosquito population as well at one time .
I get to Ft Wayne about once every couple of years .The most memorable was hauling 36 feet long decking steel down Collisium Blvd on an extended trailer and a pick up truck .A semi can make those tight corners and a pick me up has a tough time .That's one tough town to get accross in heavy traffic ,especially with 45 feet of trailer behind you .I might have been just a tad over legal length . :D
Quote from: thecfarm on March 23, 2013, 09:10:56 AM
Well Al,another war to add to the list,plastic. :D
Oh shucks I'm just a bar room lawyer ,I'll debate anything . :D
Al
I try to avoid colliseum Blvd at all costs. That is my least favorite road to travel in this entire town. That is where I got hit from behind by the PTC bus and it cost me a spinal fusion, 3 additional spine surgeries, 2 shoulder surgeries, and loss of about 70% of my left arm and left hand. I hate that road with a passion.
Makes me feel like i am driving back in New York with all the traffic and stop lights. Too congested.
Hats off to you for navigating it with a 45 foot long trailer, even if it was a tad over legal length.
After all that I would hate that road too. :(
I had to go to Moss engineering .I have no idea if they are still in business but it was the cheapest place east of the Mississippi to get rolled steel sheet goods .
Yeah I've been in NYC ,twice as matter of fact .If I never get there again it will be too soon .As far as I'm concerned the Indians got the best part of that deal selling Manhattan Island which they didn't even own for 24 bucks worth of glass beads .
New York state is a beautiful area of the country .NYC is on another planet I think .Thank God I don't have to live there .Old grumpy Grizzley Adams type has no business in a place like that . :D
Quote from: Al_Smith on March 20, 2013, 08:43:47 PM
:D Oh stop already .We got the oil wars ,the gas wars ,the chain wars and now the great debate about plastic .I'd mention the punctuation debate but I can't rattle the ole boys' chain any more .Must have lost my touch .
What next expect the ladies to give up their nylon stockings and underwear and instead wear cotton pantaloons and hoop skirts ?That will be the day the sun rises in the west .
Al, it's wars, comma, space. Not wars, space, comma. I'll never give up trying to learn you things! :D
Just burn the plastic in a gasifier!
There is a fellow about 65 miles from me that gets about 90% of his home heat and hot water from burning rubber tire chunks. He has an Empyre 200 gasser unit.
I've not seen it burn, but those who have maintain that it is smoke free.
The articles that I've read say there are more btu's in plastic and it's cousin rubber than there are in wood. :P
BBL- Thanks for contributing. It looks like your business is a family affair and those you involve are learning positive work ethics. smiley_clapping
My grandfather had a three bay commercial garage in Pittsbugh Pa during the depression .In the center bay he had a big old gravity furnace .He heated that thing from a combination of an oil drip sytem and old tires .
My dad said it did smoke a lot but it was a hot fire .My oh my would they ever squack if they did that now .
On the other had if per chance you passed the smoke though the coals like most gassifiers just how much would it smoke ?Try it out nephew and let us know .
martiinmi
Yes we are totally a family and close friend business. Thank you very much for the compliments. Do try to teach strong positive work ethics and give rewards when extra effort is put forth on the part of anyone in the company.
Aha a brain storm or brain fart as perhaps it might be .About 10 years ago I know a guy that got involved in making plastic lumber .They used everything they could get their hands on .Old oil cans ,stinky old milk bottles ,you name it .
Now I just wonder if they could round up all that Saran wrap from 10 zillion cords of bundled firewood and remelt it in the mix .It would take a lot of it because it only weighs about 4 pounds to the mile .
Geeze to just make enough for a porch deck it would have to go to the moon and back .Maybe not such a grand plan .
Recycling is a little odder than I used to think. I found out last year from a local business that their shrink wrap from pallets has to go to garbage instead of recycling. I wondered at that time whether it could be dropped into the mix for plastic lumber.
Quote from: Al_Smith on March 23, 2013, 11:50:56 AM
Try it out nephew and let us know .
I have burned a little bit of plastic and rubber in my gasser.
It does indeed burn smoke free- once you get it going!
It does not start gasifying as rapidly as wood, so I end up getting some black smoke for a minute or two when it starts cycling.
A smoke free burn all the time should be possible, I think, if one could engineer a propane assist to ignite the petroleum based gases from the rubber with each cycle.
Just imagine a world with no more tires in landfills! arteest-smiley
So git 'er engineered uncle Al! Lotsa folks out there happy to take your money when it comes time to file for a patent! :P 8)
Well I suppose you could burn old bowling balls made of hard rubber if you could find enough of them .I think they buy them up and let captive pigs roll them around for something to play with rather than chew the ears and tails off their buddys .Actually they use old tires for a pig toy too .I doubt seriously though if a pig toy would be desirable to burn in a gasser .You'd gas the whole neighborhood no doubt .Stiiiink ,oh my oh my .Phew !
There was an old time store building up the road. Must have had 12 foot ceilings in it. Pot belly stove set in the middle. The guy that ran it shoved a bowling ball in it one time. With the draft shut off the stove was glowing red, so was the pipe all the way to the ceiling.
That old hard rubber would burn hot as coke probabley .I'm not even certain if they make hard rubber bowling balls any more .It's that danged plastic any more that will be the ruination of society .
The guy up here that burns tire chunks calls them "Black Oak"! :D
The few times that I've tinkered with burning plastic and rubber in my gasser I could not hardly believe how clean it burns. No smoke and very little odor. The aroma didn't smell like rubber.
I've incinerated a few animals in my gasser too. They don't smell any different than wood when they are burning.
Enough of this highjackin' from me.
This thread was supposed to be about processing firewood. Sorry about my part in that BBL. I blame good ol uncle Al! ;D ;D
He can be a bit of a bad influence......on me at least! ;)
Quote from: martyinmi on March 23, 2013, 06:40:14 PM
He can be a bit of a bad influence......on me at least! ;)
+1 :D :D :D
There is a guy, next county, that runs a junk yard. Cuts the radiator hoses off the junk cars. Calls them "Black Hickory".
:D Yeah I'm a bad one .I kinda figured if a guy gets fussy about a little Saran wrap I'd give em something to really go bonkers over .
What better than pig poopy old bowling balls . :D On the other hand I suppose a guy could wrap them up in some of that recycled shrink wrap and toss them in the landfill .Maybe send them through the car wash and include a free one in a bundle of firewood .
Now nephew do not blame your bad behavior on me for heavens sakes .You were incorrigible before I ever came along .As for me I've worked on it all my life . ;)Just think Marty if you practice in another 20 years you could be bad as me . 8)
Hey
Let the conversation go where it may. I have got a lot of good laughs these last few days thanks to you guys and I will be darn if I pull the plug on the fun. Its all good to me, I'm just sitting here placing an order on line for more shrink wrap for the 2013 season anyway 8)
That stuff is cheap .Double wrap it that'll give em something to talk about . ;)
Quote from: Al_Smith on March 23, 2013, 08:35:51 PMJust think Marty if you practice in another 20 years you could be bad as me . 8)
I'm afraid that mold was irreparably busted the nano-second you started breathing all those years ago. :D
Try as I might Al, I'll never have what it takes to toss just the perfect amount of fuel on a given fire to continue efficient combustion while keeping my derriere out of the wood shed. electricuted-smiley
You would be the master cylinder, me the slave. You are the sensi, and I, the lowly grasshopper! whiteflag_smiley
I had good teachers Marty .I was raised up by the most ornery old bull headed ,hard drinking but biggest hearted old men on the planet .Those old coots could have taught PT Barnum the finer arts of spreading camal dung which was way before BS was ever invented .BTW there were also a few old ladies in that bunch too . ;)