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firewood "sawbuck" ideas?

Started by Engineer, November 06, 2005, 06:07:42 PM

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Engineer

I need ideas for some kind of "sawbuck" that you can put a chunk of tree or slabwood on it, so it will sit about waist height or a bit lower, and be able to lop off whatever length.  I have built a couple different ones over the years, mostly just two "x"s with some connecting braces, and they either collapse or get sawed through.   We usually cut trees up into 6-12' lengths in the woods and bring them out on a trailer or with the tractor.  I get tired of piling them on the ground, getting the bar stuck or hitting the dirt, bending over, etc.

Anybody have any pics or plans of what works well for you?   ???

sprucebunny

I'm looking for the same thing !

I had some ideas about a 2x8 foot piece of plywood with a 2x6 screwed to a long side and tilted a little on some chunks of 10x10 blocking but I haven't built it yet.
MS193, MS192 and an 026  Weeding and Thinning. Gilbert Champion sawmill

Sprucegum

I think "Onewithwood" has a picture of a neat gadget he uses but I don't know how to find it.

It was a timber about 12"-20" wide with uprights every 16" along the length, toss your logs in and cut beside each upright - it just that easy.

Mount it on whatever hieght legs you desire.

Dan_Shade

Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

bitternut

I recently was pondering the same problem and finally realized the solution was only as far away as my woodsplitter. Part of my tsi work was killing a lot of iron wood that were pole wood. I was cutting them into 12' lengths to haul out for cutting into 16" lengths. I marked them into 16" lengths using a logging tape and a lumber crayon. Then I clamp the marked off pole in the log splitter and cut them into lengths. Just like putting them in a vise. If any are large enough to require splitting the splitter is sitting right there running ready to go. Really simple and works well. Of course you do need a splitter to do this.

Brucer

Mine's made of 4 crosses, each constructed of a pair of 2x6's bolted at right angles to each other (with bolt heads recessed to save saw chains  ;D).  The crosses are fastened together with a 4' piece of angle iron running along the bottom side of the intersection. Two more pieces of angle iron connect the bottom ends of the crosses. A pair of threaded rods tie the bottom angles together to keep the crosses from opening up under the weight of a heavy log. A couple of diagonal braces across the bottoms of the crosses keep the whole thing from collapsing laterally.

Works fine for logs up to 24". For really small stuff (e.g., branches), I pile a bunch together and throw a logging chain across the top of the pile to hold things together while I saw. Slabs pile up nicely in it as well.

To top it off, I've got a log deck of sorts, made of two 3x8's each mounted on a pair of heavy sawhorses. I stack a half dozen big logs on the deck with the tractor, then roll them off onto the sawbuck one at a time.

I'll see if I can find it under the snow and take a picture.
Bruce    LT40HDG28 bandsaw
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers."

redpowerd



i have about a half dozen or so of these kicking around the woods, as you can see the braces are beneith the intersection that supports the branches, ive never sawn thru a set, yet. been using them for years. the pic isnt the best, theres another x on the bucks. it helps if you stack as neat as possible with one end stacked flush. not sure about this one, but the xs are usually 18" apart. the braces are notched. ive thought about mounting them on an old pair of skiis, and if you have a hammer and some spikes, you can build them out in the woods from poles as needed. :)
NO FARMERS -- NO FOOD
northern adirondak yankee farmer

Fla._Deadheader

Y'all are making this Waayyyyyyyyyyy too difficult.  ::) ::)

  What you are looking for has been around for years.  Back, dead center in the middle of the last century, My dad had a bench saw hooked up to a model "A" Ford Chassis. Take the rig to the wood pile, jack up one hind wheel against the flat pulley, and saw wood until you got done or waayyy past dark.

  When I had the Mill in Arkansas, I rigged up a smaller "Bench Saw", and ran it with a Peckerwood motor. Sawed all the slabs you could possibly burn, and my Maw and Paw sold slabwood. We bundled the slabs for selling to the Charcoal Plant. I would simply put a bundle by the saw rig, and my Dad would saw while Mom threw into a pile or their pickup.

  A catch box just under the blade with a conveyor, would keep 2 people as busy as they want to be. A gas engine, and take the whole thing TO the woods and you avoid double and triple handling.  Wadda I know ??  ::) :D :D
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Engineer

That "x" thing I've used before - I think I need to make it a bit beefier.

The Chainsaw Buddy from Bailey's is NEAT!   8)  I like it, my dad always cuts that little stuff, right down to about 2".  I may get each of us one, I have a small saw I can slap it on as a dedicated "buddy saw".

Don_Papenburg

A lot of farms around here had a saw buck that had sliding/tilting tables that you would load with wood and belt up the tractor and then slide the table into the blade  .    Some were mounted on the tractor. made for very fast firewood cuttin.
Frick saw mill  '58   820 John Deere power. Diamond T trucks

bitternut

That is called a buzzsaw. Back when dwarf fruit trees were unheard of my Dad and Uncle  saved up all the limb wood from trimming. The limbs were stood on end where they would dry. Once a year the saw would appear at either our farm or my Uncle's. We would all have to help. Either my Dad or my Uncle ran the saw. Being only a kid I was a manual laborer. Used to take us all day at each farm. The wood was used in the kitchen stove and in the bunkhouse. If I try hard I can still hear that belt slapping and the zing of the blade.

Ed_K

 I have 2 box tables. 1 is 12' long for doing slabs and pole wood. the other is 4' long to do the 4' slabs & cordwood.
They'er both 2' wide x 2' high, with legs about 30" high. The 12' is for reducing down to 4', and has uprights at 4' intervals. The 4' is set with uprights at 16".
For yrs customers would say " is that a whole cord". with the 4' table, 8 fill ups is a cord.
Now my competition can't say "looks like your giving some wood away"  ;D.
Ed K

OneWithWood

I upgraded my firewood processing center this past year - I had to do something to get my wood in before Chet  ;D

Here are a few shots of the current setup.
The bench is just 6x6 cants stacked to form a table that will support a 20' bole at waist height


I picked up a couple of 10' x 24" conveyors off of a salvage company on ebay


and the real improvement is the TW5 splitter at the end of the conveyor


I can now load boles off the forwrding trailer using the grapple arm, buck to 18", roll on to conveyor, push down and load onto the splitter and split.  The next addition is the corn conveyor I picked up but it needs serious rehabbing before it is ready for duty.  Once it is ready the split wood will be fed into the back of the dump truck for transport to the drying area.  With the setup as it is I can buck and split a cord an hour.
One With Wood
LT40HDG25, Woodmizer DH4000 Kiln

pappy

Engineer,

I use this double X for my slabs and small trees 8 feet and shorter...
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=6501.msg90085#msg90085

You could always add another X section for longer material... this size works good at the mill andin the woodlot because of it's size... at the mill I place the slabs in it as I saw... three loads fills a pickup...

works fer me   :)
"And if we live, we shall go again, for the enchantment which falls upon those who have gone into the woodland is never broken."

"Down the Allagash."  by; Henry Withee

Engineer

I gotta search the archives once in a while...  :-\

Jim_Rogers

Here is a drawing of an old one I use to have:



What I did was make up four of these and then bolt them to the rails and then you have spots where you can cut through the 4' lengths and they wouldn't fall down into the center of the buck and/or bind up.

Hope this helps.

Jim Rogers
Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

arj

Here`s a pic of the rack I use for slabs and small logs       
       
I can slide slabs right off the mill into it,  and also load with the forks on my tractor   
                         arj                       

Steve

Here's what  I did along those lines. No picutures so you have to follow my convoluted description.

I built a half of a roof frame on the side of the mill where the slabs went. For me it was the left side of a Mobile Dimension setup.
The "ridge" was closest to the saw deck about 3' high and the rafters were set a couple of feet apart down the length of the deck. Use an angle and lenght to suit yourself.  As I sawed I rolled the bottom slabs onto the this arangement and also pitched the trimmings on as I went. I could get a full days slabs on this and then would buck them up as they were at the end of the day. This whole set up could hold at least a cord of wood. Just had to be carefull not to cut the rafters when bucking the wood but other than that it was pretty easy to deal with. I usually had a buyer lined up so would deliver before heading home.
Nothing complicated at all and worked pretty good. The angle to the "rafters made it easy to load with wood and the slabs would naturally slide to the bottom.

Steve
Hawaiian Hardwoods Direct
www.curlykoa.com

Coon

What I have done to buck up firewood was bbuilt myself a simple unit that is bolted onto the saw bar.  What I did was took a piece of flat iron about 3/4" wide and bent one end so the piece looked like an "L".  In the shorter end of it I drilled a 3/8 hole in which I used a 3/8 bolt with washers and a couple of nuts and bolted it on through the saw bar (mine had enough of the slotted cut out sticking through the front of the saw therefore not having to drill out the bar.  This can be built for any length of fire wood you wish to cut.  Another alternative to this is to make a little pipe with a hole through  it in which you can place a fiberglass electric fence rod with a pin for easy removal.
Norwood Lumbermate 2000 w/Kohler,
Husqvarna, Stihl and, Jonsereds Saws

Engineer

arj, that's exactly what i am looking for.  i'm going to shamelessly copy your design.   8)

beenthere

I built a 'sawbuck' years ago, but then quit using it. I found that lifting the full-length pieces to get them in the sawbuck, then moving end to end to cut so it wouldn't tip the pile, then picking up all the pieces was more work than just bucking up the tops on the ground.  Now for slabs, I can see something would be very useful.
When bucking 'on the ground' I don't mean getting the chain into the dirt. I usually cut on the top side of the bar near the tip (but not at the tip) with the piece on a stack of limbwood. Less chips coming back to me, the piece is pushed away, and if it needs to be positioned for cutting, at least I am not 'lifting' it as far as the sawbuck. When a length to be bucked is on the ground, I often stick my boot toe under it to lift it off the ground, and then cut it through with the chainsaw. Worst case is toss a cut piece underneath to lift the limb off the ground for cutting.
Just a 'different' way.
I can see a sawbuck in the days when the wood was sawn off by hand (buck saw) where getting it waist high was much better than on the ground.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

arj

Go to it Engineer I never did get to the patent office

                         arj

Stephen


This is a past photo from the Forestry Forum. I saved a copy for myself, as I was going to build one someday. (May the true owner now step forward)
1994 WoodMizer LT40G18. 69 acres mixed wood. 1952 ford tractor, Norse 290 winch, studed Norse ice chains. 45-66DT Fiat.

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