Mother's Conduit Log Peavey
Building a log peavey for maneuvering large logs.
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ABOVE: Just push with your weight to roll the log into position for bucking
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Use free-for-the-hauling, scrap parts to construct a lumber lifter without parallel:
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If you're a member of the growing ranks of the wood-heating clan, you've no doubt found out that cutting wood for your stove or fireplace is only half the fuel foraging battle. Once you've felled and sectioned your trees, each log must still be trimmed, split, gathered, and stacked.
And—in the course of such firewood processing adventures—you may also have discovered that moving a 12-foot-long log with a kink in the middle is no easy matter ... timber of that proportion can often be neither rolled nor lifted. Of course, professional lumber choppers have just the tool for such a job —called a log peavey ... after its inventor, Joseph Peavey—but a commercial model of this back—saving device would probably be too expensive to be worthwhile for the occasional "lumberjack." However, MOTHER's version of Mr. Peavey's log lifter is so easy to make that it would be worth your while to build one ... especially since most of the components can be found in construction site scrap piles (be sure to ask before you scavenge from one of these gold mines) or even at the town dump!
Start by locating a handle: a 60" length of 1" electrical conduit (professionally called E.M.T. or electrical metallic tubing) bent to a 90* angle at one end (as shown in the drawing). Much of the conduit used in construction will already have 90* curves (for turning building corners), so you can easily adapt such scrap-pile treasures to your needs.
Next obtain a 24" piece of 2" fencepost pipe, and bore a 1" hole—through one side of the tube—directly in its center. Then push the bent end of your 1" conduit through the 1" hole and weld the two pieces of pipe together.
With that done, find a 4" length of 1/4" X 1-1/2" hot-rolled steel and cut one corner off at a 45* angle. Take this little wedge and weld it—point out—to the outside of the curve of the conduit handle ... about six inches from the junction of fencepost and pipe.