TALE OF TWO SAWBUCKS

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THE LOG ROLLWAY

By Harvey Mitchell

LAST SUMMER, THROUGH A STROKE of luck, I was given five truckloads of green wood, cut in lengths of 4' to 8'. As it turned out, some of the pieces were rather large to try to heft into the kind of vertical rack recommended by Ole Wik, so I devised a much simpler temporary version, which took a lot less work to install.

I first laid down a solid log to act as a support for the ends of several long logs, set at a perpendicular and spaced side by side about 24" apart. At the opposite end, where the logs met the ground, I drove stakes into the earth and nailed each one securely to the log adjoining it. They serve as stops for the timbers ready to be cut.

The rack works just as it would appear: You feed logs onto the rollway and stack them two or three deep at the lower end. By cutting consistently to the left of the stakes, you'll be assured of obtaining stove-length billets as you buzz through the pile. As an afterthought, I later placed all the stakes to the right of the parallel logs, nailed directly into the side of the trunks. That made a stronger connection and also put the rollway logs square in the path of the saw blade, to prevent the teeth from digging into the ground when nearing the end of each cut.

As you can see from the photo, I can cut and stack wood of any size using this simple method. What you may not be able to see clearly are the several dozen lengths of dry timber stacked upright against a crossbar tied between the trees. I pass that along from my Alaskan experience; it prevents cured wood from getting buried in the snow or freezing to the ground. You can easily carry it indoors to be cut when you need it.

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