Feedback on wood cutting
Readers respond to previously printed article.
WITH A CHAIN SAW
RELATED CONTENT
After 1,500 miles of alternative fuels vehicle driving, we found that you can run a truck with a wo...
Almost half the world’s original forests have disappeared, one-fifth since the late 1950s....
This sturdy, folding sawbuck will help to make cutting firewood an easier chore....
THE HEALTHY PLATE: A double crust can do in a diet. Cut the crust for a healthier pie...
Instead of putting posts in the ground for a wood rack (as
Tom Murray suggested on page 29 of MOTHER NO. 25), you can
make a holder that looks like a sled. The runners can be
two 2 X 8's, about 7 feet long and 2-1/2 feet apart. Round
off the bottom corners for the front and nail a
2-X-something crosspiece at each end and in the middle.
Then attach three 2 X 4 uprights, about 4 feet high, on
each side.
Fill your rack full of poles, crank your saw and go to
work! You can cut 20-foot trunks in your contraption if you
saw first one end, then the other, to keep them balanced. I
can turn out a cord of wood an hour this way. I know it
sounds unbelievable, but it's true.
Dan Shipman
Grant City, Mo.
AND WITHOUT
I have to disagree with Tom Murray's article "Twice the
Wood in Half the Time" (MOTHER NO. 25). I don't intend this
as a wisecrack, but just how much wood have you guys cut to
let it get past?
OK, this is what I mean. You might be able to drive a
post-hole 18 inches deep by prying a dig bar back and forth
in Iowa, where they have six inches of topsoil . . . but
most of us back-to-thelanders don't live in Iowa. You dig a
hole, any hole, and the rock in there usually brings you up
short with a jar and a lousy string of profanity. And you
have to go deeper than 18 inches to set a post right. As a
matter of fact, two feet is a bare minimum. Frost during a
heavy winter goes 18 to 24 inches deep and the bottom of
your post had better be below frost line or you get
heaving . . . which is one more excuse to teach
the kids all those words you don't want them to use yet.
Another thing: You'd better durn well not hit the
saw's chain in the dirt. Chains cost $15.00 to $25.00, and
a rock can rip off a set of teeth faster than you realize .
. . and there the kids are, eagerly standing by, adding to
their verbal skills. So don't ever run into the ground.
Next, Murray's method leaves you with six or eight good
fenceposts cluttering up a space you use only a few days a
year. A man can cut and cord perhaps three cords a day. You
use six cords a year, if you have good wood and not pine.
You cord wood when you have a few hours to spare. The rest
of the time, the posts just stand there and clutter. I
don't know, maybe they'd make a good place to grow pole
beans or sump'n . . . but if the uprights aren't locust,
they'll rot out in five or ten years.
Page: 1 |
2 |
3 |
Next >>
