Thread: Cut vs split firewood

Originally Posted by Bill999

yeah 50-1 still gums up our plugs with the light use we do(loads of idleing) even with the better oils

25-1 is just for running things in and when you enjoy the extra smoke

Yeah na. 25:1 has its place with standard mineral oil 2 stroke oil and big saws operating alaskan mills.

As an aside I have found fully synthetic 2 stroke oil starting to be hard to get, and has become insanely expensive. Motul is now nudging $50/L
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I was onto a winner with Total's fully synthetic 2 stroke oil @ $18/L back in 2020. I should have bought 50L of the stuff

Originally Posted by No.3

I do everything by hand with either a guided file (clamp on guide on the bar) or hand filing with the height guide that clips to the back of the file. I've given up taking the chains in to be ground, too many chains ballsd up and destroyed by wrong angles or taking too much off one side and ending up with a chain that cuts around corners. I tried square filing but didnt really see any advantage over vanilla grinding for the extra hassle and also the square ground seemed to be a bit more prone to denting or being damaged.

I've pretty much settled on micro chisel for firewood duties and keeping the full chisel for felling. I have a couple of tungsten carbide tipped chains, one Maya and one Stihl but they are painfully slow for cut rate. Apart from that keeping the angles on the leading edge (either 25deg or 30 depending on what was there to start with), aboutt 10deg on the top angle, the tooth length the same, and depth gauge to 25thou and thats about as good as I need and can get.

I tried one of those nifty Stihl do everything in one pass multi files, but I dont rate them as its a pain turning the files to keep the edges fresh.

The little sharpening tools that go over the bar like a cradle with a roller on either side I have found to be really good for getting a decent edge - they have a swing-out plate on the bottom that works for filing down the raker teeth
The only good trick that I can add is to paint one of the teeth with a black felt tip pen so you know when you've gone around completely

Originally Posted by Bill999

yeah 50-1 still gums up our plugs with the light use we do(loads of idleing) even with the better oils

25-1 is just for running things in and when you enjoy the extra smoke

a new stihl will fail at 25;1 I KNOW this as double mixed some and it clogged up the filters,$60 later she sorted,funny thing my older stihl simply ate the same fuel mix no worries....

and yes agree,the cut blocks are great for last thing at night....or during day when want to just have fire ticking over slowly.

Originally Posted by 308

The little sharpening tools that go over the bar like a cradle with a roller on either side I have found to be really good for getting a decent edge - they have a swing-out plate on the bottom that works for filing down the raker teeth
The only good trick that I can add is to paint one of the teeth with a black felt tip pen so you know when you've gone around completely

I've seen those but never tried one. Always looked like a bit of a better mouse trap - and what I'm doing now works so I never ended up tracking one down to try... A lot of chains have two teeth the same side at the join - that's always a good marker place but if you don't have that the marker pen works. I've got a couple of older chains that suffered strikes which busted a tooth - off with it's head and a one-tooth-off skip chain (still ok for crappy jobs). That works as a marking point too!

One thing I did that's absolute gold is I knocked up a tensioner that bolts to the bar and means I can tension the chain for sharpening without having the powerhead hanging in the way. It's really quite surprising how much easier and quicker it is to file a chain without the powerhead stuffing you up. And it's simple to turn the bar in the vice so you are filing the same way just the other angle - sooo much easier...

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

and yes agree,the cut blocks are great for last thing at night....or during day when want to just have fire ticking over slowly.

I've got a mate in a local lines outfit, he's been passing through some of the old aussie timber spreaders off the powerpoles as they've been replacing them - they come in chopped up and basically ready to go into the fire but it's serious timber. I haven't burnt one yet but I have a feeling you won't want two blocks in the firebox at the same time...

Originally Posted by No.3

I've got a mate in a local lines outfit, he's been passing through some of the old aussie timber spreaders off the powerpoles as they've been replacing them - they come in chopped up and basically ready to go into the fire but it's serious timber. I haven't burnt one yet but I have a feeling you won't want two blocks in the firebox at the same time...

Most likely Jarrah

Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

Most likely Jarrah

Could well be - but I did think Jarrah was red in colour, this is more of a consistent darker brown. An uncut length of spreader is about 2m long and weighs a heap. I should weigh the thing, its a heave to shift one.

Weren't some of them ironbark or something appallingly hard? I remember helping my Grandfather cut some poles he got from the P&T and they were like cutting cast iron.

Yep lots were ironbark. Next to useless as firewood - indeed the reason they use them as powerlines was due to the fire resistant nature of it. Often saw stringybark, both yellow and red as poles also

Many moons ago a local farmer had his old hay barn blown over. I got to grab all 9 old power poles that were used as the poles supporting the roof, on the condition I tidied up all the perlins and corrugated iron crap left afterwards. Yes, the ol' 55cc sthil got a thrashing, used semi chisel with the top plate ground back to 15 degrees. But man that wood would burn sweet. Would leave the log burner on full for 15 min with one round in it, then throttle back completely for overnight. Kept the house with young uns toasty warm. Next morning the log would still be there, but tap it and it would fall apart into glowing coals. Best firewood ever, except for Maire stumps and Acacia.

Me mate thinks they might be eucalyptus - I dunno about that as I thought that those gum-type trees were rot-prone. This stuff definately is not haha. It's not ironbark either, I had the fun job of drilling and popping some ironbark piles off underwater to get the sticky-upy bits out of the way for a new single-span bridge. The popping bit was easy, the drilling to set the charges not so much. Using a sharp self-pulling screw auger made your eyeballs vibrate, not a pleasant exercise under water...

This is the stuff, this bit is around a couple of KG...

Originally Posted by No.3

Me mate thinks they might be eucalyptus - I dunno about that as I thought that those gum-type trees were rot-prone. This stuff definately is not haha. It's not ironbark either, I had the fun job of drilling and popping some ironbark piles off underwater to get the sticky-upy bits out of the way for a new single-span bridge. The popping bit was easy, the drilling to set the charges not so much. Using a sharp self-pulling screw auger made your eyeballs vibrate, not a pleasant exercise under water...

There's over 1200 species of gum/eucalyptus. Some rot easily, some are soft, some are ground durable, some are steel hard. Where's @Ben Waimata ? He has forgotten more about Eucs than most of us know about that species

Again, many moons ago I had the job of cutting off at seabed level some square ironbark piles at the Shelly Bay Naval facility. We used a hydraulic chainsaw, and even with its unlimited power it was a half hour job with one chain change to gnaw our way through. Fuck it was tough!

Originally Posted by XR500

There's over 1200 species of gum/eucalyptus. Some rot easily, some are soft, some are ground durable, some are steel hard. Where's @Ben Waimata ? He has forgotten more about Eucs than most of us know about that species

Again, many moons ago I had the job of cutting off at seabed level some square ironbark piles at the Shelly Bay Naval facility. We used a hydraulic chainsaw, and even with its unlimited power it was a half hour job with one chain change to gnaw our way through. Fuck it was tough!

Haha yeah, we gave up on the pneumatic chainsaw and went to the drill and pop method at seabed level. Still a pain in the arse but two days vs a week. You probably couldn't pop em in shelley bay though to be fair. The natives would get restless up there and start complaining...

I had no idea there are that many gum species. Interesting, shows what you see on the tv isn't the whole story. I see the ones going up in the firestorms and from that gum tree = gum tree = bad fire hazard haha.