Never again

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The young fellow that lives up the hill a bit on our private drive does a good business with processing fire wood. My guess he has had 15 or more truck and pup trailer loads delivered this year. Always "perfect processor sticks". He drove out twice with his 1 ton dump body making deliveries today.

I can't handle a truck and trailer, No place to turn around, and I run out of space to stack the splits as a full load would be several year's of heat. since I've gone to pellets as background heat.

Pellets have taken a large chunk of the firewood business but for some reason, wood seems to be making a come back.
Some pellet stoves do not heat as well and you have to spend some money for a good one if a home is not insulated optimally

 

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I’ve put pieces that big on my horizontal splitter. One piece stays on the beam. If I’m working with a helper usually they can hold the second piece on the beam and stop it from falling off. If it does fall off then it’s on the opposite side of the lift and I have to use the machine to move them back over to the lift side. If I was working by myself I usually would just noodle a round that size before attempting to split it.View attachment 4184730

A lift on a horizontal would be my favorite coupled with a pass through splitter. I like to stack at the splitter hence the pass through preference.
Throwing these splits into the trailer and traveling the hundred feet to the woodshed, was like a “rest”.
Life is different at the new digs as opposed to living in the forest once upon a time.

 

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The young fellow that lives up the hill a bit on our private drive does a good business with processing fire wood. My guess he has had 15 or more truck and pup trailer loads delivered this year. Always "perfect processor sticks". He drove out twice with his 1 ton dump body making deliveries today.

I can't handle a truck and trailer, No place to turn around, and I run out of space to stack the splits as a full load would be several year's of heat. since I've gone to pellets as background heat.

Thankfully, I’ve gone from burning 6 cord at the old place to 3 cord at the new place but I do miss the woods.

 

[ruffdog]

What works better is to index the round on the edges with a chainsaw cut to hold a wedge. Make the cuts across from each other and insert the wedges then pound away.
Much faster than noodling.

Nice looking wood. I also do the small cuts so my wedges stick. After I quarter a big round, I can bust them smaller with the mall. But then, I'm not in a hurry and I like swinging a mall or sledge. It's a good way to enjoy the outdoors.

 

[Jstpssng]

Ok wait a minute:
Let me get this straight.
You’re picking up a 36” round with the grapple and rolling the splitter under it?
So your splitter is a pass through or moving wedge horizontal?
What happens to the 125lb splits?
One remains on the beam and the other?

It's just a 20ton splitter. I take a slice off the side, and slowly chew it up into more manageable pieces.

 

[CalG]

Pellets have taken a large chunk of the firewood business but for some reason, wood seems to be making a come back.
Some pellet stoves do not heat as well and you have to spend some money for a good one if a home is not insulated optimally

I like the pellet stove because I only need to tend it once a day. Fill the hopper and it's good. No filling the fire box every three hours/
BUT...

As the kids are gone, there is no need for a lot of heat all through the house. The pellet burner only "breaks the chill" for the downstairs laundry etc, and keeps the house acceptably warm through the night.
The pellet burner is set at "medium idle", and just runs (no thermostat control) With adjustments for heat output based on the outdoor temps. I would not rely on the pellet burner to provide comfortable heat in my home.
The parlor wood stove is the heater now!

It used to be the big wood stove (Fisher) that is downstairs would heat the whole house and all the kids rooms. The parlor stove was only used in the 'tween seasons" and when the bitter cold weeks hit.
That big stove takes 28 inch wood. Those splits are still heavy to haul and throw into the fire box! There is a reason that stove sits disconnected now.

The parlor stove takes 14 inch wood. So much easier for us old farts! More cutting though, and the short wood still needs to be stacked in the shed ONE piece at a time.