Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[Hilbilly]

Looking at those hand hewn posts and beams I am so impressed with what was accomplished without the use of the modern equipment we have today. I can't imagine how long it would take to make those. Need and determination yields results.

 

[Jstpssng]

Looking at those hand hewn posts and beams I am so impressed with what was accomplished without the use of the modern equipment we have today. I can't imagine how long it would take to make those. Need and determination yields results.

That's why every farmer had 12 sons!

 

[wolc123]

Looking at those hand hewn posts and beams I am so impressed with what was accomplished without the use of the modern equipment we have today. I can't imagine how long it would take to make those. Need and determination yields results.

I think that they are pretty neat and I would have liked to save the old barns. Unfortunately, my great great grandad built them in a low spot with poor drainage, and the foundations were failing at the same time as the roofs. If would have cost much more to fix them properly, than it did to put up a new steel building.

I was able to repurpose many of those beams on the new barn though, which sort of lets me keep the best parts of them. I still have that warm “old school” wood “feel”, along with the ease of maintenance of a modern steel building.

One improvement I made, compared to the originals, was spacing the 6” floor support beams under the 12 ft wide loft at 24” rather than 48”.

The 48” spacing was fine for the pilgrim's, back in the day’s of loose hay, but not so much after grandpa got a baler, around 1980. The 4ft spacing wasn’t enough to support the load, when grandpa had me stack those bales all the way to the roof up there.

I’m using my new loft mostly for storing extra lumber now, but if anyone ever decides to stack hay bales up to the roof, it should handle it no problem.

Here’s a picture of the last of the old barns (we had 2), before I pulled it down. It was built in 1883, according to the numbers cut into the siding, up under the peak on the north end.

I managed to wiggle out the “18” board down in one piece, from up near the top of my tallest extension ladder. I used that inside the new barn, along with another one which I tried to match the text with a jigsaw, to mark the year that my new pole barn went up.

I tried to get the “83” board down also, but that one broke right across the middle of the letters. You can see the remains of it up there in the picture. I did manage to save the old “loose hay”forks, trolley and monorail from inside, up under the peak. None of that stuff got busted up in the fall.

I won’t miss the ash at all when it’s gone but I do miss the American chestnut. That’s the lumber that made up most of great great grandads old barns. That unique color just can’t be matched by any other wood. Fortunately, I was able to save a great deal of it.

 

[Gordon Gould]

View attachment 861078 I'll be burning it for a while longer. (Thursday picture)

Same here. My wife took this Friday

gg

 

[Gordon Gould]

Poor man’s grapple.

I like the grapple - nothing wrong with that especially with the hydraulic cylinder. I used tongs on the back before I got a grapple.

gg

 

[Jstpssng]

I like the grapple - nothing wrong with that especially with the hydraulic cylinder. I used tongs on the back before I got a grapple.

View attachment 861146

gg

I think his grapple would work exceptionally well for gently setting logs on a lightweight sawmill like mine. I generally drive up and manually roll the larger logs off by hand, then fight to get them where I want them.

 

[Yogi05]

This was Thursday here. Not the most snow we've ever had in April, but still feels a bit odd!View attachment 861079

We've had a nothing winter here in eastern Ontario.
Comparatively no snow.
Largest snowfall was around 6 inches.
Had what might be part of your storm last Wednesday evening. Heavy slush snow mix. Nasty driving the next morning.
Biggest problem was very high winds and my hydro was out from 10 pm Wed to 6pm Friday.
I hate the wind.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Another nice day here today, sunny 70's, so I decided to run the BSM.

So, off I go with my loader tractor grabbing up this pretty nice older cherry, first trimming up the ends with my chainsaw and after loading it on the BSM,

With that done, I started by taking the "slab" off and then a "flitch". I always use my winch for turning these bigger logs when working alone,

I like to load the lumber and slabs on my pallet forks as it saves my back and I can move them later, to wherever I want them,

anyway, I kept sawing around the log until I had a "cant",

I try to "grade saw" these nicer logs, but sometimes you just can't because you are chasing all the tension that's in the log. Anyway, If I can, I like to make several cuts before idling the saw down, then moving the boards to the pallet forks,

Anyway, here's the lumber I ended up with,

as it's going to sit around a while before it goes to is new home, I put it on stickers. As you can see, there's some really nice lumber in the stack,

With that done, it was time to kick back and watch the sun and the moon do their thing!

SR

 

[Molalla1]

Another nice day here today, sunny 70's, so I decided to run the BSM.

So, off I go with my loader tractor grabbing up this pretty nice older cherry, first trimming up the ends with my chainsaw and then loading it on the BSM,

With that done, I started by taking the "slab" off and then a "flitch". I always use my winch for turning these bigger logs when working alone,

I like to load the lumber and slabs on my pallet forks as it saves my back and I can move them later, to wherever I want them,

anyway, I kept sawing around the log until I had a "cant",

I try to "grade saw" these nicer logs, but sometimes you just can't because you are chasing all the tension that's in the log. Anyway, If I can, I like to make several cuts before idling the saw down, then moving the boards to the pallet forks,

Anyway, here's the lumber I ended up with,

as it's going to sit around a while before it goes to is new home, I put it on stickers. As you can see, there's some really nice lumber in the stack,

With that done, it was time to kick back and watch the sun and the moon do their thing!

SR

Nice SR . . .

 

[JPRambo]

My two neighbors want to remove a multi trunk maple Saturday. The trunks were all 12 inch or less. With my small hudson 21 inch mill they are good enough for me. I got them two at a time like this: