The Sycamore that overhangs the east lodge needed taking down. The contractors showed up with two huge Valtra tractors, one with a grab, the other with a humongous winch. They must have brought me ten tons of wood to work my way through.

If the pic icons would open I’d post a picture

https://www.instagram.com/mcmoonter/?hl=en

Pics or it didn’t happen.

Too excited to post pictures! 😆

Sycamore is awesome burning.

I’ve seen the pictures. 8)

Awesome. Have fun processing that 😈

My friend and I cut down this ash on my father in law’s farm a week ago.

Hardly looks it, but the rounds at the base were nearly 4ft diameter. Even when we had it on the ground it took 3+ hours to get it to the point where we could move it on to the tractor and that was with two 60cc Husqvarnas.

//Jaws mode//
You’re going to need a bigger chainsaw
//End Jaws mode//

redthunder to the forum, redthunder please.

Awesome. Have fun processing that

I’ve made a start. The section where the trunk formed branches was a challenge. I managed to dice it to death 😀

The contractors did say that their processor would struggle with the big bits. Everyone is happy

If you’re not already aware B&Q were doing good splitting wedges for £6.99, much bigger than those £20 wood grenades and imo far better. Still can take 3 or 4 of them to split those massive rounds but it saves the saw from doing inappropriate donkey work.

I had a whole sycamore and it went ‘light’ like balsa wood after a few years. (The last went on the burner after 5 years).

Still burned well.

If you’re not already aware B&Q were doing good splitting wedges for £6.99, much bigger than those £20 wood grenades and imo far better. Still can take 3 or 4 of them to split those massive rounds but it saves the saw from doing inappropriate donkey work.

I made a dent in the pile today. My hydraulic splitter struggled with some of the cross grained lumps. I doubt if a grenade would touch them. I’m going to have to dice them some more.

My neighbour has a huge saw with something like a four foot bar. I might give him a shout with the biggest rounds if only to see the saw in action.

Glorious afternoon splitting

Now, if you only had a giant ****-off muck spreader like wot Top Gear had on last week… 😀

CountZero – Member

Now, if you only had a giant ****-off muck spreader like wot Top Gear had on last week…

And deprive yourself of possibly the most satisfying job a man can do by spraying shattered bits of green wood all round the yard? Tut and tut.

jimjam – if you left any of my lines spread out on the floor like that you’d not only be sacked but need a proctologist…..

I don’t get paid enough to stand under a running chainsaw while logs are dropped on my head thanks, as for the bum/rope interface 😆

Some nice wood in there.
None of it suitable for boarding up?
Seems a shame to burn it all.

I’d love to get access to a mill and use the wood eventually.

Kayak, when I heard the tree was to come down, boarding it was my first thought. The trunk was buttressed but fairly straight for about fifteen feet. It would have been a hell of a lift over the dyke, probably a crane job rather than the hiab on the back of the tractor.

There are a couple of places near me who mill wood. My neighbour was just saying the other day he was thinking of getting an Alaskan mill.

It’s a shame to make it all into firewood but I don’t have the capability to make it into anything else.

Yeah, fair enough. Be a nice future toy. 🙂

I’ve got a very small Alaskan mill – the smallest Granberg. It is a lot of fun – I’ve got a few piles of wind blown oak boards drying as we speak. I’ll run it through the bandsaw at some point to tidy it up…

Valtra, very posh, would love a rotating seat for running the Botex.
Found the limits of the crane (and front loader a couple of years ago) with some beech that had already been down 18 months. Had to notch it for the grab to grip. 36″ bar still left a tag in the middle when cross-cutting bits off. 7′ piece on the forks could only be lifted 8″. About 2 ton lift at either end.
There is still the bottom 20′ of this tree in the field.

EDIT: did some milling last week, contract a guy in with a woodmizer. Just some larch, spruce and fir for fencing and boardwalk. We shove through all sorts of hardwood too Kayak, lot of beech boards sitting in our shed from a buyer that fell through.

That’s the first holzhausen built out of the Sycamore. A lot of it had to be diced with the saw which made for a varied pattern in the stacking.

Very nice MM.

I have a trailer load of Ash coming later today – I shall report back (hopefully it won’t be the grey fluffy stuff!).

Good work MM. Saw the pics on instagram.

There is such a limited supply of wood in West Lancs (so much of it having gone long ago to become farmland) that I can only look on your photos and dream of days cutting and building up stores for future burning.

I’ll make do with what I can buy off a local tree surgeon.

Well it arrived 🙂

All ash. I may need to get creative as the bigger bits are 3′ diameter and my saw has a 16″ bar!
Thankfully I’ve got a little loader on my mower that will help with moving stuff around.

Should be good for a year or two, but I’m trying to get another load soon.

MM what kind, if any wildlife take us residence in the holzhausen?

MM what kind, if any wildlife take us residence in the holzhausen?

There are mice and voles, sometimes small birds nests. There are lots of insects too which in turn attract more birds. The Scots Pine I’ve brought in from the country park has introduced more insects and moths. My moth counting friend was surprised to see them here as it isn’t their typical habitat.

On a see note the big chunks if trunk have an armoured cable snaking invisibly through them. It’s proving a nightmare as I keep coming across it with the saw. Can anyone recommend some decent wedges to attempt to split the chunks?

Carpenter bees. I leave a badminton racket on the wood piles to keep the population under control. They’re about the same size as a frelon but much less aggressive, if I take a swipe at a frelon and miss it turns into a duel to the death that so far I’ve won.

sharkbait

Well it arrived

One trailer load or two and how much did it cost? I’m considering getting an articulated lorry load from Coilte (Irish Forestry Service) and the going rate for softwood seems to be about £1000. Ish.

Nightmare of a trunk. It’s a century old porcupine of nails and bolts. Victorian kids must have spent their holidays hammering metal into the tree. There were nails a foot from the core. I’ve had to cut and split it with a maul and wedges. I’ve trashed four chains

I got there in the end. I can split these chunks with the hydraulic splitter. The end is in sight. 😀

That’s a substantial load there Sharkbait, how are you getting on with it?

Almost down to ringing up the last bit which happens to be the biggest bit of the trunk – 30″ diameter but it’s good clean wood unlike your nightmare MM!

My saw (Stihl 034) has been thriving on the work and I’ve been good at keeping the chain tickled every 30 mins.

Did you see the active bee’s nest I found in one of the trunks?

I’m going to cut this bit off and keep it to one side so the bees can continue doing their thing.

My screw splitter is going strong but I’m considering selling it and my big tractor and getting a petrol powered hydraulic splitter instead as I’ve found that my JD X740 with little loader on the front has been invaluable for moving wood around.

JimJam: it was a single 7 ton trailer that cost £100 – a bit more than usual but it is ash 🙂

McM – if you are after a wedge with more split, look for a high lift wedge, but you’ll need to cut a groove to get it started and work with the grain. I’ve used them for clefting big stuff. Felling tool really.

JimJam – artic carries about 25 ton, so price is about right for 50 mile haulage, depending on your local timber market. Make sure they don’t send utter rubbish destined for chip unless you want small stuff.

Sharkbait – we’ve got an Oxdale 10 ton, they do a petrol standalone version, been happy with our one run off the hydraulics of our little Orchard tractor.

Timber, I bought a couple of steel wedges from ebay. After a couple of false starts I worked out the cut a groove trick which worked a treat. Biggest disappointment was an Estwing grenade wedge. It didn’t work anywhere near as well as the standard wedge.

I had remove the holzhausen in the foreground to make space for the new one

There may still be enough left in the pile to build a third.

That’s the job finally done. Two and a half holzhausens worth of logs and a trailer load of saw dust to show for my efforts.