Cant Hooks, Levers, and manually moving big logs

[oldclaypaws]

Ahah, scaffold pipes- long, strong and cheap, and useful if you loose your winch lever, good idea.

[splodger]

to keep large timber off of the ground (for cutting) - we tend to use timber poles - we keep stacks of poles all around the wood - and there is usually something apt for us to use nearby - we tend to put them in place before all of the side branch clearance is done - so the timber needs little or no leverage, as it drops onto the braces beneath as the weight comes off the branches

we use chestnut poles for leverage too - but as we have almost all sweet chestnut here, we have a plentiful supply of straight long and strong poles to choose from.

scaffold poles would work for levering but not much cop for rolling (not big enough diameter)

we have used old cast iron drain pipe sections - which have a much bigger diameter - for rolling large pieces - but it's a faff

we don't mill our timber (have often discussed it - but cost outways benifit) so we split all of our wood by hand - it's easy enough when you know how - besides, cleft timber looks much better than milled stuff - for rustic buildings, furniture etc

[oldclaypaws]

Yes, Splodge, I thought about using timber poles to lever, cut oak 4" X 4" might do the trick. Its a question of strength of the pole and avoiding splinters !

Agree fully with you about the superior charm of cleft timber, but as you say you've got mainly sweet chestnut which must cleave beautifully- after all they used most of it for stock rails. Not sure you could cleave big oaks accurately into wide boards or long beams, it would need an adze, take a huge effort, you'd lose a large portion of it in the process and if selling it on, I reckon most (boring) people expect it smooth and flat, not rippled with character. Personally, I'd love to spend the next fifteen years wedging oak, adzing, axing and making a 'hobbit house', all higgledy piggledy and oozing rusticity, but getting it finished is more important than the style, so for the building it'll be mainly milled with the odd bit of character added where possible. I'm also thinking of cheating and making my chestnut shingles by milling planks and cutting them rather than individually hand froeing each one.

[Andy M]

Sawn shingles are not nearly so effective as cleft ones - the water gets in at all the "frayed ends" made by the saw even though superficially it looks smooth. likewise, don't sand them after cleaving or they lose their waterproofedness (is that a word?)

[oldclaypaws]

Thanks Andy, thats another contribution to take on board, although I've seen commercial sawn-looking chestnut shingles so they must still work OK by degrees. Maybe I'll just spray the whole structure with 3 coats of PVA? BTW, the word I think your looking for, waterproofity, waterproofedness, waterrepellantness, round here, we call it 'dry'.

[splodger]

Agree fully with you about the superior charm of cleft timber, but as you say you've got mainly sweet chestnut which must cleave beautifully-
Not sure you could cleave big oaks accurately into wide boards or long beams, it would need an adze, take a huge effort, you'd lose a large portion of it in the process and if selling it on, I reckon most (boring) people expect it smooth and flat, not rippled with character.

twas said with tongue in cheek paws
although in principle it's easy to cleave by hand - in practice it's a quite different story. i've known guys who have worked with wood all their lives - but couldn't split a hazel rod, let alone cleave boards or shingles

oak does cleave well as does ash and hazel - we cleave chestnut because that's all we've got to work with - we did cleave some large pieces of birch a few years ago - but that was really hard work.

not sure how good the mills are nowadays, but stuff i used to buy for tabletops (when i was in that business) was still rough, with plenty of saw marks and needed going through a planer/thicknesser

[oldclaypaws]

not sure how good the mills are nowadays, but stuff i used to buy for tabletops (when i was in that business) was still rough, with plenty of saw marks and needed going through a planer/thicknesser

If you use a good bar and sharp ripper chain, I'm told the finish is as good or better than what comes out of a commercial mill. I've a pal who has offered to show me his Alaskan, so I'll be able to judge for myself. The videos from the Alaskan site all seem to show what looks like a pretty neat finish to me. For stuff like garden furniture and beams you wouldn't need a perfect smooth finish, and anyone buying boards for floors, posh cupboards or whatever is likely to sand it anyway. It also moves a bit as it seasons, so will never be absolutely flat however good the mill is. On higher priced finished pieces like big tables, sanding is an accepted part of the process and not rocket science. The big challenge self-milling overcomes is getting the stuff presentable in usable chunks out of the wood without the need for third parties and Amazon-style logging extraction. Call me sensitive, but I care about every lump of moss in my wood and really don't like the prospect of big vehicles churning up the ground and crushing my ferns, or what contractors cost to hire, or the need to make a wide tracks for them to the tree location. Add to that the satisfaction of being self reliant and seeing it through to finished value added product, not just being a 'tree farmer'.

[Terry]

Hi Paws
I shifted big pitch pine beams (13" square by around 22' long)around the house from outside to inside on my own using a small hand winch and approx 4" poles as rollers.
If you scaled this up a bit with a tirfor and slightly bigger rollers I would have thought you could get a lot done given time. Efficacy would depend a bit on ground conditions, roots etc.
Or just had another thought, what about a tirfor twinned with a logging arch?
That said, if you are looking at an Alaskan type operation, you dont have to move the logs anywhere, just the boards.
Just read a good thread on Arbtalk re the benefits of a double powerhead setup for chainsaw milling and no doubt you have seen Rob's advice at Chainsawbars regarding using a hand winch for pulling the alaskan through the cut, rather than manually pushing it.

Terry

[oldclaypaws]

Just read a good thread on Arbtalk re the benefits of a double powerhead setup for chainsaw milling and no doubt you have seen Rob's advice at Chainsawbars regarding using a hand winch for pulling the alaskan through the cut, rather than manually pushing it.

Can you find links for the double powerhead setup and Robs winch advice please Terry.
Sounds good.

[smojo]

I've seen a few tv programs where heavy horses are being used again to pull big logs around woods on the basis that they do little damage to the floor.