How'd it go today?

@treebilly , this anywhere near you?

Within an hour drive. Not surprising or a new thing. The article mentions other state parks that have done the same years ago. I was at Salt Fork years ago and recently. I will say that a lot of money was reinvested into making it nicer for common folk. By common folk I mean people that enjoy comfortable outdoors. The campground has had major upgrades and better maintenance of the lake and grounds overall. Honestly the natural gas companies do less environmental damage than the park visitors from what I can visibly see.
I’ll get another look at salt fork next fall as I’m planning on a white tail hunt there
 
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One last beer with Brother Wyatt before getting on my delayed train. A fine trip, facilitated by a fine young man.

Not all brothers are born, but all brotherhood is written in blood, sweat, tears, and effort. I am blessed with a collection of fine brothers, some of whom have yet to meet one another, some who met only recently, some who have been brothers for years. I am truly blessed by all of them.

I got to see Brother Dave, and Brother Dawson, spend time with my girls and a week with my beloved protege, Brother Wyatt. Life is indeed always good, if we but seek the goodness. And so I grow my family of Spirit, and reaffirm the old oaths of fraternity.
 
I used to feel the same but I've grown to be able to tolerate it
I haven’t stacked since I was a kid. Now I remember why. I went to deliver last night and realized I had made a grave error. I assumed they knew the delivered price was just chucking it off, not stacking. I ate my error and carried it from the driveway to the back side of the house. Took forever.
 
Is firewood profitable there or part fun and part disposal?


Here, it feels like there is only beer money in firewood unless automated. Stacking seems to make peanuts to go with the beer.

I delivered wood once when I needed the beer and peanuts, where they thought I would haul and stack as part of selling and delivering. They asked how much. I said $20 extra. Should have told them an hourly price or taken it with me.

Once burned, twice shy. I definitely don't want to do basic labor that kids can do.
 
Firewood is profitable with a processor. It is also profitable with a regular splitter if you don’t take in account your time. If you do it’s something like $11 an hour probably less. Firewood production costs time not so much money. It is a good way to dispose of a byproduct you already got paid to remove. I did most of my firewood production during mud season and posted roads just for something to do. But I found the hassle of filling orders more time consuming than it was worth. Using IBC baskets helped make it a tiny bit more profitable but you need a machine so it has a cost to the bottom line.
 
I agree with all of you. Double ended non stop splitter and conveyor belt or maybe equipment mounted might make it profitable.

If I was burning wood to heat my house I’d stack it too.

I sell a few cords a year usually half a cord at a time to campers. Full cord here and there to friends. Mostly exercise. I don’t like to see wood go in a landfill. None of mine does. Some gets milled.

With firewood the problem is sometimes demand outstrips my occasional hand splitting pace and it becomes a job. Yesterday I had other things to do…
 
I appreciate your hashtags Cory.


I'm with you, B, to an extent. If I was going to look at it all the time, I'd want to make a design.



I can/ do work year round.

I don't have a covered processing area for it is too wet/ windy to work for a day or three. I always have a backlog of shop work by a stove for those inclement days.

Totes or other machine-loadable containers seem key.

The cone-splitter and grapple seems like a good system.

Shop/ yard property values/ expenses are an important consideration.
 
$400 a cord for nice residential heating grade splits. Delivery included if close. Less for the desert grade wood but more for delivery depending on distance. Usually 30 mins away. I borrow a big dump trailer sometimes if I have multiple deliveries. Tele with bucket helps a lot. I can make a lot of splits pretty fast by hand if I have large rounds that split relatively easily. A big nasty ported saw with .404 makes a big difference.

I got a good portion of a cord from 3 rounds of this.

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Pretty nerdy but the devil and efficiency are in the details.
 
I think I made several hundred dollars NYE weekend with the dump trailer. Mostly stuff I didn’t have to split.
 
I prefer 20" and less.

Cord go for $200-$250 delivered, here.


I never pay for disposal.

My neighbor brings his shorty dump and car trailer if needed, or I borrow his rig. He takes anything I don't want. He's got a burn pit for rotten wood and he's building an OWB for his shop that his 5' wide tractor bucket fits into.
 
Started a big job Monday. All was going well until about 12:45, as we were returning from dumping the first load. I was turning in (narrow driveway), and so I had to swing wide so the trailer wouldn’t take out the mailbox and a light pole. Just as I entered the driveway, another guy took out the mailbox…and plowed into my truck. He said he didn’t think I was turning. I guess that right hand turn signal was just for giggles.

Worked Tuesday out of my F-250, but I’ve gotten spoiled to the Ram. We finished the job up Thursday, and I took off yesterday to get another work truck. Spent most of today swapping stuff over.


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I appreciate your hashtags Cory.


I'm with you, B, to an extent. If I was going to look at it all the time, I'd want to make a design.



I can/ do work year round.

I don't have a covered processing area for it is too wet/ windy to work for a day or three. I always have a backlog of shop work by a stove for those inclement days.

Totes or other machine-loadable containers seem key.

The cone-splitter and grapple seems like a good system.

Shop/ yard property values/ expenses are an important consideration.
We had some high wind days and ended up splitting four cords of logs into rails with the Atom splitter.
 
FTR I"ve burned 3.25 cord so far this winter :lol: 🤷‍♂️ :dude: :|: :drink:
This has been a fairly mild winter here...I'm at a little less than 1 cord burned so far this season. And it's worth noting we are retired and thus are home most of the time. When working, our use was always lower just because we were away all day at least five out of seven days. Normal weather year, retired, I bet by now our use would be at least a half a cord more.
 
We had some high wind days and ended up splitting four cords of logs into rails with the Atom splitter.
Neighbor Charlie has a cone splitter to be mounted at some point in the future. I'm curious what one would do with our local wood.

On my to-do list is to make my normal H/V wood splitter adapted mini- use, mounted splitter downward. I have been occasionally looking for a splitter with a blown engine.



I'd like either one for dealing with this size wood.


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I haven’t split any spruce or pine with mine but I would think it would do well enough. Keep a saw or axe near by to cut the stubborn fibers. They do well on oak, maple, ash, walnut, locust, hickory, birch, elm is still a bitch.
 

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