Letter box

[MasterBlaster]

I broke out my iron wedge yesterday.

 

[gf beranek]

Some of those steel wedges the old timers used here were 3 foot long and maybe only inch and half thick.

Dana Coverston told me, "I'd have a dozen in the back of a tree and start on one end and work down to the other. You don't pound those wedges, Jer, cuz you'll compress the wood and the tree will just stand there. You have to tap them. Hit'em light and you'll pick the tree up."

 

[MasterBlaster]

Good advice.

 

[Cobleskill]

WWB,

Good advice never using mushroomed wedges. It takes a while to grind them back. Cold chisels and punches too.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Been hit but never hurt bad though... Made me conscience of the warnings I used to get fur sure!

 

[woodworkingboy]

I grind the plastic ones as well....not the nicest smell though.

 

[Bermy]

I use the 'letterbox' for the reasons mentioned (pulling over a stick with no top, bar way too short) as well as in very dense wood, to 'fishtail out the centre' where to finish the backcut with a short bar would mean burying it in order to cut all the way around the back, or boring from both sides.

Pic is a 'letterbox' from the front, before the backcut...using a 290, 16" bar...(before I had my 361/20")

 

[stig]

Bermy, I hope you cut that nice burl off and gave it to a woodturner.
Looks to me like there is a real nice bowl hiding in there!

 

[woodworkingboy]

Good thinking, Stig, but you know how it goes with that, no news usually means bad news.

 

[Bermy]

Ummmm....no, sorry!

Casuarina isn't used for anything much except firewood. It rots too quickly unless quite lengthy measures are taken to cure it.
However, you've planted a thought, next time I see a burl I'll cut it out and see what might be done!

 

[flushcut]

Bump.

 

[SeanKroll]

I grind the plastic ones as well....not the nicest smell though.

make a kerf. Set a wedge, backchain off the mushrooming with a small saw.

 

[lxskllr]

I like that saw idea. I grind mine with a hand cranked grinder outside, so fumes are limited, and I'd have to do the tips anyway, but for a quick and dirty job in the woods, sawing the backs sounds like a winner.

 

[cory]

make a kerf. Set a wedge, backchain off the mushrooming with a small saw.

This is what I do

 

[SeanKroll]

Not quick and dirty, quick and ready to stack without mushroom on mushroom interference.

Power grinding plastic is not for me, indoors or out.
If you're smelling it, it's in your body, someplace (s).
What kinda hand-cranked grinder do you have?

 

[lxskllr]

I'm at mom's, and don't have a pic on my phone, but it looks like this...

I drive a splitting wedge into my oak log, then clamp it to that.

 

[flushcut]

I use a farrier's file for truing up wedges.

 

[stig]

With hardheads you don't have all that trouble.
Plus, they drive way better.

 

[murphy4trees]

http://www.tcia.org/TCI-publications/tci-magazine/pdfs/07-2004-TCI-Mag_0.pdf

There is a letterbox on the cover of TCIA magazine in July 2004. The editor told me he got a couple of questions about it. Neither he nor anyone on the staff at TCI had any idea what that was about in 2004. This was a backleaner with some side lean.

 

[SeanKroll]

Next wedge purchase will be hard heads.

 

[stig]

 

[Marc-Antoine]

I can't see the hard heads sold around here.
But I can question my euro sources on internet, because no one has a file to square filling the chains either. Even Amazon doesn't have the last. A bit strange because we don't lack of forests and loggers. Maybe the local supply shops, but that's a bit far from me.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Stig, help the brother out. No hording the hard heads

 

[stig]

I could do that.
Postage would make them expensive, though.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

True that. Same from here.
Bet it would cost 50.00 to ship two hard heads.