Life goes on - Summer 2025

Yes, mine too, full of colours end smell.

Still walking around in shorts overhere and I hope it is extended for a few weeks. My new burner is not installed yet and the old one is disconnected. :pensive: :grinning:

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I finally finished my powered cart for wood harvesting. I based it on the DR Powerwagon design. It started with a small van rear axle.

I chopped a foot off each side to narrow it and added some frame mounts.

I built a frame for it, the transmission, engine and caster wheels.

It didn’t have enough traction, so I added some chains:

And here is the first run with the bed on it up a rough steep hill. I guess a limited slip axle would be helpful as there is a lot of wheel slip. Perhaps if I made it a tricycle with a single rear caster wheel, it might help keep the drive wheels in better contact with the ground. I was after maximum stability because of the slopes on my land, so I went for 2 casters. I may try just one though.

Now I have to try it with a load…

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We need way more details, Marty. What engine and how did you link it to that rear end? A really nice project and nicely built. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Good job MartyS.
A load will help a lot for traction and to smooth that single cylinders shake transferred up to the handles.

I see drum brakes with parking brake cables . . .
A clever fellow could set up the cables with bicycle brake handles at each side grip. Then you could one-side brake to stop wheel spin. Then able to one-side brake for steering too.

Ha! Ha! Yes. Aways easier to say; than to fab-do. But you’ve shown you have the skills man.
Best Regards
Steve Unruh

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I would have put the axle at least 6+" more towards the front so it is pulling the weight. it would put more weight on the casters in the back especially when loaded.

I would also make it a power lift dump cart though so feel free to ignore.

It is a really nice heavy duty build. :slight_smile:

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I’ve created another thread (again :slightly_smiling_face:) for anyone who would like more details:

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Definitely feeling like spring, forsythia in bloom:

Fresh green leaves by the workshop:

:slightly_smiling_face:

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Baled 187, second cutting mowed and raked with big tractor

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I love that mini-baler.

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I just read an article about the polar vortex. Apparently a stable vortex usually means a dry and mild winter in the northern hemisphere. This fall it’s very unstable, which suggests a cold winter with a lot of snow. Especially in North America. For some reason I emediately thought of you @tcholton717 :smile:

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Gee, thaks JO. Always good to be associated with bad weather, :face_vomiting:I don’t like the polar vortex. Been a while since we had one. Maybe 5 years. We had a shitload of snow last year but only a few times in the single digits F. I’m not sure how accurate long terms predictions can be anymore, If it’s going to be really cold I’m at least hoping for less snow,

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Haha, oldtimers here used to make long time predictions by looking at perch’s stripes. It may be just as accurate :smile:

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Fuzzy Bear caterpillars here was the old way.

Yes, regionally we call these “fuzzy”, not woolly.
Many seen out early; is said to say an early, long winter.

Others prognosticate by the width of their center stripe.

Very, very few out seen so far this Fall.
S.U.

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Well, haven’t been here much lately, but missing you guy’s.
And what im been up to? Well, i maybe should bore you with some pic’s?
I often snap pic’s of interesting things, and many end up in a box named " woodgas" (gengas :smile:)



I’ve been out picking chantarelles some (and eating them) sometimes i find other stuff in the woods…

I suddenly found myself owning 6 more old, stationary engines (which need some tlc)

Atleast i got some extra oil from the correct time period for the engines.


Chainsaws need their time too…

This old Rinco i completed and made a runner, it’s actually 93 years old (i am crazy, aren’t i?)

Beware! My woodgas friends. When you least expect it, The Boring Woodrunner! may show up on visit! Wife and i bought this old motorhome/campervan, that we started restoring.


Ofcourse i’ve been driving on wood all the time, it just “rolls on” almost boring… No, the other day i drove wifes car to work for some fixes, on the way home i felt “empty” bored, to drive on gasoline, it like started itching all over my body… probably i developed an allergy against normal cars?
Pic’s above shows how i neglected emptying my gas filter (havent emtied it since beginning of June)

So… emptied it last week, just to found out soot is stuck all the way to the top, after getting this bag out, i drove and let it shake down, and get almost the rest out yesterday.


I also made a simple tool for the round filter clean-out hatch, maybe i may do it more regularly now?

The farm equipment museum i use to visit begged me to help them get their woodgas Fordson Major up and running before their “open house day”.
There was a wasp nest in the cyclone, so i had to not disturb them before putting the lid on, i guess they don’t liked their surprise “monoxide merry-go-round”?



They had saved wine-bottle corks, for i don’t know how long, for filling the gas cleaner (they should be crushed for best filter effect, but this will do for a museum piece)

Totally impossible to snap a pic of the burning flare in daylight, i don’t even know if this is the right pic?
So, well im back, will post some more soon, about wood and stuff…

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Welcome back! :slight_smile:

Just FYI, if you are finding Chantarelles in your gasifier, you aren’t using it enough. :slight_smile:

The rinco chainsaw looks scary! Just in time for Halloween though!

Your soot from your clean out looks a lot like ground up biochar that would be thrown into a compost pile.

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Hi Sean, yes, the charcoal/soot i mix in my compost, i got a lot of sand and lawn/turf i need to “process” to useable soil, im going to mix it with leafes, grass, charcoal, manure and some sawdust and woodchips, and throw it on my compost pile, and let the nature do the rest.

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A 98-year-old Mother Superior from Ireland was dying. The nuns gathered
around her bed trying to make her last journey comfortable. They tried giving her some warm milk to drink but she refused it.
One of the nuns took the glass back to the kitchen and remembering a bottle of Irish whiskey received as a gift the previous Christmas, she opened it and poured a generous amount into the warm milk.
Back at Mother Superior’s bed, she held the glass to her lips. Mother drank a little, then a little more and before they knew it, she had drunk the whole glass down to the last drop.
‘Mother,’ the nuns asked with earnest, ‘please give us some wisdom before you die.’
She raised herself up in bed and said, ‘Don’t sell that cow!!’

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What do you call a hippy’s wife? . . . answer - Mississippi

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Looking out of our living room window to the Northwest. 15,000 acer forest fire called the lower Sugarloaf Mountain fire. Only 27% containment. To the south west of us Highway 97 is closed and a 50,000 acer forest fire burning called the Labor Mountain fire. Only 7% containment. Right now the wind is blowing hard so we are no longer in the smoke but the fires are get whip up. Been Praying asking The Yehovah God for it to rain. Freinds up in the Entiat River valley under level #3 alert and level #3 alert for people living on that highway. Time to leave the house and get out of the valley. These two fires have been burning for days now.

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Prayers go out to you. I think that smoke looks pretty thick like it is going to jump across the mountain top. Unless there is some prep you can do to try and keep it from coming on your property, it is best to skedaddle.

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