Wood supply

Wow twenty times…

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Wait for the big freeze and drive over here for a visit this winter. Watch out for polar bears and crazy Canadians

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Wood, wood, wood.
@DanNH, it’s time to start pile up for springtime cutting and splitting :smile:
Lots of limbwood for motor fuel too. Swinging my new favorite tool - the Slovenian Vejnic.

While I’m at it - some of the lumber I milled in the spring became useful last week. Helped a friend get started on restoring part of an old rotted out barn.

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In the picture it looks like the Slovenian Vejnic does the work all by it’s self.
In the other picture, over here we build the lower structure before we build the roof. But I see you have some nice equipment to hold the roof up while you work on the main floor. I have never seen such temporary rafter before. Hmmmm. I guess building the roof first makes it easier to work in both cold/rainy and or hot/sunny days.
Are they making that building into a house? Looks like a house entry in the far left.

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@JO_Olsson looks like it must be the season for working on old barns. I had to install that last rafter and am working on the wall now. I that is only half of the end of my barn that is a mess.
I also have to start working on the wood pile as well but now that my tractor is fixed I need to get back to haying if I ever get more than one nice day on a row.
I broke the PTO shaft right in two on my D17 the other day. Guess it was plum worn out after over half a century of work.

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Same same, but what if only the lower structure has to be replaced?
Actually, we restored the entire roof and replaced the left 1/3 of the building 20 years ago. Garage at the bottom floor and his wife has a tailor studio on the second floor.
The middle 1/3 is a log structure and it’s ok. Now it’s time for the right 1/3. It’s going to be a small wood working shop. Insulated and a slab with floor heating.

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I said: - Enough !
But limbwood keep following me home :smile:

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JO,
You are going to need a silo like Vesa Mikkonen. :grin:

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Mike,
My plan was to build a solar chunk-dryer-silo this summer, but family issues kept me busy. A bunch of old sturdy windows where given to me last year. It’ll be next year’s project.

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JO, I would love to see your dryer design!

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Trying to keep the mill fed.

These will be used for lap siding. Ends painted to reduce end cracking.

Pine will become 2x6 and 2x3’s

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I used white pine for board & batten siding on my house. I loved it. I could nail right up to the edge of the board and it did not split off. TomC

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You want to look at grain bin solar driers. Airflow is the most important aspect and usually they are hot air. You can make them out of a plastic sheet. This one actually might be a good design for you:
http://vermontbioenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Feasibility-Study_Solar-Seed-Dryer_October-2008.pdf

Since it is using hot water, and hot water storage. You use the heat in the summer to dry wood, and in the winter divert it to your home/shop area to keep your toes warm.

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Jeff, pretty sturdy logs you’ve got there. Milling them will require a video, don’t you think? :smile:

Like I said - it’s not built yet, but my thinking was kind of a bower? shaped, hexagon or octagon, silo. Maybe an inner round structure of chicken or rebar screen, dressed with those tall windows in a wooden structure around it, to create a chimney effect. Green chunks goes on top and dry chunks emtied from the bottom sides, just like with the wall mounted “corn cribs” I’m using now.
I’d like to able to by-pass the pre-drying on the trailer. Right now I’m unable to use my trailer all summer. It’s always full of chunks :smile:
Chunks are pretty tight fuel and I hope the heat inside the windows will be able to create enough chimney effect to dry green chunks without them getting punky. I’m very soon going into hibernation and will have time to sleep on it :smile:
@madflower69, I bet a facility like that would work. Only, the complexity of heat-exchanging in several steps for the purpose of drying wood seems overkill to me :smile:

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If you hurry and start right now on putting the window/fram up, you will have a nice solar heated room to work in while you build the inside structure. TomC

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It is overkill for solely wood drying. I liked the old car radiator for the final heat exchanger and the idea of using a grain bin. There are better ones that just use hot air.

This is a pretty simple concept that could be adapted. You could probably just use your limbwood to build it. No fans and you get the airflow.

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Here is a video milling a log early this summer.

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Oh great! That is a swing blad saw mill. I had never heard of them until a couple of years ago. I really like them. Look up JO video of his home made swing blade mill. Pretty impressive. (specially the one with music.) TomC

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I know what you mean about short summmers for wood drying, or too much rain as we had in the spring this year, wouldent a green house do a good enough job for fast drying when needed, they get pretty hot in there without fans keeping air moveing.?

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I think that for drying wood or lumber air movement is king.

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