Wood supply

A great trick! Thanks for shareing.

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That sounds like some accelerated drying everyone should use a rebarker then you could go DOW sooner. …

Yes, but more thain that, the internal grain and cells of the wood gets damaged/cracked so this realy makes a difference in drying time. My chunks are bone dry in 2 days in the summer.

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Man can I make one of those for firewood that also splits I have a 100hp tractor i can run it on… dry in 2 days i could really put that to good use…

Dan,
If you’re in hurry and want to use a rebak for making firewood something like this might be useful.
Just make sure you have a sturdy clutch on your pto :smile:

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Everyone on this side of the pond cuts logs into 18–24 inch lengths and then split each of those into 4 or 5 pieces. I notice a lot of rebaks and other type chunkers over there that allows them to bag the wood and transport it to the furnaces. Is that process so that they can take the wood to town and sell it a few bags at a time? Here if you buy “fire” wood cut, split and dried, it comes by the cord or truck load so you need much space for storage. Is this a pretty good understanding of what is going on over there/? TomC

Dang that’s one nice machine sure does make short order of loading that truck.

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Quick amount of water extracts wood by cutting it!

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I like that one Pierre! My Chomper squeezes the water out like that. I plan on build one like in your video that is powered on charcoal. Use that style splitter. It would be nice to have the cut on an angle but then the splitter may not work out.

Tom,

Rebaks and similar are wery rare here too. automated firewood preparation is inly starting to become popular.
We have cords too. 1x1x4m of wood is our cord. Its the traditional way, but nowdays people often buy wood staked on special pallets, about half a cord, delivered to dorstep. But its wuality is always iffy, so the smart people sticks to good old cordwood

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Tom,
If you asked me only a couple of years back I would have answered we all do it the same way you do it.
It’s only recently (since I got involved in gasification) that I found out about rebaks and all this short wood handling. That includes the 3-4 foot lengths across transportation.
I think this is an Old Eastern Europe fenomena. If you look at all those rebak youtubers, most of them are from Poland or other countries that used to belong to the East.
I never heard of anyone around here that owns a rebak (apart from myself :astonished: )

Pierre,
I’m glad you shared that video. I’m down in the flue and I did quite a lot of youtubing yesterday. I stumbeled across that video too, but I suddenly lost it. I guess this is what Kristijan was talking about.

EDIT:

Kristijan, you beat me by 2 seconds :smile:

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I thought I would post the pictures of my results of moisture contents I found of some random pieces I pull out the bags I chopped two days ago. Some of the moisture % is hard to believe. It might be on the saw off pieces I could barely nett the four pointed probe to go into the wood, and those points a sharp. I will let the pictures talk for them selves. I went back and forth on pieces of wood several times.













Okay I took a lot more pictures and I will stop boring you now. What is my conclusion to all this is this, if you chunk, chop, dice, slice, or saw it , it all depends on what part of the piece of the wood you place the probes. All these pieces came from the same uncovered wood pile. I would not hesitate on burning any BAG in my truck. Even the higher % reading wood, my gasifier does not care, it just condense more water out of the hopper and into the condescension tank. This is the beauty of the WK Gasifier. I now have about 800 lbs. of wood and a lot more to bag. HWWT, I’m going for a drive.
Bob

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Bob, that confirms my believes: You can’t trust electronics :smile:
I did a test myself resently. I stored a few small paper bags with fairly green chunks indoors (don’t tell SteveU :smile: ). I put them on the scales as often as I could remember. After 20 days I forgot about them, but the weight loss had already leveled off. After about a month they still had the same weight.
All three bags were 100% pine. Could be the right bag contained some dead wood that was somewhat dried out from start. However 2 bags outof 3 lost 44-45% of their weight.
I still don’t know the remaining moisture content of my chunks. What I do know now is that if I were to fuel up with 20 pounds of green chunks, they contain a gallon of unnecessary water.
@KristijanL, the man you met at the parking asked if your car could run on water, didn’t he? :smile:

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I agree, with you on weighing the wood to know water content and loses, water is the only thing at is going to leave and be replced with some air. And air is what you want in the wood.
Air in the wood helps with the braking down of the biomass when it is heated up.
Bob

JO; I read what you wrote and looked at the photo and was impressed by the fact you lost 45% of the weight. But, it wasn’t until I converted it to pounds that it really struck home. 12+ pounds to 6+ pounds. Had you just cut the tree down and chunked it when you started the test, or had it already had some time since being cut. Just a few days of sitting around in the trailer could have already dried it out some. Very impressive. I have 20 bags sitting out in the shop that have been there since I took my truck apart last year. The wind may just blow them out the door if they loose that much moisture continually ( kidding ) I have had to rebag a couple of bags that the plastic they are made of deteriorated from sitting where the sun hit them. These are heavy farm bags like the old burlap ones only they are now made out of a woven plastic. Must be very biodegradable. TomC

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Hi Tom, I agree that is amazing how much water comes out of the wood. Your wood is going to produce some fine wood gas when you burn it. Hope you get the gasifier up and running soon. I 'm still planning on making it to Argos next year. It will be a long drive from Washington State, but it will be worth every mile. Hope to see you and your truck there.
Bob

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Tom,
We have been felling timber this fall. After the heavy equipment guys left I ran around with the little Fergie on the cleared area and collected a couple loads of leftovers to add to my backyard woodpile. The wood had been laying around on the clearing for a week or two before I brought it home. I sawed some cockies off from a few different logs and chunked them up with the hatchet just for an experiment. I guess the wood may have already lost a tiny bit of moisture when I chunked it. However, fall is damp and the bathroom scales might not have noticed a few drops were missing.

OK, I am back after national holiday full weekend no-computer time.
My name used in vain?!
Not really. I too ask and get as many paper sacks as possible for small wood debris holding. Raked-up; scraped-up wood shed floor debris burns just fine paper sacked-up, and chucked into the bulk wood fueled Quadra-Fire wood stove.
Woven plastic sacks; and woven plastic fiber tarps I just do not store in, or intentionally buy anymore. They hold in just enough moisture to ruin what you are storing. Then withing one-two years leave you with a plastic strands mess to try and clean up. Can’t burn this without a melted stinking mess. So must be land-filled disposed of. Very, very, expensive carbons sequestering!
I do save the solid plastic poly bagging and one-use (baby diapers, cat litter box, elder pee-pads); or use one-two years, or more for keep rains/snows off coverings. At least black or clear poly “tarps” are easy to pick up, roll/wad-up, and dispose of.

Ha! Ha! Of course J.O.'s rib-dig at me was that ALL of that inside wood loss moisture did not inside just disappear. Went into the inside air and absorbed into everything porous stored inside of that space.
In-room wood stove’ing you just air vapor pump all of that up, and out, the wood stove’s chimney! In-room air replenishing with lower relative humidity, outside air.
Do much wood drying down in your vehicle garage J.O., just add a trash-wood stove burner to humidity pump-out, and heat up the wifie’s car for those early winter mornings drive-aways. She will thank you.
Ha! Another wood-fire to feed and attend to! A labor of love.

Love your woods; and they will reward you back
tree-farmer Steve unruh

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Didn’t Wayne say that they are also thermal-degradable?

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Good morning all

I had a cat faced pine log that wasn’t fit to be sawed into lumber but it was perfect to chunk for motor fuel. It should get the trucks several hundred miles down the road.

SWEM

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