Turning old wood from a shed into neat firewood

[NS2002---]

Hi,

 

Currently have some wood I've picked up from an old friends shed that he has taken down, so instead of him getting a skip I've decided to try and make decent use out of them for heating. 

 

The wood has been painted, has a bunch of nails in them, but to my suprise is very dry (not perfectly dry though).

 

The wood burner/stove is only 15"-20" in radius so all of the pieces of wood will need to be cut down and split.

 

I want to know some of your guys suggestions and reccomendations you could have for me on how to process this wood and any tools you reccomend. I do have access to a very nice knife and a lot of spare time, I am willing to spend some money on some budget/cheap tools as this is a hobby I do want to get into. 

 

If needed I can provide a picture of the wood.

 

Many thanks!

[Will Heal]

Used to cut up a lot of wood with nails in it with my dad, we just used a saw horse and chainsaw try and spot the nails first!

[NS2002---]

1 minute ago, Will Heal said:

Used to cut up a lot of wood with nails in it with my dad, we just used a saw horse and chainsaw try and spot the nails first!

what do you reccomend to do to remove the nails?

[Peter 1955]

1 minute ago, NS2002--- said:

what do you reccomend to do to remove the nails?

( Almost ) absolutely nothing. This is what I used to cut up the nail embedded timber from a big demolition job. I only removed big external nails. The little Brother is an excellent piece of kit, but obviously smaller cutting capacity. Both are excellent for cutting clean timber of most types. They don't like really fresh ( ie dripping wet ) tanalised. 

[djbobbins]

Mmm, paint fumes. No wonder it burns well... [emoji85][emoji23]

[Peter 1955]

1 minute ago, djbobbins said:

Mmm, paint fumes. No wonder it burns well...

Wasn't any paint on mine. Been in a piggery for fifty years. Don't think I will ever use drier timber. 

[trigger_andy]

1 hour ago, NS2002--- said:

I want to know some of your guys suggestions and reccomendations you could have for me on how to process this wood and any tools you reccomend. I do have access to a very nice knife and a lot of spare time, I am willing to spend some money on some budget/cheap tools as this is a hobby I do want to get into. 

Personally I cant see it worth the time, the effort or the expense. And where does the knife come into play? Are you going to whittle the wood into sections? 

 

Id consider how many hours you're planning on spending on this toxic wood (lead paint maybe? ) to get it to the stage its ready to burn sitting in your log basket? Then add the price of the cheap tools you intend to use for this purpose. Would you get it done in a day? Thats including liberating the wood the the shed, getting it home, and doing whatever you're planning on doing with it. I can see that taking 8 hours maybe?. Pay yourself the UK Living wage and thats £65. You can buy a ton bag of real firewood for that and saved yourself a days hassle, and knackered a bunch of tools in the process. Oh, and saved poisoning yourself too.  

 

What might be a good idea is to sign up to the wood tip pages here. You can make yourself available to be a place to drop off arb waste. Then all you can spend your time processing fresh, clean logs. 

[NS2002---]

2 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

Personally I cant see it worth the time, the effort or the expense. And where does the knife come into play? Are you going to whittle the wood into sections? 

 

Id consider how many hours you're planning on spending on this toxic wood (lead paint maybe? ) to get it to the stage its ready to burn sitting in your log basket? Then add the price of the cheap tools you intend to use for this purpose. Would you get it done in a day? Thats including liberating the wood the the shed, getting it home, and doing whatever you're planning on doing with it. I can see that taking 8 hours maybe?. Pay yourself the UK Living wage and thats £65. You can buy a ton bag of real firewood for that and saved yourself a days hassle, and knackered a bunch of tools in the process. Oh, and saved poisoning yourself too.  

 

What might be a good idea is to sign up to the wood tip pages here. You can make yourself available to be a place to drop off arb waste. Then all you can spend your time processing fresh, clean logs. 

I will definitely sign up to the wood tip pages!

 

This is extremely poor wood for free and I'm doing it for fun, the paint wasn't lead based (I did ask). I want to build a set of skills to be able to do this with better quality wood in the future, and I'd rather not start with a money drain but some simple hand tools at a very low expense to myself (apart from my time). It will be done over a week or two giving it a hour a day (roughly).

 

I have been using the knife to split wood that I've collected from a friends property, looking to invest in a medium size axe currently to make the operation easier. The knife was to simply make shavings from the wood I had so I did not have to keep investing in wood spools and I don't like using gels or lighter fluid etc.

[trigger_andy]

1 minute ago, NS2002--- said:

I will definitely sign up to the wood tip pages!

 

This is extremely poor wood for free and I'm doing it for fun, the paint wasn't lead based (I did ask). I want to build a set of skills to be able to do this with better quality wood in the future, and I'd rather not start with a money drain but some simple hand tools at a very low expense to myself (apart from my time). It will be done over a week or two giving it a hour a day (roughly).

 

I have been using the knife to split wood that I've collected from a friends property, looking to invest in a medium size axe currently to make the operation easier. The knife was to simply make shavings from the wood I had so I did not have to keep investing in wood spools and I don't like using gels or lighter fluid etc.

Well, Im sure you'll have fun.  May I ask how old you are? 

[NS2002---]

1 minute ago, trigger_andy said:

Well, Im sure you'll have fun.  May I ask how old you are? 

18, whats the reason for asking?