neiln

Really? A product going to waste isn't the same as a waste material that is a by product of a process. However go on, I'll run with it.. are pints a waste product that needs effort and often money too get rid of? And do they need to be surprised of swiftly to allow the business to continue to operate?

Are pints a waste material that pubs need rid of?

Jeez some of you gents come over as grumbly, angry guys. To the OP, get a listing on the tip site and yes contact all your local tree guys. If you see them working nearby and can speak to them that may be best. There are plenty that don't do firewood and just want rid of any arb waste as quickly, easily and cheaply as possible. Make it easy for them, don't be too picky (take the softwood), take the wood delivery as soon as offered (they need it off the truck before the next day's job), and take all of it (you need the saws capable of dealing with big crotches etc). Alternatively you may find one that tips at/outside their yard and you need to collect. Here you can be choosey, pick the straight grained hardwood rings, but don't make a mess of the pile, and don't be awkward/block people in etc. I have had all my wood for 5 years from one guy I collect from. I've tried putting cash in his hands and offering beer/wine/chocolate but he won't accept.... He sees me as doing him a favour. This year I've not used him for more than 1 or 2 car loads. The rest (a lot) came from two other guys that I spotted working closely in lockdown 1, many of the normal tip sites weren't open so they jumped when I said I'd take it all, and by being good to them I got more and more. When my neighbour wanted 2 oaks down guess who's numbers I gave him...I made sure to let him know how he got the job and I told him, 'just leave all the wood next door, I'll take a fence panel down and shift it myself'....4m3 of oak that I'm currently splitting and stacking. Yes you can get arb waste for free, but ask nicely and be helpful..... And be prepared to not get any for years and then get loads!

Yes good point, its nice to know I've got heat, and a little light, if the electricity is cut. Its nice to know I can keep my family warm through 3 or more winters if the zombie apocalypse comes too ? Its also nice to know I m not burning a fossil fuel, I feel very smug heating the house with renewable energy (other than 3-5 litres of petrol)

1. Cooking smells and moisture levels yes, but no more 2. Kitchen and bathroom extractor fans always used. Wood stoves also to dry the house. 3. No 4. Me in my home 5. No 6. No

heated just with 2x 5kW wood stoves for the last 4 years. despite being on mains gas with a modern c/h system. I am weird. i just enjoy 'saws, axes, scrounging the wood, being incredibly warm and being tight. Wife would occasionally put the heating on as house was too cold during the winter afternoons, but generally I came in from work, lit the stove, ran it 5-6 hours hard, get the house hot, cools loads over night and a bit more during the day but a couple of sweaters and all ok normally...repeat. weekend, if in, stoe rsn 12-15 hours each day. 1930s semi with poor insulation. I love the stoves....BUT I they have taught me to appreciate gas c/h immensely. By about late Jan I am getting pretty worn of fetching wood in!

Is it the isocore or is it the cleave hammer? Fiskars us and eu seem to be separate and have different products. I've not looked since I got my Stihl maul but the isocore was only available in the US. When it comes to 8lb mauls I'm not sure there's much in it though, they are all big clubs. Your elwell sounds just like the Gilpin I have, splits brilliantly and then sticks firm in the chopping block, or sticks like sh1t to a blanket if it doesn't split! I reckon the x27 steel quality varies a lot. Most people seem to say it's hard and is tough to file to Resharpen but mine is fairly soft. Hard enough to keep an edge but it files very easily.

Let me say it again.....it'll depend on the wood. If you get the same wood all the time then its worth trying to borrow the 2 to see how they go, otherwise, take your pick. at 5'7" a 28" axe will be ok to use. I'm not going to say don't get the fiskars, as i love mine, but like you I've heard from people that have used both and that i trust as I know they split A LOT of wood, that the s2800 is a bit better.

For the odd occasion I do resort to a wedge, I've a couple of roughneck twist wedges and another straight one I forget where from, are the ones I reach for. And a 6lb sledge is ample.

Snap! Except I hated the maul very quickly too. Yes the Stihl stuff is the ox with red paint. The stuff available state side and here she's differ. I have the 8lb pro cleave hammer which isn't available over there. It doesn't split. It smashes. I just get it out either to start a big round or to smash a knot apart. As I said, take lots of axes to the pile and if one doesn't work try another. X19, x27 and the Stihl cleave hammer is my basic arsenal. 365 xt if it still won't go after a couple of swings. And because real axes are cool and I wanted little projects over the summer I've got a gba, about 3 HB, 2 saw, a sandvik and an unnamed Swedish head.... Some I've hung, some I've yet too. Also a Kelly the t temper, elwell, 2 Gilpin and a brades.... They all get a go occasionally and the 2 5 to 3.5 lb range on a be 28 - 30" head can be great for rattling quickly through a lot of stuff.

But hardness and toughness is then produced by heat treatment. It's 25 years since I did metallurgy, but the martensite/austenite form is not down to 'ingredients' alone, it's the time, or not, given for crystals/carbon precipitation to form, the heating and quenching. I'm not saying you can't get shards knocked off, you can, just that the poll is rarely hardened. So don't use the poll to strike anything more then a plastic or wooden wedge.

The poll on most axes isn't hardened. It's soft and easily deformed. The eye is also easily deformed. Some axes have a hardened poll but the eye will still be softb so pounding on an axe like a wedge is always bad

Get on the tip site directory

the 2 have the same head, exactly, the x25 is shorter that is all. at 5'7" yeah i'd take the x25. also though take a look for the husqvarna s2800. its about the same length as the x25 but a heavier head and ive read people say its a beter splitter. also worth a quick google for the turquoise guise....the gardena s2800 (same axe, gardena are owned by husky....you just might find it a few quid cheaper by widening the search ) Ash is supposed to be easy to split but the stuff i had was virtually impossible. coudnt even noodle it as it was riddled with brick, concrete and copious amounts of barbed wire! i got sold a pup on that load. i'd expect a thin profile axe to split ash though. ha yes we will get past covid. we staid in a cottage...err 2 walled garden cottage, next to the little shop in west wittering. weather aside we had a nice holiday nd i got the kids to the beach 3 times for sand castles. is it always so windy though? i took an old tent to the beach each time thankfully, and tbh my girls are only 3 and 5 so several hours in the tent with a picnic and blowup sofa thing (it got nicknamed the carrot canoe haha!) was fun despite the rain and wind. had the smell of wood stoves in the village every day. jealous.....wife and i decided we'd love to live there not south london. she was even getting keen on a T6 cali seeing so many at the beach! even when i told her thy cost more than a Q7 she wasnt put off!

Witterings, what wood is it? Post a few picks if you don't know, it might help us to offer some tips. I just remembered another wood that was almost as bad as the ash I had. Willow. I know why it's used for cricket bats now. It's got a very elastic property. The axe and maul both bounced off coming back at me with a lot of speed! It dried eventually and split better then.

I don't use a tyre no, been meaning to grab one for years! I did try a bungee and they lasted 3 swings before I cut it with the axe, oops. I ought to use a tyre, park a barrow to the side, splits from block/tyre to barrow then to stack. Currently it's a pickaroon to fetch them from the ground.

There's a few things at play here, technique, tools and wood type. With experience you learn the techniques, and YouTube is great for learning fast. Don't hit the middle hit near the edge, read the grain and go between the knots, flake the outside from big stuff and do on. Then that's t wood type and that's not just species, no 2 trees are the same and without doubt the hardest stuff I've ever tried to split was some ash, normally thought to be amongst the easiest. If the tree grows in its own in a windy spot it'll be knotty and twisted or even wavy grained and a bitch to split. You'll learn what wood to avoid. Then you also need the tool to suit the wood. The x27 is brilliant. But it's not good in every wood. As Buckin' says, take several axes to the wood pile. Some woods just swallow a thin profile axe, others need a thin profile, some need more weight to a head. I do 50% of my splitting with the x27. Hard rounds get a fatter and heavier maul, easy stuff gets rattled through with an x19. I'm currently splitting a couple of straight oaks up which are easy and after the x27 halves the round I'm using a 3.6 lb True Temper Jersey on 28" haft to finish.... If an axe sticks, change technique or try a fatter or heavier axe. If a maul bounces, sharpen it, change technique, or try a thinner axe. Normally green wood splits best but if it's swallowing an axe and fizzing wet around it, try letting it dry, it'll probably harden but get brittle. At the end of the day, I'd say get an x25 and learn the tricks Btw, you'll ruin the axe using it as a wedge, the poll and the eye will distort.

Yeah a petrol powered splitter with umph for a four way will go at a decent speed. I reckon on about 3 hours to hand split and stack a cube when just going steady. Handballing the splits across the garden and stacking is half that...I dislike the stacking but it's necessary. If I raced at just splitting I'd do a cube in an hour on easy stuff. If it's knotty of twisted that slows a lot though!

Electric hydraulic splitters work ok but honestly, an axe is quicker and a quarter the price. I've done 12-15m3 this year, all with axes. When I get too old I'll get an electric kinetic splitter. Although come to think of it... With my fleet of axes and mauls I could have bought a splitter twice over! ?

Just to add, if you don't fancy a plastic handled axe once you've looked (although they are very well designed for the task, and almost unbreakable.... Definitely a good thing for a novice axeman), then I have a traditional axe or two I'd sell. I tidied up a few heads and rehung them as little lockdown and summer projects. There are photos on here somewhere....errr.... In the members only bit I think. I sold one to a member back in the summer but still have a military issue Gilpin 6lb head on a straight 36" handle. That's big. Being big it's a lot of oomph, more than my x27. However it is also a felling profile so if it doesn't split it sticks deep in the wood.... Or if the wood splits easy it sticks deep in the chopping block! Probably not the best splitting axe tbh, but I'd sell it for what the head, handle and wedge cost me (I'd have to check, probably about £40-45). I'd have to see what else I finished but I think there's a 4.5lb Swedish head on a 28 or 30" handle.

As said, fiskars splitting axe is very good and I generally hate wedges, much prefer an axe. That said wedges have their place and if you prefer them, fine. They are slow to use, but much less exhausting to split large large rounds with IF you do it right. A 6lb sledge is still big, a lot bigger than the x27 axe for example. Consider smaller, wedges work buy summing up a number of smaller blows, that's the big advantage over an axe. Don't get a grenade, useless. A straight wedge out a twist wedge is much better. You need at least 3, one will just get buried and stuck, the second gets stuck trying to free the first, finally the 3rd frees the other 2. They need a thin profile to start or you'll not get them going. The roughneck twist wedges aren't bad. Gransfors and I think husqvarna do some nice tapering ones. I hate them all though and noodle what I can't axe or maul. If you are near SE19 I'd give you my grenade for free and my other wedges for a couple of quid each. From your name though..,. Shame I didn't see this 2 weeks ago, be as I holidayed in West wittering at half term. Basically..... Wedges are well suited to straight grained rounds that split easily but that are too big to axe split...2'6" ish upwards. Are you in wood like that? If I get that then a still use the axe and use the flake technique. 10" long and 16" across.... Easy splitting, and a nice size to easily handle. X25 or x27, husqvarna s2800 or such like, all day long. If the wood is straight grained ash or oak I'd go lighter still. A 2 1/2 to 3lb axe head on a 28" handle will be easier to swing and still split that with ease. If it's knotty Leyland cypress....x27. TAKE CARE with shorter axes, longer is safer for a novice.

Sounds like a 'magic' opportunity for education

That is an impressive amount of powder isn't it! I'm no expert but would also think fungus, which will stop as the wood dries, and won't affect the burn, but I wouldn't leave logs in the house for long and would try not to sprinkle that mess about. Is it on many of the logs?

Looks to me like there is an installation error there. I think you've a top hat style adapter which should screw to the register plate with the pipe spigot bit below, the stove pipe should then slip over the outside of that. Male to female joints with the male bit down, so creosote/soot etc stays inside all the way down to the stove. I think therefore.... You've a bodge, wrong size adapter for your stove pipe.

My experience is with the bison. The original haft was horrid and it turned out a good thing when it broke so quickly (a month or 2, maybe less.... I'd probably not moved more then a couple of cube of logs about). The fitting of a much thinner haft, which actually now I think about it may have been ash, made a useful but unpleasant tool become a joy. I've since split that haft and need to rehang the head again but the last handle did 2+ years and 20-30 cube. I tend to use it to pick up rings or logs already bucked to stove length, to set them on the chopping block or shifting and stacking them after I've scrounged up a car load. I don't find it good for picking up the splits, here I use a short one, actually a motar pick. I'm tempted to try a pulp hook out for that though after watching buckin' on the 'tube.