A Real Man (in training) and His Machine

I mentioned before that I had this mighty log that was too thick for my saw, and weighed a metric ton. The thing was a beast, and I had a really hard time cutting it into blocks. I can cut thick logs by attacking it from both sides, but that’s difficult when the log is on top of the pile because it would require me to climb to the top to cut it. This is easy for a real-man, but for a real-man in training, I worry about the pile shifting while I’m on it. If even one of those logs rolled onto me, it would crush me instantly. No thank you. One of the guys at Joe’s even said he thought cutting log length wood was more dangerous than felling trees. How’s that for a vote of confidence?

The way I do it is to cut the edge of the pile and then gradually rolled logs off the top onto the ground. I use a series of levers and run for the hills when the pile shifts. This was hard with this log because it was so heavy, I couldn’t budge it. It eventually fell to the ground when I shifted some logs beneath it, and then I could cut it from both sides.

This, however, was only part of the problem. Once the log was cut, I found the blocks weighed about 100 pounds. This made it all but impossible for me to lift the pieces into the wheelbarrow. I tried, and finally decided to split them on the spot, but the maul just bounced off them like rubber. Finally I used my chainsaw and cut the blocks about halfway down the middle, then split them with the maul. It worked, though it wasn’t as easy to cutting along the grain. Now I can at least lift the pieces and I’ve found in the past that with tough blocks, once the first split is done, the others come more easily. We shall see.

Until then, thanks for reading.