Fireplaces & Firewood

[Safari Dave]

When I was a junior in college, a friend and and I cut enough fire wood to pay for a week-long skiing trip!

There was customer who didn't want it split, because he enjoyed doing it for exercise, but he paid us, just the same.

A Fiskars Splitting Axe is a marvelous tool!


However, different logs require different splitting tools.


It's worth it to have several options, until you have can afford to have something that can split anything!

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Being able to split, otherwise "unsplittable" forked logs is easy with a hydraulic wood splitter.

And, if you can't get gasoline, get a whole bunch of manual tools. As far as manual tools go, there is no "silver bullet," different woods/logs require different tools for best results.


I enjoy manually splitting logs, with my Fiskars, as long as I don't have to chase pieces of wood through the forest.


An old tire can fix that problem:

 

[Tintin]

Locust is just an ok wood for making Self bows.

IMHO . In the U.S., Osage is the King of bow woods. English Yew is second and Pacific Yew is third. I’ve made bows from Mulberry, Locust, bamboo backed cherry, yew, on and on.

A bow can be made from any wood but It just needs a different design, lesser woods need longer and wider limbs. And they are still not as efficient as Osage or Yew.

Left is pacific yew. Bamboo over cherry. Then static tip rawhide backed Osage

Sturgeon backed Cherry. Snake backed osage.

Love the bows.

Also very impressive 'thread creep'

I never would have envisioned a fireplace thread would end up with a display of beautiful bows!

Well done.

 

[Altitude sickness]

I agree it was quite a left turn at Albuquerque. The topic of not burning locust because it’s too good of bow making wood came up. I like to demonstrate my bonafides on the subject. That I am not throwing out BS :>)))

 

[Tintin]

It's some of those 'left turns' that make this place what it is.

 

[Fatback]

Down here in South Georgia, I mainly burn oak, cherry and pecan wood. Try to season it for at least a year before burning it.

Due to the last couple years of hurricanes in our area, there has been no shortage of downed trees to cut up. Like many, we love having a fire and it does a pretty good job of keeping our great room nice and warm on damp, dreary days.

Had some pretty cold weather, for us, over the Thanksgiving holiday and we pretty much kept a fire going.

 

[thriller]

Locust is just an ok wood for making Self bows.

IMHO . In the U.S., Osage is the King of bow woods. English Yew is second and Pacific Yew is third. I’ve made bows from Mulberry, Locust, bamboo backed cherry, yew, on and on.

A bow can be made from any wood but It just needs a different design, lesser woods need longer and wider limbs. And they are still not as efficient as Osage or Yew.View attachment 729733

Left is pacific yew. Bamboo over cherry. Then static tip rawhide backed Osage
View attachment 729734

Sturgeon backed Cherry. Snake backed osage.
View attachment 729736
View attachment 729737

That snake skin one is awesome! In fact they all look great!

 

[Rimbaud]

It's a great book.

View attachment 729885

A Reverence for Wood was recommended to me by a woodworker friend. Fun read, and worth reading, too.