Fossil Abstinence: Firewood Tools

Top 10 Tools for Working Wood

This is not about making furniture but about tools for putting away enough wood to last another year. Tools promote philosophical values so my set of tools require exercise, minimize fossil carbon use, and offer opportunities to day dream and think. Carting home many tons of wood takes time but is quite enjoyable when spring is breaking, peepers are chirping, and plants are budding. Much available wood falls in swamps where tractors can’t go. It has to be cut up into portable pieces. A huge oak tree fell down last year and we’ve burned all but the three foot diameter trunk. This spring’s project has been cutting it into 14 inch wide wheels and rolling them the few hundred feet to a field where the tractor and trailer can go without sinking. The sections that have a fork don’t roll and have to be split into pieces that can be portaged. There’s time to think and listen between trips so I’d rather work wood than jog on a highway. So here are ten firewood tools in order of increasing importance:

10. Gas Burning Chainsaw: probably the most powerful tool for working wood ever invented. They come in many sizes but all make noise, typically lots of it. Twenty gallons of gasoline, a quart of oil and a few gallons of bar oil for lubricating the chain that does the cutting enabled two people with a chainsaw to build a cabin in a remote place in six months. It probably would have taken a year with a hand saw, a hammer and a chisel. Making shakes for the roof required a froe, but that’s another story. I hope this will be the last year we have to use this kind of saw where an extension cord doesn’t reach.

9. Diesel Tractor: great for pulling trailer loads of wood weighing up to a ton across wet fields. Each trip replaces up to 30 using a wheelbarrow, a hand cart or pulling limbs along the ground. Depending on conditions, you have to use chains on the front and rear tractors tires and lightly load the trailer to prevent getting stuck in mud – that would take an inappropriate amount of time to remedy.

8. Ax: effectively cuts off branches up to three inches in diameter in a single, diagonal stroke. Also very good at splitting compliant logs cut to stove fuel lengths. The momentum stored as the working end picks up speed can become a problem if it misses its target. I once split my head open when the butt end of an ax caught on a small branch overhead.

7. Folding saw: a hand-saw that has a handle as long as the blade that protects the very sharp teeth (and your skin) when closed upon itself. The blade is thicker than the one used in a bow saw so it doesn’t bend when pushing it forward for another cutting stroke. They are great for trimming larger branches on trees because they are light, quiet and very effective, even when you have to prune fruit trees while perched high in a tree. Bow saws are too clumsy for this work. On long distance hikes I bring a very small version for cutting firewood.

6. Hatchet: great for splitting straight-grained wood for kindling. Also an appropriate tool for quickly removing small branches from downed trees. Inappropriate for pruning. Never put your other hand anywhere near the chopping block – my uncle lost a thumb while splitting wood for kindling.

5. Electric Tractor: a developing resource. We can charge our electric tractors using sunlight but do not yet have a matching trailer appropriate for hauling wood. We also need an inverter that converts the 36 volts battery bank into AC for running an electric chainsaw.

4. Electric Chainsaw: a less powerful version of the gas burning variety. We reduce long lengths of wood carted to our woodshed to appropriate lengths with two sizes of these quieter tools. They use the same bar oil and set of files that the gas powered version require. Every day you cut wood you need to sharpen the chain links that do the cutting using a round file. Every five days of cutting you use a small flat file to shorten the tang that establishes the depth of cut so that it makes shavings and not sawdust.

3. Lopper: a limb cutter that has two long handles. Nothing cuts brush as well as a lopper. Capturing a limb between the blade and anvil portion doesn’t allow it to move away. The long handles allow reaching into thickets, including ones with thorns like rose and blackberry brambles, without sacrificing too much blood. It’s best to clear limbs and brush away from trunks or downed limbs before using a chainsaw. It’s tempting to use a chainsaw for clearing small branches but these can easily get pulled into the guard, deflect the blade, or trap it requiring potentially dangerous recovery measures. It’s safest to use chainsaws only for cutting larger diameter stock and use more controllable hand tools for the small stuff.

2. Maul and Wedges:  use the sharp end of the maul for splitting wood directly and the other for pounding in wedges that can split even the most ornery pieces. You need at least two wedges because some wood, usually with large knots can completely bury a wedge without splitting apart. Using a second wedge, and even a third, to open up cracks emanating from the first usually frees them all. There have been a few elm chunks, though, where only judicious use of a saw released the wedge.

1. Bow Saw: a thin wood-cutting blade pulled taught by a frame forming a “Dee”. Like a hacksaw, tension on the blade permits using a skinny strip of steel to minimize kerf, the amount of wood removed to allow the blade to cut the log or branch. The teeth are slightly bent alternately left and right so that they remove enough wood so the rest of the blade doesn’t rub the sides of the cut. If the opening starts to close, it’s time to remove the saw and start cutting from the other side. If you had only one tool for processing wood, a bow saw would be ideal. It doesn’t use many resources, except elbow grease, and cuts quickly, without requiring undo effort. You would be limited to branches that can fit inside the stove without splitting – but these are the easiest to cut and carry. The blades are hardened and stay sharp for a very long time. And you don’t need hearing protection.