Creosote question Blaze King

[GG Woody]

Pine and spruce are 2 different animals.
Spruce is low on the totem pole. Comparatively, pines are heaven sent.

So sticky... The Spruce is so sticky, so much sap, I regret every one I touch...

 

[stoveliker]

Try Long Island pitch pine...

 

[all night moe]

So sticky... The Spruce is so sticky, so much sap, I regret every one I touch...

I find pines, in general, much, much, worse.
Especially in late July and all of August.

 

[Tron]

pitch pine

nomen est omen?

 

[Tron]

I find pines, in general, much, much, worse.

Nah, they're ok.
And since we had a severe drought in 2023 and half of our pines are dead now due to pine beetles, I'll have enough firewood to last me decades.
Not sure if the wood itself will last that long, though.

 

[all night moe]

nomen est omen?

I never got the Latin names down.
I've heard more slang names though....LOL
Ie, for box elder, "split leaf maple." I do know it's in the maple family but geese. Guy probably called it that because he sold firewood.

 

[all night moe]

Nah, they're ok.

Try climbing them for a living.... in July and August.
Get back to me after... LOL

 

[Tron]

I never got the Latin names down.

It's not a name, it's a quote. Literally saying "The name is a sign" meaning "The name speaks for itself".
So if it's a "pitch pine", that tells me something right here.

 

[Tron]

Try climbing them for a living.... in July and August.

Well, I meant ok as firewood.
I'm not climbing them anytime soon, or ever, especially not the dead ones.
But I've resorted to not go into the woods to cut them down if the heat index is >95F.
Done it once at around 100F last summer, not going to do it again.

 

[stoveliker]

nomen est omen?

Pinus rigida - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Tron]

Pinus rigida - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Not in our neck of the woods.
We have what's called "Yellow Pines": loblolly, longleaf, shortleaf, or slash pines.

 

[Dieselhead]

Really?
All I burn is southern pine harvested from dead trees, well dried, of course, and it lights off immediately during the reload. So does the cat.

I'm with @Ashful, if the cat's inactive when I reload, I don't wait until the gauge shows active, I know it's going to become active even below the active zone. As mentioned, looking at the cat is a good indication, if it's glowing (even only in places), all's good.

I should have stated my remarks reflect my experience from a cold start.

 

[Ashful]

I'm burning a lot of hickory now, harvested after a very rare tornado ripped thru our neighborhood May 2019, and split and stacked under roof in 2020. I know the stuff is dry, and it burns beautifully, but damn... hickory is just crazy heavy! Carrying two satchels of the stuff, enough to cram an Ashford 30 full of it, is like carrying two armloads of railroad iron.

I'm intrigued by the argument that higher-BTU woods allow one to engage lower on the probe thermometer. Note I didn't mention time, just temperature. It may be that they take longer to get going?

I'll admit that I've noticed huge differences in how one load versus the next take to reach the point where I'm ready to close the bypass. But I'd never paid enough attention to link it to one species of wood versus another. Now I'll have to watch for that!

Many of my loads are mixed these days, oak or hickory mixed with ash or walnut. Walnut in particular is almost balsa wood-light, or at it least it feels that way, after carrying loads of large shagbark hickory splits.

Second load of this afternoon, all hickory, will get a third in this evening:

 

[Ashful]

Oh, and this is when I closed the bypass on a recent load, which went to glowing cat within 15-20 seconds. The second thermo is surface of single wall pipe about 15” above stove collar.

That position in cat probe should be about 100-200F, but glowing cat is probably close to 1000F.

 

[Dieselhead]

Ooo man SB hickory. I burned a couple cord of that last season. From what I recall lots of ash, tons of coals and watch out for the 4th of July spectacular when using your poker on reloads.

 

[Ashful]

Ooo man SB hickory. I burned a couple cord of that last season. From what I recall lots of ash, tons of coals and watch out for the 4th of July spectacular when using your poker on reloads.

I took an injury while loading a stove last year, that was bad enough I'm still a little gun-shy. Since I have been burning a crap ton of shagbark hickory the last two years, your comment makes me think that must've been what I had in the stove at the time.

I had opened the door to load, and was doing my usual routine of plowing the ash toward the back and raking the coals forward, when one exploded quite violently, and struck me straight in the eye. It happened so fast, like paintball gun velocity, that I had no chance at all to even blink before the hot coal hit me right in the pupil.

Hurt like a mother, probably some combination of a scratch and a burn, with a little bit of cinder left behind for good measure. My eye wasn't right for several days after, but seemed to heal just fine after a few days of watering and discomfort. To this day, I wonder if I should be wearing glasses, or a damn face shield, to reload!

 

[Dieselhead]

I took an injury while loading a stove last year, that was bad enough I'm still a little gun-shy. Since I have been burning a crap ton of shagbark hickory the last two years, your comment makes me think that must've been what I had in the stove at the time.

I had opened the door to load, and was doing my usual routine of plowing the ash toward the back and raking the coals forward, when one exploded quite violently, and struck me straight in the eye. It happened so fast, like paintball gun velocity, that I had no chance at all to even blink before the hot coal hit me right in the pupil.

Hurt like a mother, probably some combination of a scratch and a burn, with a little bit of cinder left behind for good measure. My eye wasn't right for several days after, but seemed to heal just fine after a few days of watering and discomfort. To this day, I wonder if I should be wearing glasses, or a damn face shield, to reload!

Sorry to hear that. Honestly a face shield may not be a bad idea! I can see that happening with the way it throws a shower of sparks. My remedy was I’d figure out which one was offending, open the door just enough to get a new split on top of it. I have not burned much black locust but I read that’s another one that likes to let you know it’s in there.

 

[all night moe]

I burned tons of BL and never had a spark show. A little but, very sparse with no velocity. SB hickory......yes.

 

[Ashful]

Great. I just brought home another load of SB hickory last weekend. I actually have more on the way. I really like hickory for it's BTU content, the heartwood is damn near as heavy as iron after 4 years drying in the sheds, but it is awful dusty after the borers go at the sapwood.



And no, before anyone asks... those aren't "bucket forks". They're regular 48" forks on my loader, I just had the bucket sitting on them since this was my last trip of the day to the place where I harvested the tree. This is how I bring my bucket full of saws back home, and in this case, I had the last two logs on the forks in front of the bucket.

 

[Tron]

And no, before anyone asks... those aren't "bucket forks".

Good point. Those clamp-on bucket forks are a) not very safe and b) a good way to bend your bucket edge.
I use regular forks, too:

Was very pleased that the tractor was able to lift the tote with (dried) pine...

 

[Ashful]

Was very pleased that the tractor was able to lift the tote with (dried) pine...

She can do it! I test-drove your 2038R before buying, and really liked it a lot. The ergonomics and visibility of the 2R series is much better than the 3R series, it's a much nicer machine for daily chores and climbing on/off.

I ultimately went with the 3033R only because the bigger lift capacity, after tipping my prior tractor a few times while moving big oak logs, and also because the added weight let me get rid of my snowblower and just use a plow for clearing snow. It's a beast, it lifts almost everything I need. But it's a big climb up/down, and can only be entered/left from one side, due to the larger loader joystick and other associated controls on the right side.

Also, the weight of the 3R + 320R loader means 33 hp is fine for tooling around the yard and loader chores, but it's a bit under-powered for road travel. It's rated 20 mph, and can do that fine on level ground, but it struggles to exceed 9 mph on any hill once you add reasonable ballast for loader chores. I should have just spent the extra few $k to get the 3046R, but wanted to avoid the whole DEF hassle that comes with that.

If I had infinite storage space and money, I'd want one of each... the 2R for everyday (fertilizing, seeding, pulling trailers), and the 3R just for forking logs and plowing snow.

 

[Duds13]

Oh, and this is when I closed the bypass on a recent load, which went to glowing cat within 15-20 seconds. The second thermo is surface of single wall pipe about 15” above stove collar.

That position in cat probe should be about 100-200F, but glowing cat is probably close to 1000F.


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You closed your bypass with the gauge that far in the inactive zone, or am I misunderstanding?

 

[Tron]

I test-drove your 2038R before buying, and really liked it a lot. The ergonomics and visibility of the 2R series is much better than the 3R series, it's a much nicer machine for daily chores and climbing on/off.

I deliberately went with the 2R. I frequently take it into the woods, where space is really at premium, and the 3R was just too much tractor for that, besides the cost. Even the 2R is a heavy beast, evident by ruts left in wet lawn (which I will have to fill in the spring).
I did choose the 2038R for the power I need to run a chipper. We still have about 50 dead pines to take down, and without the chipper it would be a mess of branches and treetops there...and I haven't found a log it couldn't lift, yet.

 

[Ashful]

You closed your bypass with the gauge that far in the inactive zone, or am I misunderstanding?

Yep, and cat was glowing within 20 seconds. I do this on every cold start, and cat is usually glowing within 10 - 30 seconds. If it fails to take off after 30 seconds, I just go back to bypass for a few minutes more, and try again.

Gauge says cat temp is maybe ~200F, but glowing tells me it's easily above 900F. That gauge doesn't tell you cat temp right now, it tells you cat temp 5 minutes ago.

I deliberately went with the 2R. I frequently take it into the woods, where space is really at premium, and the 3R was just too much tractor for that, besides the cost.

Yeah, the 2R is probably way better in the woods, the 3R just feels too "tippy" side to side. I had a 750 and then an 855, and like those, the 2R just "feels" well-planted. I was much more confident in side-to-side stability on the 2R, than I am on the 3R.

The only real advantage of the 3R for me is fore/aft stability when lifting heavier logs, those bigger rear tires carry more liquid ballast, and I can load more than 2000 lb. on the ballast box.

Even the 2R is a heavy beast, evident by ruts left in wet lawn (which I will have to fill in the spring).

Yeah, I noticed the same! Some of the areas through which I need to haul my firewood can be wet and soft, so I was pretty sensitive to this when shopping tractors.

I remember reading on another forum that tendency toward rutting was almost directly related to tire diameter, with only a very minor dependency on tire width. I don't recall the front tire diameter on the 2038R, but I do remember doing some math on it at the time, and realized it is much smaller per weight upon it than any other machine I had owned up to that point. The 3033R is obviously much heavier, but I think even that had a weight/diameter ratio no worse than the 2038R, and those ratios can change even more quickly on a smaller tire when you start picking up heavy loads with the forks.

 

[stoveliker]

You closed your bypass with the gauge that far in the inactive zone, or am I misunderstanding?

I do the same.
ANd I thought I was the only one going back and forth with the bypass sometimes if it doesn't light off immediately...