How do you load your truck?

[saewoody]

Yeah i have no desire to deal with anything that size. I have plenty if access to nice small stuff

I'm getting to that point myself. I can be a bit more picky now that I am a bit ahead. I split some 20" diameter pieces yesterday of fresh cut oak and they were a bear to move around. I can work that hard if I have to, but I really don't want to. I will say that the Fiskars broke them up fairly easily; I should have done that before I loaded them on the trailer. Live and learn I guess.


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[GadDummit]

Thanks for the link Montana! i'm definitely going to pick one of those things up. I'm not quite as long in the tooth as you are, but like i said, I'm a noodle with eyeballs so my arm strength is about 80 lbs on a good day. Add in my bad back and well...Let's just say the old gray mule ain't what he used to be!

Today I put my new to me MS261 to work on some 34" red oak. Ate it like butter for the most part (bogged down during some of the stump sections) and really impressed me. So much better than my poulan "pro" model. I'm posting pics in the other thread.

 

[MrWhoopee]

Iv hauled some 2- 3 hundred pound rounds without mechanical help. rolled em up a plank. youve got to cut em to 18In anyway before you split so do it at the worksite. if you want to rig up something ,theyve got those 55 gallon drum pump cranes that bolt to your truck bed.

I, too, use a ramp to roll them up. Nothing over about 300 lbs though. Larger than that, I block them up or just leave 'em for some other fool.

These 25 in. black oak rounds are about my limit.

 

[Prof]

Now that I am middle aged, I find myself taking my grandfather's advice more and more. He always said, make the big one smaller--you won't hurt yourself. This is so true. I can probably still lift as much as I ever could, but it is just not worth risking the injury. About a year ago I tore a bicep tendon (lifting plywood) and it took months to heal. Hoisting a 200 lb log into the truck is not in my future--plus they are a real pain to get out of the truck as well. Sorry if this is a bit of a wet blanket--I remember my grandfather's advice often made tasks less fun. He did heat with wood into his mid 80s though and never owned a hydraulic splitter or anything else.

 

[Ashful]

Yeah i have no desire to deal with anything that size. I have plenty if access to nice small stuff

Those came from a local church, where the tree had blown down in their picnic grove during hurricane Sandy. I volunteered to move it out of the way for them, and was glad when another member showed up with his excavator to help. We shared the wood.

Most of the rest of my wood comes from the property of an elderly friend, where I help him with taking down dying or damaged trees on his large property. I leave all of the manageable stuff for him, since he also splits and heats with wood. I take the larger stuff so he doesn't have to kill himself handling it, and most of my wood ends up being 24" - 48" diameter.

I'd also prefer all 12" - 16" rounds, but beggars can't be choosers!

 

[kennyp2339]

Generally I load the bed of my truck with a layer of logs on their side then add a second layer of logs with them standing up.
The trailer when I load logs are just a single layer standing up, if it's split wood I just throw it in there in a heap

 

[Catfish Hunter]

No need to haul a splitter. Just your saw and maybe a maul to turn even the biggest rounds into something you can lift into the truck. You will be noodling the rounds to split them down as needed. Split them smaller at home.

That's what I do. One 576xp one fiskars x27 and viola!


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[Catfish Hunter]

Hi GadDummit, thanks for the reply.

I purchased this from Northern Tool for $499 plus about $100 freight here. http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_650281_650281

They have them listed on Amazon for $392 plus $50 shipping. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FAKNM0/?tag=hearthamazon-20

They are rated for 500 lb. I like them because they slip right into a 2 in. receiver hitch with no welding or drilling. Having said this, I did have to do some modification to it. The motor/winch that it comes with does not work well in my opinion. It has limit switches that kept malfunctioning.

So, I took it off and purchased an ATV winch and installed it. It took some doing to fabricate a mounting plate for it, but I have that capability in my large shop. Once I had that good winch on it, it has worked great for several years for me.

As I have said elsewhere, I am 71 years old, and without this I would no longer be able to cut and load firewood.

Nice idea!


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[WoodyIsGoody]

If they get too big I split them in half and wrestle them in:

But these wet alder rounds are what really wear me out. How can a wood that is so light when it's dry weigh so much when green? These things barely float in water:

I should probably get a wood hauling trailer with a low bed. I estimate this load at 3200#.

 

[Ashful]

If they get too big I split them in half and wrestle them in:



View attachment 198051

But these wet alder rounds are what really wear me out. How can a wood that is so light when it's dry weigh so much when green? These things barely float in water:

View attachment 198052

I should probably get a wood hauling trailer with a low bed. I estimate this load at 3200#.

A trailer is the way to go. I used to try to move wood in my 1/2 ton pickup, and they just don't hold much, in terms of weight. I'm pretty much 100% oak, which weighs roughly 5400 lb per cord when green.

I thought about going to a heavier pickup, but then you're still limited to a relatively tiny bed that's too high off the ground. They also cost a heck of a lot more than a trailer, and I don't really need a 1-ton pickup as a personal vehicle. So, I bought a tandem axle closed side landscape trailer with a nice ramp on the back, which was maybe only $3500 brand new. Now I can also haul my tractor or zero turn around, when the need arises, and it holds several times as much wood as any 1-ton pickup, at 5% of the cost of the pickup.

For me, the 16' size was ideal. Any larger than that, and you're going to need more than two 3500 lb axles under it, as you'll be quickly over-weight with wood. I can load mine with a single layer of rounds, my rounds mostly being 18" to 36" diameter. The 16' trailer is around 20' LOA, so it will still fit in most garages or storage buildings, if you want to keep it out of the weather.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

A trailer is the way to go. I used to try to move wood in my 1/2 ton pickup, and they just don't hold much, in terms of weight. I'm pretty much 100% oak, which weighs roughly 5400 lb per cord when green.

I thought about going to a heavier pickup, but then you're still limited to a relatively tiny bed that's too high off the ground. They also cost a heck of a lot more than a trailer, and I don't really need a 1-ton pickup as a personal vehicle. So, I bought a tandem axle closed side landscape trailer with a nice ramp on the back, which was maybe only $3500 brand new. Now I can also haul my tractor or zero turn around, when the need arises, and it holds several times as much wood as any 1-ton pickup, at 5% of the cost of the pickup.

For me, the 16' size was ideal. Any larger than that, and you're going to need more than two 3500 lb axles under it, as you'll be quickly over-weight with wood. I can load mine with a single layer of rounds, my rounds mostly being 18" to 36" diameter. The 16' trailer is around 20' LOA, so it will still fit in most garages or storage buildings, if you want to keep it out of the weather.

I agree that a trailer would be easier to load and hold more wood. I wish I had a place to put one that wasn't taking up my driveway. The other problem is that most of the roads I cut firewood on are single lane dead ends without turnarounds. With the truck alone I end up doing at least one 4-5 point turn. I scored some easy picking's on this road but I had to back out 1/4 mile and steer around a small landslide that took out 1/3 of the road. No way I could back a trailer around that (no photo of washout):



The good thing is this is only 1-2 miles so I could make multiple trips if I wanted. Instead, I just overload my truck and take it nice and slow (about 20 mph) since there is never any other traffic. This load is about 3400 lbs. Truck is rated about 1750 lbs and I had at least 550 lbs. of me, tools, and other stuff that technically counts against the payload rating. If I respected the payload rating (and didn't empty the cab of tools and stuff) I could only carry about 1/3 this load of heavy, wet Alder. But the truck doesn't complain at all. If you throw one of these rounds in water there is only a tiny portion above water. Which means it's specific gravity is approaching 1.0 or the density of water. Gosh, that might be closer to 3800 lbs. plus 550 lbs. totaling 4350 lbs. payload. I guess that's what they mean when they claim it's "Built Ford Tough". Fortunately, I've replaced the crap tires it came with ones with a higher load capacity.

 

[timfromohio]

Yeah i have no desire to deal with anything that size. I have plenty if access to nice small stuff

 

[timfromohio]

Some old pics of rounds I rolled up into the back of my (old) truck. Got one by myself, had to have a buddy help with the larger one. I'm smarter now and use a dolly and a trailer.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

Some old pics of rounds I rolled up into the back of my (old) truck. Got one by myself, had to have a buddy help with the larger one. I'm smarter now and use a dolly and a trailer.

Those are pretty big alright! Fortunately for you, they look pretty well dried. They also look pretty thick. How long of splits can your stove fit?

 

[timfromohio]

Those are pretty big alright! Fortunately for you, they look pretty well dried. They also look pretty thick. How long of splits can your stove fit?

At the time that pic was taken we had a PE insert (summit or super - had the 1.8 ft3 firebox) and a Napolean 1150P free standing stove. The insert could officially take 18" long pieces, though you could squeeze a bit longer on the diagonal (N-S loading). The Napolean much shorter for N-S (preferred orientation), maybe 14"? I don't recall cutting those rounds any shorter - probably split them and they eventually found their way into the PE which ran all winter.

We've since moved (still in Ohio) and I have a Quad Explorer 2. I can easily fit 20" long E-W, but cut 14" or so for N-S loading.

 

[fishki]

I don't load any wood, I make my hired help load it, usually at the end of the day when they think I'm taking them home I turn and take a little detour to a wood pile. Someday they might wise up and drive their own vehicles to the jobsite. I hope not

 

[Dobish]

until the tires are squishy

 

[MrWhoopee]

Newly acquired from HF. No reinforcements except the pieces included with it. So far, so good.

 

[fishki]

Newly acquired from HF. No reinforcements except the pieces included with it. So far, so good.

View attachment 198324

Nice to see that in action, I have that exact same one that has been sitting in my shed for a year still in the box. Just pulled it out today thinking about installing it.

Maybe I can pick up some big rounds and set them on the splitter with it.

 

[duramaxman05]

I like to use a mini excavator with hydraulic thumb when i can. Probably one of the handiest pieces of equipment for cutting and splitting. You can pick the log up about waist high and cut the log. Then you can set the big blocks on the splitter with it. No heavy lifting. My back thanks me when i use it