Chainsaw Repair

Well the peavy that I made I broke one of the joints on it when trying to roll a 36" round.    I had to weld it back together and put some reinforcements on the sides.   Works ok now.   

One thing I have noticed about this peavy I made is that because I made the hook rather large I have found it to work really good on large logs but on small ones in the 12" to 14" range it does not hook very well.   I may have to make a smaller version for rolling small diameter but very long logs.

BIG for sure.  How big across or around?

Cottonwoods are rather common about an hour North of here at Lake Erie. If you leave a door open, your house will fill up waste deep in cottonwood fuzz.

They grow to be huge trees up there.

You'll have to learn how to use them in your stove? I bet your BIL knows how to use them. They are not like using California oak.

From my experience, one split will not burn by itself after the bark is gone. You'll need at least three splits beside each other to hold enough heat in the wood to keep it going? Or maybe a piece of pine in there with it?

Firewood is different in WY compared with around here. Cottonwood is common in Louisiana and I heard all kinds of stories from guys in the Army (Ft Polk) trying to get it to burn like they were used to oak in Alabama and Georgia.

Your family members near you will tell you all about how to make it go. Willow is the same way.

Could be? I had about a cord of willow splits given to me back 40 years ago and it wasn't like burning the locust, silver maple, and walnut I was used to. But it does burn. I eventually mixed a little of the other wood in with it and everything was fine. But like I said, us Easterners are very different from what some people have to do in other parts of the country. Sometimes, you have no choice?

Dated a girl once that her folks heated with yellow pine. (plenty of yellow pine in the Southeast) I didn't see the wood pile but my nose told me. I got a glimpse of the stove through the living room window as I was walking up to the front door. Maybe the flue wasn't set up right? I got used to it after a few minutes. Maybe she was standing near a brush fire out behind the house before dark?

Pine makes a lot of tar in your flue when you use a air tight stove and idle it a lot. Then when you put the stove on high, the tar sounds like a rocket motor and your pipe vibrates and glows red.