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Old Fashioned Wood Hauling Wheel Barrow

 
pollinator
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I lived on a old time loggers property for a few years. The guy had done almost every conceivable thing with wood one can imagine. He told me they used stretched out flat wheel barrows to haul big loads of cedar bolts or firewood out of the woods or around a homestead. There are very easy to make as it’s all made from flat boards. A old metal wheel will work or new inflatable wheel. These also make a great bench to sit on, temporary workbench, and general purpose hauler around a homestead.
I’m a big fan of carts and wheel barrows of all kinds. The video linked shows the general idea except the example in the video is short in comparison to what the loggers used. A long flat wheelbarrow can haul a huge amount of wood:

 
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This is certainly true.

I was thinking that if a person was hauling wood out of a certain area, or they were retrieving wood from the woodshed, they could also set up a monorail, or even duel wheeled cart. With the right wheel, it would stay on a rail made up of inexpensive electrical conduit supported by short lengths of 2x6's. I think it would be well worth doing because the coefficient of friction would be so low that a person could more easily push a cart with much bigger loads on such a monorail.

When I worked on the railroad, we put new trucks under the locomotives. We would take a crane and pick up the end of the locomotive, then using a lining bar, pry the truck out from under the locomotive. That truck weighed 35 tons, yet we could bar it forward because of how easy it is to roll something with steel wheels, on steel track.
 
Jeremy Baker
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Wow, lifting a train!! That’s heavy!
A PVC rail system makes a lot of sense for moving stuff around. There’s a video on forming curves in PVC using hot sand to make a backyard thrill ride. Same idea would make a track for moving materials. If I built a straw bale house I’d set up a track from the straw bales to the house site. Though a cart works pretty good too.
I had about 7 carts and wheelbarrows at my Permaculture site. There’s no such thing as too many. One trick I learned for up-cycling materials is replace the rotting plywood in the “garden carts” with bed liner material. People throw out the plastic bed liners when they spray their trucks. The stuff will last a long time in a cart. Cut the bed liner with a circular saw or even a hand saw. Ive used it on shed roofs also.
The big diameter metal wheels were nice on bumpy ground. The bigger the wheel the smoother the and  easier it is to roll. Also a one wheeled wheelbarrow can go down a surprisingly narrow track. Or up a narrow ramp. But I also used a heavy duty two wheeled wheelbarrow a lot.
 
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Travis Johnson wrote:This is certainly true.

I was thinking that if a person was hauling wood out of a certain area, or they were retrieving wood from the woodshed, they could also set up a monorail, or even duel wheeled cart. With the right wheel, it would stay on a rail made up of inexpensive electrical conduit supported by short lengths of 2x6's. I think it would be well worth doing because the coefficient of friction would be so low that a person could more easily push a cart with much bigger loads on such a monorail.

When I worked on the railroad, we put new trucks under the locomotives. We would take a crane and pick up the end of the locomotive, then using a lining bar, pry the truck out from under the locomotive. That truck weighed 35 tons, yet we could bar it forward because of how easy it is to roll something with steel wheels, on steel track.




French gardens had these setup,  I remember reading about it in Elliot Coleman's books.
 
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I have a great deficiency of carts and barrows here, hopefully I get a chance to work on that this winter.

I like the idea of an extended flatbed but would prefer the wheel set back a bit, so it carries more of the load. More like a chinese wheelbarrow.


Wondering if a small motorbike wheel might be a good fit for a beefy unit like this, anyone tried it?
 
Jeremy Baker
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Ive not seen a motorcycle or scooter wheel on a cart but I’m sure someone has done it. That would be sturdy.
I remember reading about a sliding greenhouse or cold frame in Elliot Coleman’s books. The idea makes good sense for rotating crops.
 
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The most fun spur-of-the moment hack I ever did was when I was an exhibitionist (working in a museum) and there was a wet 8-inch snowfall, so I borrowed some scrap carpet runner: clear heavy, flexible plastic with texture on the top and some parallel ridges on the bottom, then roll a 1.25x1.5 inch fir stick in the front and hold it on with some tacks.  Then: burn a fat bomber, march double-time to the top of the slope, everyone hop on and hold on to everyone else, then kick off, to the bottom of the slope where the jump was: as red light ballistic status was achieved, the lack of handholds on the runner meant you could only grab the nearest friend as the airborne flock went random. A small backpacking cookstove kept a kettle of mulled wine warm enough to melt the snow that had sifted inside our jackets, so best to repeat as fast as possible. 40 minutes of this was enough to send us straight to bed to wake up in time for work the next day.
 
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Rather than a monorail in snow to move firewood, how about a cable strung like a clothesline?  One would need to load and unload a bucket / tub / carrying strap, but it would take little effort to move the load.  Of course that implies a straight line between woodshed and where the wood is to be burned.  

In extreme weather conditions, the line could also be a safety line to tie oneself to if visibility is extremely limited.

This type of easily built tool looks like a project worth taking on...I'll add it to the list...sigh.
 
Rick Valley
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I remember Mollison recommending having "design elements" with "yields" placed along routes that made bringing the "yields' in: i.e. take water to the chicken coop and on the returning carry kindling to the cookstove to cook "brekkie" (thet's 'strine, roight?) I built a woodshed that could be sited to get good solar on the south side, where I placed a tempered sheet glass window low down.  The North side is mostly open with enough sheathing on the end to give some diagonal stability, then added heavy wire mesh inside the window to prevent breakage of the solar glazing, and vertical "stays" that could be removed for access, to hold the firewood stacks, and set it on pier blocks over compacted crushed rock.... SO: enough overhang on the sheltered open "back" side, so you don't get wet in the rain loading the firewood tote, air circulation between wood stacks, access to the oldest driest wood without blocking it with later(greener) wood, and stays that are held in by the load pressing them tight and "home", but easily removed when not holding the stack up, so you can access the front/window side. Since the floor is above the gound, the wood on the floor is dry, and there's less bending over. It works! and when I left Lost Valley no one wanted to buy it, so now it's here in Eugene, in a somewhat less ideal placement, vis a vis the fireplace and the doors in the house, (bigger house here too, eh? But it still works. Once I've taken out some unwanted trees, it'll be better placed, if I live so long. The shed meshes well with me doing landscape maintenance and fruit tree pruning: I get paid to cut my firewood, and there's minimal splitting to do. Nice when you can do the design from "source to sink".
 
Rick Valley
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After reviewing all of the postings, I feel I have to say: If you're thinking of technology to get wood into the house, the location of the wood shed is too far away from the house. If you have to load a monorail train or whatever, you're going to have times when suiting up to go do it will consume more time than unloading the needed wood. (It's another matter if you're living on a narrow bench in a mountain valley and the woodlot is all uphill of the cabin, for sure! As they say, gravity is not just a good idea: It's the LAW!) My ideal is to minimize hassles like getting wood in the door, by strategies like having a pass-thru ("airlock") between garage and house, so the stack is in the garage and the stove is supplied by a shelf between garage and living room or kitchen with (sliding?) doors on inner and outer sides to minimize drafts. Another solution I've seen is to bring the wood into an enclosed porch in totes and then the totes are brought in to the stove zone, but not so close as to melt or burn, eh?. Empty a tote? Fill a tote! Mollison also pointed out that passive solar heat was hard to get "On Demand" but wood heat was a great way to meet demand, as well as having additional yields, primarily ash- for making soap, or for Halloween, garden fertility, etc. So lots of these functions can be planned into spaces that are not primarily heated, but do add shelter and a buffer for heated spaces, functions like potato storage, food grains, all of that sort of thing that has been a feature of cool old farmhouses. One thing for sure though, is that wood storage is great rodent habitat, ask any cat! So don't mix the two! Tote loads that can be burned in 24 hours can be inside, but the rest is out. The main wood storage ideally has good solar gain, and that gets the wood seasoned and ready to yield max BTU's. Good solar gain is appreciated by our feline friends as well, so they'll be happy to keep the varmints down in the solar shed. (my cat is right here, and she approves of this testimony) If you need any further convincing, check out stats on how many BTU's can be wasted by burning damp wood. Sure, you CAN burn it, but vaporizing the water uses BTU's, your stovepipe will gunk up faster (and your cat will be disappointed by the lack of heat for good naps)
That's why when I was living in a cabin about the size of my current bedroom (but with a loft, too) I built my woodshed where it got sun, and could be reached easily from the front porch, where I had a back-up wood box alongside the front door. Getting wood to the cabin zone was a piece of cake: the cabin is 15 feet from the main driveway of the community, at a slight down-grade from about 2/3rds of the trees on the land, so I scored a carpet dolly: any log that I could pick up half of, I could set on the dolly, lash it on balanced slightly forward, so, by a tad of down pressure would keep the trunk up and I could steer from the back and walk a 30 ft. fir with 10-12 inch girth at the base a half mile to my cabin. (N.B.: any log big enough and long enough was likely used for building, not firewood!) The area was ALL on about the 3rd. cut since the gringos arrived. ) If it somehow the dolly got out of control I had only to let go and the butt would hit the ground and stop the show. I could also cut logs on the dolly  with a stick tripod being the 2nd rest point, and I'd use a bow saw, chainsaws stink. The trick is in positioning and holding the log in a position that is easy for you in the cutting process. Hardwoods were available, mostly as coppice regrowth, in a bundle  3 ft. around, so those were small enough to cut with hand saws, because with harder, heavier wood, the heat yield was fine, the burn slower, and less creosote. I could cut those easily with a "Swede Axe", camp axe, bow saw, or a bill hook. Cold steel rocks! No ear protection needed! I made a sawbuck for hand cutting small wood right by the wood shed, 2 X ends with 2 top rails and 2 diagonals (big bamboos) all lashed. I know chainsaws are manly, stink, are greasy and dangerous, but think of it: if you cut conifers you have to replant, while many broadleaved species will regrow. Intensive coppice systems are their own subject, but if you want to check it out, the BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) It's an organization that seeks to preserve traditional knowledge and craft. I the volume on coppice it is postulated that it is still possible to see coppice that supplied wood to make charcoal to smelt bog iron ore to forge swords for Roman Legionaries, and continues yielding today.
 
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Looking at the wheelbarrow in the OP, it looks pretty but strikes me as a backbreaker. The wheel should be placed underneath the majority of the weight.
 
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ike those Chinese barrows with a 5' dia wheel?
 
Douglas Alpenstock
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John C Daley wrote:ike those Chinese barrows with a 5' dia wheel?


Haha, those things always looked awkward to me. Though I've never tried one.

With a modern wheelbarrow, you can stack heavy loads at the front so a large part of the weight is on the wheel. They don't look pretty and decorative in the garden though.
 
I remember because of the snow. Do you remember tiny ad?
Rocket Mass Heater Jamboree And Updates
https://permies.com/t/170234/Rocket-Mass-Heater-Jamboree-Updates
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