Bucking firewood before power tools.

I see rather large trees being processed for firewood and it's hard to imagine using so much personal exertion for something you were going to burn.
Did people use axes to buck logs for firewood?
If so, did they choose large diameter trees?
I know there are bucking saws, but were they used for processing building material , or firewood?

There definitely were bucking saws, and I would imagine they were used to process firewood, but I would find it hard to believe anyone was felling 18"+ diameter logs with the intent to cut it entirely for heating purposes before chainsaws and the like were available. SkillCult on youtube did a project where he felled, bucked, and split a cord of wood all with an axe - it was an immense amount of work, but frankly it seemed to me like less work than using a saw, even on relatively large diameter stuff.

I cut most of my firewood with a bow saw and split it with a maul. I also peel the logs, because it speeds up drying and generates mulch for garden beds. I admit though, that cutting larger logs is very demoralizing, even though the end result of one cut is equivalent to many smaller ones. I'm curious what you consider a "large diameter" tree. In my case, anything over 8-10" will likely be introduced to my chainsaw.

Grandpa always used the “junk” wood for firewood. Branches, crotches, bent sections, storm damage, etc. The main trunk and even many branches were used for lumber and posts. Of course some of those branches were 18”!  He heated with 100% wood into his seventies and didn’t use a chainsaw until the last five or ten years. He used a man and a half saw to buck into manageable posts and a 30” buzz saw to cut those into rounds. He was REALLY GOOD at sharpening!

I don't know, but I highly suspect, that they did buck up logs for firewood and they used hand saws.  The larger the log, the more likely they sawed it (in my opinion).  If you axe a log into pieces, they have pointy ends that then makes it hard to split into firewood sized pieces.  Plus all the axe chips are less useful for firewood purposes.

I think a really good and sharp "one man saw" can cut a 20" hardwood log in probably a couple minutes.  That chunk, once split, would heat my house (modern construction) for a day in light winter conditions.  

It was a lot of work, and they probably cut many cords of wood per winter, but I'm guessing it was with high tech cross cut saws that were lovingly kept sharp as can be.

Thank you all for your replies!
At this point I'm pretty convinced that I've never actually used a good quality, well maintained handsaw.
I know the first time I ever saw a decent wood chisel in use I was gobsmacked at how easily it cut.
I think my experience with crappy hand tools has influenced my expectations of what is possible.

I have no real idea of how to categorize trees by size, only that anything 8" in diameter or larger seems stout enough to build just about anything with.
Keep in mind, I am no carpenter, much less a a timberwright, I just build a lot of things by feel.
Even when using power tools I balance how many cuts I get verses the end product, because batted life and blade life are not insignificant costs in my world.
I have lots of hand saws, and some of them might actually be good quality tools, but they are all disused and in disrepair, so I have a long way to go if I choose to pursue hand sawing.

Michael, the log peeling sounds relatively easy and stacks functions.
What tools do you use for that?

William Bronson wrote:

Michael, the log peeling sounds relatively easy and stacks functions.
What tools do you use for that?

I use a drawknife mostly, but I also have a dollar store hatchet that seems more like a kitchen knife. It is great for logs with loose, flaking bark.

And yeah, I can relate to your experience with crappy tools. I'm still fumbling and stumbling with a lot of hand-me-down, yard sale and neglected tools.  

William Bronson wrote:I see rather large trees being processed for firewood and it's hard to imagine using so much personal exertion for something you were going to burn.
Did people use axes to buck logs for firewood?
If so, did they choose large diameter trees?
I know there are bucking saws, but were they used for processing building material , or firewood?

William,
Although now relegated mostly to hanging on walls with paintings on them a good crosscut saw was a long term purchase. For a Crosscut saw teeth are sharpened to the left, teeth are sharpened to the right and most importantly "raker" teeth that would clean out the Kerf of sawdust in the cut. The reason most modern ones suck so bad is because they are made of very thin steel whose teeth are sharpened, "Kerfed"(bent alternately left then right) and here is the killer hardened to keep an edge. Since they are hardened they cannot be resharpened easily. They are made to be disposable and changed often which nobody does often enough. I also find the thin ones only good for crosscutting small logs as they get bogged down in thicker logs. For thicker logs you need more of a bucksaw with the thicker blade and good rakers. Even larger logs work best with a crosscut felling saw. There were infinite methods of sharpening and the correct ratio of cutting teeth to rakers depending on wood species, time of year cut one versus two person saws. There were probably no two people who sharpened the same.
here is a good video of sharpening what I call a felling crosscut saw one man and two.  
I had a one man crosscut and a one man ripsaw made for ripping boards. I was never awesome with them and ended up selling them to a friend.  I do still have a few bucksaws.
Cheers,  David

William,

I completely understand your thoughts about bucking without sawing first.  Actually, the issue is even worse than trying to Buck an 18” log.

In early settler days, prior to the American Revolution, the Eastern forests had really ancient, hundreds-years old hardwood trees.  It was not at all uncommon to find trees with 5’ diameter or even larger—sometimes much larger.

So large were these trees that some unusual practices were available that simply are not available today.  The shipbuilding industry of that day naturally required huge amounts of wood, especially pieces with unusual shapes and sizes.  Often, shipbuilders would go into the forest looking for a tree with just the right size and angle—typically requiring a uniquely shaped section of a branch meeting the trunk.  The shipbuilders then cut the tree down and cut off the specific part and hauled it off.

My point is that the main trunks were often so huge that firewood was actually an impractical use.  Instead, lots of wood was collected from simple deadfall.  Sometimes a longer piece of wood would not be cut into short, 16” rounds, but rather laid down and split lengthwise to a manageable sized width before cutting to convenient lengths (Think Abraham Lincoln splitting rails—those rails could just as easily be cut again to shorter pieces of firewood).  Often those huge trunks were simply burned on the spot to clear ground!  I shudder at the thought of simply destroying so much valuable wood today, but those were different days and trees were often viewed as a hindrance, not as a valuable asset.

Sometimes logging operations would cut up huge trees on the spot but that required hauling expensive and heavy/bulky equipment deep into  forests that had no roads.  Other times huge trees were cut in fall and trenches were dug on the ground and filled with water.  In winter the water-trenches froze and the trees (at least their trunks) could be slid somewhat easily to the nearest river where they sat until the river thawed.  Then the logs would float down to a sawmill downstream and cut to lumber.  Often the cut-off pieces were either burned, sold as scrap or even given away depending on circumstances.  Those scraps were irregularly shaped but could be further split and cut into useable firewood.

I really could go on and on, but to conclude and simplify, wood was cut into firewood simply by using the most practical means available.  True, pieces could be cut into nice rounds before splitting, but firewood was not always wood chunks with convenient flat ends as we see today.  Mostly that became available when chainsaws appeared in the late 1800s to early 1900s, but that is a post for a another day.

Eric

By the way, here is an article about a sort of predecessor to the chainsaw called a dragsaw.  It bucks logs to length, is gasoline powered, but generally requires two people to operate.  It was a heavy beast and early chainsaws were not much easier to use.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragsaw



Eric

Does anyone know if it is/was possible to hang one end of a cross-cut saw on a rope and then be a single person at the other end operating the saw?  This might be used at a single-person stations for cutting small amounts of larger rounds....perhaps?

Below -- Was always amazed at this photo.... from the book "Too Hot, Went to Lake" by Peg Meier, one time Minneapolis Star-Tribune writer.

John Weiland wrote:Does anyone know if it is/was possible to hang one end of a cross-cut saw on a rope and then be a single person at the other end operating the saw?  This might be used at a single-person stations for cutting small amounts of larger rounds....perhaps?

If you are referring to a two-person crosscut saw, one can be used by one person as-is for bucking. Starting it can be awkward, and it would not really be practical for felling. One-person saws could be had in lengths long enough to tackle any log a single person would reasonably like to try. I think I have one at least six feet long, and I'm pretty sure I have seen pictures of some probably at least eight feet.

John,

That is one amazing picture!!  I can’t tell from the photo, is the cart on wheels or skids.  In the northern woods, it was common to wait till winter to do logging.  The mosquitoes were gone, the weather was good and cold—perfect for strenuous exercise that would build up heat.  Moreover farm labor was idle so there was work to do.  Finally, snow covering frozen soil made a perfect surface for pulling heavy loads—the ground was solid, snow provided traction for animals while it was simultaneously a good, smooth surface for pulling something skis.

Awesome picture!


Eric

Hi Eric,

Even now in northern MN trees are cut in summer and hauled out in the winter.

Eric, that would have been skids or skis.  They made tracked ice roads that matched the width of the skis to make it easier to haul.  Some poor buggers got the job of hauling water and re-icing the tracks every night so that they'd be in good shape for the day's hauling.

From what I've heard/read, when a camera crew showed up at the logging camp, they'd assemble gigantic loads to impress the city folk.  Not that that's what happened in the picture above but you never know.  In my parts, near the end of the logging rush, they converted to steam engines on tracks to haul the logs out.

These guys are faster than your average person with a chainsaw, I would wager.

20" White Pine.

15 strokes, about 6 seconds!

The current record is 4.77 seconds!

Mike,

Your comment regarding the camera crew in that awesome picture that John Weiland gave us rings absolutely true, and really I should have recognized it for myself.  I was going to comment that the huge, tall load of logs would be very unstable and I was uncertain how a draft-animal team would even be able to haul it.  But of course this is partly illusion.

As part of my graduate training in History we often looked at pictures as an important historical primary source.  But it was always important to consider that the photographer was a sort of invisible actor making that picture.  Especially in older days when photographs were rare and expensive, great care went in to making each picture as dramatic as possible—that left a greater impact and sold better.  Certainly, the picture itself is real—the logs were stacked very high—but this certainly was not standard practice.  That load would be impractical/impossible to move—it certainly would have been unstable and very prone to tipping over.  It was a staged picture, one that was specifically crafted for maximum effect.

Still, it is an awesome picture!  But I am pretty certain that a real load of timber would have been much shorter & lighter for easier transport.

But it made a great, dramatic photo nonetheless!

Eric

Eric, dragsaw is a thing I was assuming existed but could not find the proper search term for!
They are even better than what I had imagined, which was something closer to a spring pole lathe or the rope arrangement John asked about.
It's amazing,  some of them ca be used to fell trees.

Funnily, I had come up with the idea of somehow using a bowsaw blade with  a Sawzall, but I couldn't get past how to maintain blade stiffness and edge alignment.
Dragssaws are like that idea, fully realized, without electricity!


Turns out I have at least 3 bow saws.
They have never seemed handy to use, but that's probably because they are not meant for cutting up pallets, plus they need to be tightened.
Most information online seems to focus on the kinds that is made of wood and uses a twisted cord for tightening, but I've watch a few videos of guys demonstrating the kind of metal bow saws I have.
When I searched for "Mechanically assisted bow saws"
I was imagining a jig to support a bow saw, kinda like a manual miter saw uses, or a gravity assisted rig, like the woods splitters I've seen.
I found nothing.
When I looked for pedal powered dragsaw, I found a guy making them out of salvaged exercise bikes!

William,

This thread led me down a rabbit hole researching the origins of the chainsaw.  My old view is now being challenged by new information.


Old View:

Chainsaws were originally a large, heavy, gas powered, two man tool that was developed in the late 1800s.  Gasoline engines were a new development (derived from steam engines—another story altogether) that were initially created to power smallish equipment inside a factory that itself was powered by coal/steam.  Prior to gas engines, these small machines were powered either by a rotating shaft or a looped band that was directly connected to the central steam engine.  This worked, but it made equipment placement a challenge (had to be reached by the shaft/band coming from the steam engine) and the productivity of the equipment was directly linked to the operation of the steam engine—meaning that the equipment was often running when not needed because of the link to the steam engine.

Gas engines changed that.  They were much smaller, could be operated independently of the steam engine, responded to demand faster, and placement was easier.  I should note that sometimes factories operated small steam engines that powered these devices but the operating area was HOT!  I saw one of these in operation and it was almost too hot to look at!  I had to leave.

So small gas engines had many desirable characteristics and it didn’t take long for them to be put in cars (brand new then) and tractors (actually just a bit older than cars).  They also got smaller to power chainsaws

Those early chainsaws replaced the even earlier drag saws which were heavy and vibrated terribly.  Imagine trying to hold up a gas powered reciprocating saw to cut down a tree and you have an idea.  Early chainsaws were just as heavy but vibrated less.

A huge change came from Adolphus Stihl who reportedly was inspired by the way that some wood-boring beetles were able to slice through wood, leaving behind wood chips and not sawdust.  He recognized that the wood beetle was far more efficient at cutting and devised a new chainsaw with teeth that cut and removed wood to the side.  This was so efficient that a chainsaw could be made much, much smaller, be run by one man instead of two, increased efficiency, reduced gas consumption and on and on.  The modern chainsaw was born.


New View:  Warning, goriness follows!

All of the above is still true, but actually using a chain with cutting teeth (but not the modern ones) goes back to about the 1700s.  That original chainsaw was hand cranked and was designed—of all things—medical purposes.

TURN AWAY NOW IF YOU DON’T LIKE GORINESS!!!





Up to about the American Civil Was and even through the rest of the 19th century, the most common procedure that a doctor provided on a battlefield was amputation.  In The Civil War, contrary to popular belief, most amputations were performed with some degree of anesthesia (more so in the North), but it was almost never enough and patients were still frequently awake during the procedure and did still experience horrible pain (and there were still a great many that had absolutely no anesthesia whatsoever).  A good surgeon could cut through a bone in about 2 minutes, but a patient still awake almost never sat completely still (who could?) and the bone saw would frequently bind up during the blade in the cut.  Back-and-forth motion was not ideal.  The chainsaw was originally designed to make the same cut but only cutting in one direction.  It was a good idea but never caught on for various reasons including the fact that operating a hand-crank saw was terribly awkward.  It basically was a curiosity until gas engines meant that the same device could be used to cut wood.



GORINESS ENDS HERE.

So, this thread lead me to find an even earlier development of the chainsaw, but one that was wildly different than I had ever known.


Sometimes finding historical information is fascinating, sometimes terrible and sometimes both.

Eric

Interestingly, the first successful chainsaws for cutting wood were electric and were not used for bucking logs, but only for felling trees. It was still considered more practical to buck logs manually. I think it took a team of four or five men to use a chainsaw, so it would have needed to have been that much more efficient to be worth it.

Jordan,

I think that the chainsaw is a good example of how an invention gets modified, parts and pieces recombined and the whole thing evolves into something entirely different than originally intended.  Also, crises has a way of pushing forward the development of inventions.

I the case of the chainsaw, several inventions had to combine to make the modern product, including lightweight but powerful engines and a sawtooth that cut slices of wood like a beetle instead of a pointed tooth scraping downwards.

Modern battery advancements and brushless electric motors might change the invention even further, but that remains to be seen.

Eric

 You mentioned that longer logs might be rived length wise before being bucked into shorter lengths.
There are  treadle hammer style kindling splitters on the internet.
I wonder if that same human power could be used to set up a riving "mill" .

Maybe.  I guess that part of the question would be if the mill worked as well across the grain of wood as it would running parallel to the grain.

Good point!

Eric

Eric Hanson wrote:Jordan,

I think that the chainsaw is a good example of how an invention gets modified, parts and pieces recombined and the whole thing evolves into something entirely different than originally intended.  Also, crises has a way of pushing forward the development of inventions.


Eric

Yes, I think that is the crux of the matter. While we may marvel and question if people 200 years ago would have bucked logs into rounds for firewood, they would likely have looked back much the same way questioning if people using stone axes ever actually managed to cut wood any larger than a twig. And people 200 years in the future will likely marvel and wonder if we ever truly used these dirty, loud, often cantankerous chainsaws long before their automatic laser or sonic or whatever wood cutters. Maybe they won't cut wood at all. Maybe they will grow it in a lab in the exact shapes and sizes they need, likely not for burning for heat. We see things through our level of technology, with near 20\20 hindsight. As technology evolves, we have to also evolve our mindset out of the paradigms in which we live in order to put that technology to good use.

People living 200 years ago probably saw cutting wood up for firewood very differently. It would have been laborious, but it's just something one did to survive winter. It would have been normal. I'm sure the vast majority of people would have tried to make it as easy as possible if given the opportunity by using smaller trees if available and such. Even then, I'm sure there were people, just like today, who chose to not keep their tools sharp and make things much more difficult than necessary. How many people do you know who constantly fight with a dull chainsaw or pocket knife? We can be funny creatures, but at least we are consistent through the years, lol!

When I was a teenager,my father and I would cut trees for firewood with a two man saw. It worked well enough (I am sure it was not as sharp and certainly not as tuned per the top video as it could have been), but there is also a matter of rhythm - pulling at just the right time for smooth motion. My father always started pulling the microsecond I reached the end of my stroke and before I could relax my grip, jerking the handle nearly out of my hands sometimes.

I remember log-sawing competitions at Scout camp, my troop (led by my father) was pretty good

In the early '90s we had a couple of really wet winters in southern Arizona. The flooding along one of the rivers close to my house undercut a bank and toppled a bunch of ginormous mesquites. My brother-in-law and I salvaged a few of them by cutting trunks with a two-man saw and half-floating, half-rolling them in the shallow current (green mesquite wood usually sinks) to a landing spot where we winched them onto a lowboy trailer.

That day was a crash course in saw technique. We got pretty good at it, mostly by watching the tension and agreeing that we would keep our rhythm slow and steady. I have a feeling that learning on pine or Doug fir would have been much nicer than that 150-year-old riparian mesquite, but we got there in the end. I let the logs dry in the yard for a couple of years and then milled them for floorboards (I hope that floor is still there...that was a lot of work).

Last year I practiced working with some of our heavier chestnut timbers with hand tools. Felled with a chainsaw initially, but then processed by hand.

I used splitting wedges, a club hammer, and a small hand saw. I was able to take pretty large diameter logs down to a comfortable size by splitting them along their length. Sweet chestnut splits easily, so I was playing to the strengths of the timber. Drive wedges in at one end, and then work along the developing split with more wedges. Repeat the splitting as many times as needed. I was able to take an 18" diameter stem down to approx 4" to 6" sections left very long.

These were then cut with a handsaw down to 6ft to stack in piles 6ft by 6ft by 6ft to air dry. The intention is to then cut them to length for the fire once they are seasoned.

I used metal wedges and a club hammer. It could have easily been achieved using a wooden maul and wooden wedges, if a suitable hardwood was available. The complete set of tool fitted into a canvas satchel - wedges, club hammer, folding hand saw. It took a bit of effort, but I suspect that it would be less than many other ways of processing firewood from large timber. It was quite peaceful and meditative, although I quickly learned that I needed more stamina in the forearm to do it for an extended period of time.

I just ran across this pic again and it reminded me of this thread:

Okay, so that last tree may not be the right application for a timber tool, but the one Stephen demonstrates looks useful to direct timber being cut by those of us with little experience. It sure seems like a great safety tool. I like how it is energy efficient by using only elbow grease!