Salvaging good useful wood with a chop saw

One of my neighbors was giving away this free wood. Unfortunately, he painted the end of one side of a lot of the wood.  I didn't want to turn painted wood into biochar, so I tried to figure out what to do. It was a lot of good, dry wood.  I pulled out the chop saw, which was a good tool for the job. I wanted to just chop off the painted end and save the rest of the good wood. I threw away the painted wood in the garbage.

The chop saw was a good tool but not a perfect one. Some of the wood was too large to chop through.  I carefully set it up to cut one way, chopped all I could,  then the other way as far as I could, etc.  I couldn't cut all the way through several of them, so I finished the job with a big screwdriver to pry off a lot of the overhangs and then I used a hand saw to complete the job on the inner core of the big pieces.  

I will give a word of caution on the chop saw, however. This is beyond the regular cautions, and it's something that I hadn't thought of.  If you are chopping through an old piece of wood, a part can come flying off.  Then it might disorient you so the chop saw changes angles slightly and  grabs the bigger piece of wood.  You could get your saw stuck, you could get hit by a piece of flying wood, you could chop your finger off.  I'm not trying to scare anyone.  A chop saw is a great tool. Just respect it.  

John S
PDX OR

I respect the recycle. Personally I would not use a chop saw and its expensive blades for this.

Several times I have clamped a plug-in Makita recip-saw in an old Black and Decker Workmate and chopped up small firewood. The saw blade is stationary, exposed, and suitably dangerous. But you can use up old half-dead blades this way, rotating the wood as you feed it into the blade. Surprisingly effective.

That's a good idea. I'll have to check to see if we have a recip saw.
JohN S
PDX OR

We don't have a recip(rocating?) saw.  I guess I could chop the wood with a chain saw. The chain is probably less expensive than a chop saw blade, but it is much more dangerous.  An angle grinder might be even more dangerous.  A hand saw would take too much time.  I can't think of any better options.  Buying a reciprocating saw seems too expensive.

John S
PDX OR

John Suavecito wrote:  Buying a reciprocating saw seems too expensive.

They're so darn handy that I can't imagine not having one. I see lots of used, corded models for cheap. They're pretty simple -- either they work or they don't.

We have a sawzall. I didn't realize that it was a reciprocating saw!
John S
PDX OR

John Suavecito wrote:The chain is probably less expensive than a chop saw blade

John, I have to disagree. I have cut around 50 tons of eucalyptus firewood with the same 12" Diablo blade on a cheap chop saw. I have been using the same blade for 8 years and maybe one day I will sharpen it. To do the same with a chainsaw I would probably go with 20 chains. Since I also cut soil covered roots they would ruin even more chains very quickly. Also it would be quite dangerous to cut springy, fresh branches with a chainsaw and usually requires two people for efficient operation.
I have also used the same blade for some rough carpentry projects and for cutting PVC pipes.

A belt sander or similar with aggressive paper could work well. Bonus if there's a dust collector for the paint too.

John Suavecito wrote:We have a sawzall. I didn't realize that it was a reciprocating saw!
John S
PDX OR

Haha, Sawzall is a Milwaukee trademark name for a reciprocating saw. I think they invented the tool category and now everyone makes a version of it.