How to buck a tree: Cutting logs for maximum yield (2018) | Hacker News Reader

How to buck a tree: Cutting logs for maximum yield (2018)

thebalancesmb.com

138 pointsbrudgers43 comments

Here's a helpful trick for those of you who might need to get some firewood going but the chainsaw gave up the ghost.

It can be kind of tricky and kind of dangerous for the foot if you aren't careful; but you can split a log length wise using only your axe and some torque. Carefully work your way up the length of the log slamming the axe down into the wood in a straight line, or as straight as possible. Depending on the tree and your strength; this may take one or two passes to get it splitting apart nicely.

Worst case scenario is you start cutting off small chunks on the side; but honestly you gotta be wailing pretty hard to get that happening on a strong log.

Otherwise, once you have your first pass done, start bringing the axe down harder to finish the split; twisting the axe each time to help spread it apart. If you did it right, you should end up with two long halves of a full log. Once that is done, you can do it again with each half; and then buck it down into smaller pieces with a hand saw.

Yes, you could use the hand saw first; but this is a much faster method. Or at least I think it is. I can get through a full log in about 5 minutes or so. 10 minutes tops. Never timed it; I just know how long I can stand outside chopping wood with a pair of jeans and t-shirt in -30c weather.

This is very hard work with just an axe. You have to use wedges as well. Once you get them in, just keep hammering them in equally until the log falls apart.

Being pedantic, but generally you shouldn't use an axe for splitting wood. Mauls are much heavier and meant for the purpose.

A maul would be the proper tool when you've already got the log cut up into firewood length, and you can enter into the end grain. I think what GP is describing is to split the log before cutting it to length, which (as far as I'm aware) is also an unorthodox technique. A maul wouldn't be acute enough to cut into the face grain.

Ahhh, thanks. I must have read it wrong and kinda was wondering why a long description for basic wood splitting. I think you're right, they're splitting an entire tree lengthwise. I've never attempted such a thing, so have no idea what would work best. I'd probably start it with an axe, then try to finish with a maul, but that's a complete guess.

But it's just pedantry anyhow, as many people in the US use 'axe' to mean everything from hatchets to mauls to fireman's axes. I do wish people would use the correct terms in general, as it causes a ton of consumer confusion. There's a really light felling axe I like, and every bad review is a broken handle trying to split giant pieces of wood.

I'm not sure if this is going to be seen, but I was temp banned or am still shadowbanned or something?

Either or. If you do see this, yes, you are both right that I would be best to be using a maul.

But not everyone has a proper splitting maul available, and mine was kind of missing that day... So I used my 20$ timber store 'everything' axe. I should have been more specific, as you make a point of. I call it that, cause I'm not sure which kind of axe it really is, but it gets used for pretty much everything, lol.

I cut up broken trees as a volunteer emergency responder. I'm always fascinated by these puzzles, in that every tree is different in species, condition and nature of the fault. The aim is to make the tree safe for the public by getting the broken bit on the ground then cut up into manageable chunks. in practice it requires more time thinking than cutting. There are heuristics like remove unsupported bits to remove weight, avoid rolling etc but it often seems that you end up at a dead end. Then think, discuss and move forward (maybe). Could make some sort of game, where the top levels are branches suspended in trees, e.g. a bit of tree A comes off and lodges into trees B and C.

Naieve use of chainsaws is a significant risk. I know, I've tried the baby ones and its very easy to do what cartoonists love to lambast (cutting off the limb you're standing on)

(I meant tree-limbs, but the sentence works with the other ones)

I've never used one of them because they cause me panic. But my father has used plenty, and he always advised me _against_ the smaller ones. He says the small ones tend to refuse to cut a lot, so they kick back, and their small weight make the kick more quick and you end having an accident. The big ones on the contrary, tend to bite hard and when they refuse to cut they are so deep in the wood they doesn't kick back but get stuck.

Yes. The guy with the chainsaw preferred the big one for this reason but he let me cut small branches with his small one until I did the classic "cut the soil" thing which blunts them fast.

Chainsaws are one of those "a lot more skill than you think" devices. Even something as judging where to do an undercut before the main one implies impressive thinking. Every tree is different.

Indeed it does, hence why if you're not wearing chainsaw chaps (that work by clogging the chain with fibres), you're really asking to open up your femoral artery if/when the chainsaw kicks back.

Chainsaws and table saws catch a lot of shit because they are the biggest tools commonly used in basic woodworking and property maintenance (respectively) which is pretty much the only time preppy white collar types encounter power tools that are capable of hurting them.

Coming soon: Gary's Mod - Lumberjack

Here's a really good companion video to go along with the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss

The modern way: https://youtu.be/j2SwTK6p72U

As someone who grew up cutting trees for milling, this all seems quite intuitive. We also used to just carry a tape measure... though I have flipped the stick on occasion as well.

Way more interesting than any computer articles ;)

Submitted title was "Getting the most from your logs".

Since most of the replies were about that, I'm going to move them underneath this stub.

Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or oh never mind.

Am I the only one that (wrongly) assumed this was in reference to application logs and not... literal logs? xD

I kept scrolling to see what type of software logs that article was about.

While scrolling I was thinking it was the most well researched and involved tongue in cheek intro I read in a while.

  “type of software logs”

  Showing results for *softwood logs*

yes

Very good advice. Great tips on logging when you're working with trees.

Are you saying the title was a clear cut violation?

The one time I decided to open the link first rather than read the comments.

I don't know if you deserve a prize or a ban from HN for using that title.

Oh for crying out loud

Thanks for the evening chuckle brudgers

I kept thinking this was going to be an Allegory for system logs until I realized it was literal

come on. hahahaha.

I feel like I just got rick-rolled. I love it; brudgers, you are a mad genius.

I'm redesigning my project's architecture and like "Wow! This article is so timely!" It's exactly what I felt too.

The best part of this was getting to the tab I had opened long ago and wondering, "how did I get to this page?" and then realizing (after reading it) that I was rick-rolled by HN.

Haha love it. Question regarding getting the most from your application logs. My practice is to prefix log statements with the file name and function that’s generating the log. Jumping to that code is just a quick search away. But it does require a bit of manual work to write that extra metadata. I do this because devs just put random logs and it’s so hard to know where they’re coming from. Any best practices?

Not sure about best practices. But at our small shop, we’ve rigged up our homegrown logging infrastructure to do that automatically by using the C/C++ macros __FILE__, __FUNCTION__ and __LINE__

We hide the data in our log viewer to reduce clutter but display it as a tooltip.

Various languages have ways of automatically including file paths and line numbers without the caller having to include them every time

C# has CallerFilePathAttribute https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.runtime.c...

C has the __FILE__, __func__, and __LINE__ pre-processor macros.

Recently overhauled my rsyslog setup to do timestamps in rfc3339 format. Almost as good as keeping a chain saw chain nicely sharpened, and not replaced backwards!

The title can be edited to include “Tree” before “Logs”

Nah! This one's better. A mood uplift.

Alright! Perfect example of a little thing bringing happiness for some :-)

Really I prefer structured logs.

Something like a log cabin maybe?

(2018)

Year added above. Thanks!

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