Today was the day! I finally got to play with my toys outside. No more construction, no more painting and caulking and fussing with furniture, now I get to do something much more in line with my intellectual gifts and accomplishments: I get to cut up old wood into stove lengths.
I’ve actually been looking forward to it, especially since thanks to an unnamed Generous Reader I now possess the one element that will allow me to do it without having to haul heavy pallets back and forth…
Of course you know there has to be a learning curve, right? Turns out I got this far into it…
…when the generator died and did not want to restart. Even before that I knew I had trouble, since the machine clearly did not like the start-up surge of the saw.
Turns out the Honda wanted two things of me: Gasoline in the tank, and to turn off the “eco-throttle” setting. The other day when I filled the crankcase and played with a scroll saw I had actually put very little gasoline in the Honda’s tank, because I am very devoted to “don’t put it away with gas in the tank” and I also don’t like to waste expensive gas. So there wasn’t enough in there and I had to go back to the Lair for more. Also if I dig out the manual I’ll bet there’s an instruction that you shouldn’t run it on the “eco-throttle” setting when you’re using a full-power saw – because the generator doesn’t do well in that mode. But having gassed it up and adjusted the idle setting higher, things went much better.
So much better that I was still having fun when I ran out of loose lumber to cut up. I did this much in a little more than an hour…
But I hadn’t brought the Sawzall for cutting up more pallets, and anyway my stomach was telling me that an early lunch would not go amiss.
So now after lunch we’ll see how much of a dent that makes in the empty space at the front of my woodshed.
This’ll actually be the hard part. Since I can now cut my stovelengths at the site where I store my pallets and trash lumber, it takes almost all the heavy lifting out of the process. Much quicker, much less stress on my decrepit old back. Me like.
Good to see that you have the generator well away from the sawdust cloud and (hopefully) upwind.
Yeah, it was well upwind.
You can even to one better if it suits you…cut up the salvage wood in situ as it is salvaged, and haul nothing but stove length billets directly to the woodshed!
All this work you are doing reminds me of the movie “The Martian.” He had to build a residence in the Martian desert, and the hatch blew out. Watch your door. 😉
Forget the wood — start working with the chickens.
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=vwbp3ZatrKc
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have the same generator and it’s a marvelous piece of equipment. Amazing how much work a pint of gas will do. About a month ago I was working on my winter’s wood out in the woods near home. I’m a Stihl chainsaw guy and have been for years. Imagine my surprise when a guy and his wife set up wood getting shop near me and they were using a Honda generator, a good long power cord and an electric chain saw. He and his wife looked to be about my age (68) and said since some surgery a while back, he just can’t heft a full size saw around. Nice folks and they were making wood at a pretty good clip.
RE: Mike’s comment above – am I remembering correctly that you have (or, maybe, “had”) an electric chain saw? I’d think that plus the Honda would make a better, and faster, firewood generating system than using a chop saw.
” . . . if I dig out the manual I’ll bet there’s an instruction . . . ”
What, read the instructions? Bwahahahahahaha.
😉