Cutting firewood with a table saw

[ray]

This is going to sound weird but... a couple years ago I took the kids camping in the Great Smokies. We arrived on a Monday when a lot of the other campers in the Cataloochee valley were going home. One guy who was leaving offered me his pile of firewood, which was very kind of him, since I didn't have room for any when I packed. Anyway, the firewood, cut to

18" lengths and split, appeared to be walnut. I'm sorry to say I burned some of it, but I brought home a half-dozen chunks. Does anyone have any ideas on how to cut it safely into boards. I don't have a bandsaw, but I do have a table saw. I've given some thought to making a sled with a wooden clamping device, but the idea of the saw grabbing the chunk and flinging it makes me nervous.

[Doug Miller]

Don't have a bandsaw? Get one -- you have the perfect excuse. :-) Or find someone who does. That's really the best tool to use for this.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com You must use your REAL email address to get a response.

[Charlie Self]

Doug Miller responds:

Bandsaw is best, plain ol' 5-1/2 point ripsaw will work, bowsaw probably will work on that length of wood. Worst choice: tablesaw. Uneven shapes almost guarantee flying objects. Can't call 'em UFOs, cause you'll know what they are.

Charlie Self "Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories - those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost." Russell Baker

[patriarch]

ray wrote in news: [e-mail]:

There's a number of folks in my woodworkers' group who gather their offcuts and scrap, and take it over to one fellow's home each heating season. Ted, who was a school teacher all his life, and raised 5 good kids with his wife, learned more than a little bit about being frugal.

But his boys had to take away the tablesaw, when Ted had to have 4 fingers reattached surgically, after cutting firewood with the thing, freehand.

Take Charlie's advice. If you can't afford a bandsaw, then do your experimenting with a hand rip saw. Or find a neighbor who has a bandsaw, and experiment. Or use a rasp, a drawknife or an improvised scraping device to make a flat face on a piece, to see what the grain might reveal.

But don't use your tablesaw for this, until it's somehow closer to being a board.

Patriarch

[Tim Douglass]

Many years ago I made some small logs into lumber using a RAS, chain saw, rotary planer on the RAS and even a bit of hand sawing and planing. Unless you really love terrorizing yourself I suggest you find someone with a bandsaw or buy one (always nice to add iron to the shop) or else get out a decent ripsaw and have at it. Trust me, doing it with the wrong tools is just *way* to exciting!

Tim Douglass

[Robert Galloway]

[Robert Galloway]

I agree with the idea that the bandsaw's "the" tool for the job but if he makes a sled for the table saw and secures the pieces of "firewood" to the sled, I think he's going to be safe enough. Free hand would be a whole 'nother matter.

rhg

Tim Douglass wrote:

[Tim Douglass]

It depends a bit on the size of the blocks. If they are small enough that you can get through them with a cut from each side on the TS you may be OK, but fully buried cuts are particularly dangerous in full rounds because of the tensions in the wood. I'll just leave at the statement that *I* wouldn't do it.

Tim Douglass

[dave in fairfax]

How about using a froe and then planing them flatter. Dave in Fairfax

[Mike Marlow]

"patriarch [e-mail]" ray wrote in

I agree with not using the tablesaw, but why not just split it? A wedge and a BFH, and you're on your way to lumber.

[ray]

I appreciate the excellent advice, and I'm certain that you're right. Probably that advice is the most sensible, but you may underestimate the terror I experience at the thought of sharp things spinning at horrifying speeds next to my skinny little fingers. It's been a couple of years and i still haven't done anything with the pieces. I mean, I've still got ten fingers and I'm pretty enthusiastic about keeping them.

Unfortunately, a band saw isn't in the cards at the moment, because I need a big strong one for resawing purposes and I can't afford it, unless some widow or orphan puts one up for sale cheap and I beat the rest of the vultures to the prize. I'm just not the vulture I once was, alas.

So, bearing in mind that I won't hold any well-meaning advisors liable for any digital destruction, how 'bout this idea: Somewhere I have a jig I built for a router, made to level a slab of maple 1X2s I put together for a counter top. Router slides back and forth on a track, leveling the surface below-- similar jigs have appeared in every router book ever published, I imagine. These chunks, BTW, are split into quarters, some of them into eigths, so they alread have one or two more or less flat sides. Assuming my router jig can safely flatten one side of a carefully blocked-up chunk, the table saw should then be able to cut another side perpedicular, flat side down on a sliding table. And after two flat sides, cake. Right? None of the chunks are more than three or four inches thick and no more than a foot and a half long.

[Charlie Self]

Mike Marlow responds:

Isn't it already split? I like the idea from the poster who said a froe might be a better way to go. Get it close, plane it down, then think about power tools.

Or a handsaw.

In a case like this, power tools are not going to speed things up much, if any, because of the need for special precautions. Even with those special precautions, problems can occur. Lacking a bandsaw, I'd go with a froe or a handsaw.

Charlie Self "Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories - those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost." Russell Baker

[Mike Marlow]

You may be right Charlie - I was thinking it was just chunked. If it's already split then it's pretty close to power too ready - depending of course, on how big a piece it is.

I don't own a froe, so I defaulted to suggesting a wedge, which I have used in the past. Now a froe... Charlie, my wife isn't going to be happy with you...

[Mike Marlow]

That will certainly work, though it's a lot of work. Given your fear of your table saw, maybe you should go that route though. If these are already split, aren't the split faces flat enough to slide across your table saw steadily? Unless your wood is really twisted it would seem (admittedly a guess, since I cannot see the wood), that you are making more of this than you need to.

[Andy Dingley]

A froe is much harder work than a couple of wedges, if you're just making firewood.

A froe is also hard to find, but an easy piece of forging from leafspring.

[ray]

Maybe you're right. The faces aren't really very flat; they rock back and forth quite a bit on the table, but maybe I should just give it a shot. I could hot-glue a shim under the high corner to stabilize the piece. I don't have a planer either, and in the past I've put a decent face on rough lumber using the router jig. It's quite a bit faster and (with my limited skills) flatter than hand planing or beltsanding.

I think that anyone who isn't scared of the table saw is severely lacking in imagination, since it's the tool that causes the most accidents. In a way I envy more phlegmatic folks, but I guess I'm more attached to my fingers than I am to my peace of mind. Ideally, I suppose, a smart person would take all reasonable precautions, pay attention, and not worry unduly. If at all possible, I try to devise a foolproof way of making tricky cuts, so as not to rely at all on luck. I've probably got more featherboards and pushsticks than anyone really needs. Hey, I drive like a little old lady too.

[Charlie Self]

You can fairly easily make a froe from an old car spring (flat style) and a chunk of hickory. The spring already has a handle eye built in. Cut it. Heat and bend the eye to where it will hold a vertical handle. Grind it to shape. Sharpen moderately and whack it with a stick. Don't even have to buy a mallet.

Much straighter splits than you get with a wedge.

Which reminds me, I've got a brand new wedge to go in tomorrow's yard sale. Never been used, and, according to my wife, never will be used. She doesn't care for coal furnaces or wood stoves.

Charlie Self "Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories - those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost." Russell Baker

[J T]

Fri, Aug 6, 2004, 5:42pm (EDT+4) [e-mail] (ray) says: I think that anyone who isn't scared of the table saw is severely lacking in imagination, since it's the tool that causes the most accidents. In a way I envy more phlegmatic folks, but I guess I'm more attached to my fingers than I am to my peace of mind. Ideally, I suppose, a smart person would take all reasonable precautions, pay attention, and not worry unduly. If at all possible, I try to devise a foolproof way of making tricky cuts, so as not to rely at all on luck.

That pretty much describes my feeling on it.

I've probably got more featherboards and pushsticks than anyone really needs.

I don't have any featherboards, and I usually have to make a new pushstick, any time I need one. Seeing as I make them out of leftover chunks of plywood, and it takes about 30 seconds to make one, no biggie.

Hey, I drive like a little old lady too.

That's scary.

JOAT Jesus was a Ford man, that's why he walked everywhere.

WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

[Phisherman]

I start off with an old hand-held B&D planer. That gives me one flat side to start. Then I turn the log 90 degrees and plane that side before truing it up on the jointer. Then I take it to the table saw. I found it awkward using a bandsaw to cut a log, perhaps its the 3/4 HP motor or limited blade height.

[dave in fairfax]

I use a froe all the time, sometimes to split logs to make turning blanks, sometimes to make wood for cooking with. They're easy to use, IMHO, and while they are getting harder to find, Woodcraft sells an inferior model at most of its stores. If you know a good smith, he can make you one in a fairly short time. If you want to make one from tire spring, have him rivet the eye, not weld it. It's less likely to develop cracks as it cools. Dave in Fairfax