Yesterday was our first fire of the season. The span between fires was thus April 8th to October 14th, 187 days with no mechanical comfort improvement
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Yes, about 3/8" kerf for each cut, so cutting an elm log into 4" sections would lose about 1" of wood, call it 6%. Since the wood comes from my lot, and I am not cutting everything that falls, and the sawdust is fertilizer, this is not a huge concern to me. A more important issue, is that all those cuts take time, muscle, and gasoline (over splitting).
Ah, so a 4" section was what you meant by a 'thin slice'. I was envisioning more like a 2" disk. So is the 3/8" a blade width? More? Less? I would have guessed you lose about a blade width, but it occurs to me that I don't know that.
Taking a step back, why do I cut and split wood? There are three purposes, 1) Make the wood small enough to fit (with a few others) in the stove. 2) Increase the surface area to volume ratio, to improve burning (sharp edges also help with that) 3) Allow it to dry out faster (both by increasing surface area / volume, and by removing bark from one side).
4 inches is the standard maximum diameter for split firewood, so a disc 4" thick will have about the same surface area / volume as that for any slice with a diameter still small enough to fit in the stove (with a few others).
The kerf of a saw is the distance between the two points farthest from the centerline. A saw will almost never be this thickness in any one place (otherwise it would bind). Usually this is accomplished by bending the teeth out a bit on alternating sides. Chainsaws do it a bit differently but it essentially the same idea.
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Yes, about 3/8" kerf for each cut, so cutting an elm log into 4" sections would lose about 1" of wood, call it 6%. Since the wood comes from my lot, and I am not cutting everything that falls, and the sawdust is fertilizer, this is not a huge concern to me. A more important issue, is that all those cuts take time, muscle, and gasoline (over splitting).
Reply
Reply
4 inches is the standard maximum diameter for split firewood, so a disc 4" thick will have about the same surface area / volume as that for any slice with a diameter still small enough to fit in the stove (with a few others).
The kerf of a saw is the distance between the two points farthest from the centerline. A saw will almost never be this thickness in any one place (otherwise it would bind). Usually this is accomplished by bending the teeth out a bit on alternating sides. Chainsaws do it a bit differently but it essentially the same idea.
Reply
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