Anybody use a cross cut saw?

[hollowdweller]

Elm? How's elm working out for you as slabs? Kinda soft, ain't it?

I would have thought it was but it's working fine.

 

[Bowie Mike]

Crosscut saws are cool, but as other have said you will need to work on the from time to time.
Here is a bunch of info on saws and other forest tools.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/fspubs/index.htm:thumbup:

I've started carrying a 36" "swede saw" in the jeep as I don't want to lug the husky chainsaw around in the truck with me. That and an ax will cut anything I find on a trail.
Here's some Swede saws.
http://www.tools-plus.com/hand-tools-handsaws-and-blades-bow-saws.html

I'd bet these are the Mora of manual woodcutting. I know mine is.

Loki - thanks for the link to the cross cut saw manual - looks very useful.

 

[loki67]

The pdf on ax use is great too. Shows how to rehang an ax in great detail.

 

[Bowie Mike]

Just in case anyone is still following this thread.

I performed a little test of my bow saw tonight. I was cutting 7" to 8" green elm and it took me about 3.5 to 4.5 minutes per cut.

I didn't put much pressure on the blade since bow saws tend to twist when you do that (mine does anyway) and just kept an even steady pace on the saw - trying not to use too much pressure and wear myself out.

After five cuts I was getting much better at sawing with my left hand (I'm right handed).

I am guessing that each cut would take about 10 seconds with a chain saw. This tells me that at an average of 4 minutes per cut with the bow saw, I could cut about 24 times more wood with the chain saw in the same about of time.

I'm going to cut a few more logs by hand and then probably go buy a chain saw.

 

[Bowie Mike]

I just bought the ECHO CS-440 (45 cc engine) - and I was right. It cuts about 24 times faster than a bow saw - and I can still lift my arms.

I had a little over 1/2 the wood pile to cut and split - finished in no time.

Thanks for the references.

 

[misanthropist]

My dad heats his house with wood and has never done anything else that I know of. He does own a chainsaw which he inherited about ten years ago...nice husky. But he doesn't like noise and only uses it every few years. He mainly uses a 42" bow saw, of which he has several. He does own a few big crosscut saws (and this is BC so the crosscuts up here are REALLY big, this is ten foot saw country) but never uses them anymore. The bow saws do all the work at his place, but then he doesn't cut so much wood these days. I would say a big year for him would be only half a dozen cords.

If I were doing 14 a year plus other work as the Northern Ontarian above I would be using a chainsaw too!

 

[mete]

Troop, elm is not soft at all !!! It's VERY tough and was used for wagon wheel hubs.Almost impossible to split !

 

[DaleW]

So the story goes, the old Swede was thinking about getting a chain saw to replace his trusty old buck saw and went down to the hardware store and bought a good gas powered rig. The salesman told him he could cut a cord a day no problem. A few days later the old man took it back and told the salesman he couldn't cut half what he could with the old buck saw. The salesman was perplexed and started the saw up to see if there was something wrong, and the old Swede said, "Vat's dat noise?"