The buck stops here...

Joined
Nov 26, 2014
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I put this together a few years ago so I could put logs on it and work on them with saws, axes, froes, chisels, slicks etc.. I made it with no nails so I could take it apart and throw it in storage during the winter if I felt like it.

Ala....

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Ka-Zam...

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Coal tar on ends of timbers seals it up a bit. Also painted it with some linseed oil.

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Absolutely fantastic!
How high do the cross members sit, will the log be from the ground?
 
Love it! Well done. The center cross is well placed to support a shortened log.

Well you are on the ball. I made the two closer together so outside to outside they are 16" so they are a guide to cutting them that wide, which is standard width to make racks and cords as we did when I was growing up.

The height of the buck was made so I do not have to bend my back at all when sawing the average log up, someone taller or shorter would have to make it to suit themselves. When I am sawing the saw is actually at least even with my chest so you are standing perfectly straight. If you were bent over and sawing all day then you would probably hurt yourself eventually.

The timber were on sale at a local lumber store very, very cheaply for use in landscaping, next one i make will be with some better wood that is better seasoned.
 
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Those are plywood cores, the bit left in the middle when plywood layers are cut off a log. When it gets too small to get usable material off they sell what remains as a core.
 
Those are plywood cores, the bit left in the middle when plywood layers are cut off a log. When it gets too small to get usable material off they sell what remains as a core.
You're right! A buddy of mine worked for the Crown-Zellerbach Mill in Kelowna many years ago. When he toured me through their plywood operation I couldn't help but notice the straight and uniform diameter cores that remained after the knives finished peeling the logs. 40 years ago these were then pressure-treated and sent off to become fence posts at farms and cattle ranches throughout BC. Back then salvaged railway ties were still cheap and readily available when it came to landscaping and retaining walls. It's a different story now with creosote ties being unavailable due to their being designated as toxic waste.
 
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So plywood cores would most likely be pine, or if imported who-knows-what? The weight of the cores seemed to vary.

I would not recommend anyone else using them for a project like this because of how they warp and bend a bit with time, I also had to sort through a pile of them to find any that were straight to begin with. I think they were two-dollars each, where quality four-by-fours would have sent the cost of the project into the stratosphere. But it was a prototype to see how my idea would work and it did it's job.

My other idea that I did not try was to keep one of the legs full-length and attach something to it so that it could be used to lift logs with a block&tackle off the ground and onto the buck if they were too heavy for someone to place there.

I weigh over 220 pounds and when I got on this buck and jumped up and down it showed no sign of flexing at all, nor did it ever with any log throw on it. An architect-engineer looked at it and said the design would hold the weight of an automobile as long as it was made carefully with all of the joints tight, but the tighter the joints are the harder it is to take-down and put back together. The pieces do have to be marked with hash-marks by the joints or in some other way because they like to go together in the exact way they were cut to mate with one another, which is another annoying feature that more careful construction might eliminate....

I very quickly laid the joints out with a 30/60 drafting triangle and got the thing up as quickly as I could.

Also skip the coal-tar and find something else. I found a metal container of coal-tar at a garage-sale for a dollar so I bought it, but it is very smelly and dirty stuff and it gets on your hand, clothes and everything else and is hard to clean up. Maybe they do not eve sell it anymore....
 
So plywood cores would most likely be pine, or if imported who-knows-what? The weight of the cores seemed to vary.

I would not recommend anyone else using them for a project like this because of how they warp and bend a bit with time, I also had to sort through a pile of them to find any that were straight to begin with. I think they were two-dollars each, where quality four-by-fours would have sent the cost of the project into the stratosphere. But it was a prototype to see how my idea would work and it did it's job.

My other idea that I did not try was to keep one of the legs full-length and attach something to it so that it could be used to lift logs with a block&tackle off the ground and onto the buck if they were too heavy for someone to place there.

I weigh over 220 pounds and when I got on this buck and jumped up and down it showed no sign of flexing at all, nor did it ever with any log throw on it. An architect-engineer looked at it and said the design would hold the weight of an automobile as long as it was made carefully with all of the joints tight, but the tighter the joints are the harder it is to take-down and put back together. The pieces do have to be marked with hash-marks by the joints or in some other way because they like to go together in the exact way they were cut to mate with one another, which is another annoying feature that more careful construction might eliminate....

I very quickly laid the joints out with a 30/60 drafting triangle and got the thing up as quickly as I could.

Also skip the coal-tar and find something else. I found a metal container of coal-tar at a garage-sale for a dollar so I bought it, but it is very smelly and dirty stuff and it gets on your hand, clothes and everything else and is hard to clean up. Maybe they do not eve sell it anymore....
I'm surprised the cores warp badly. They generally originate from straight trees (gee where'd the name Lodgepole Pine, for instance, come from?) and were thoroughly "waterlogged" to soften them up for peeling into thin sheets.
 
Perhaps the same ease of assembly/disassembly could be achieved with simple lap joints held together with wood thread studs and some thumb-turn wing nuts.
https://www.mcmaster.com/#90207A736
https://www.mcmaster.com/#wing-nuts/=1bl1wej
What I admired about this 'set up' was (1) simplicity of materials (2) intuitive layout and bracing, and (3) absence of fasteners. KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) strives for that. I agree that any myriad of 'add-ons' can/will improve upon what's there but won't further simplify anything.
 
KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) .

That was my main goal, besides making it so it would hold very heavy objects. Simple things are the most beautiful very often. The only material required in this project was one thing, the cheap plywood cores, and I do not think the number of parts could be any less without compromising it's functionality or strength. Maybe some members could be eliminated but it would take a larger number of more complicated objects to replace one of them, and they would more likely be store-bought. If someone had to they could make this design entirely from what was growing on their property as long as they had the simple tools required.

I used a pencil, a hand-saw, a back-saw, a drafting triangle, a large wood chisel, and that is about it, and I could have gotten away with fewer tools in a bind.
 
Dangit, now that I have seen it, I want one. Add this project to the list, thanks gben!

If you or anyone gets one together put it up here I would like to see it. Maybe someday this design will be known as the "Ben Buck" after I kick the bucket.....
 
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