Saw Modification - Part 1

Many of our visitors have become well acquainted with our saw. The saw sharpner, whilst especially well acquainted with it, is not the only one who has suggested that it should be covered or even better moved inside when it's not in use.



For a long time now, it's been my plan to modify it, adding a frame which can attached to the three point lift on (one of!) the tractors. By doing so will not only allow me to put it away when it's not in use but also to locate it in different positions dependant on where the wood I'm chopping is or where I'm stacking it. All part of my cycle time reduction efforts.

London Son and I had such a productive weekend that we were able to turn our attention to this project on Monday. A quick head scratching session with a tape measure and a look at the materials available in the barn produced an outline sketch. We made a trip to the local farm shop for the only purchase of the project, the two pins required to connect to the hydraulic arms (which as you will notice cater for both sizes, the DB being smaller). Then a quick consultation with the neighbour produced 4 more bits of steel, amazingly complete with ready holes that were more or less the correct diameter. All this and we had a raw materials we needed as below.



After a couple of hours with the angle grinders and welder, we had this, the first part of the frame completed.



Pretty pleased with the welding if I say so myself, I'll be dissapointed if this doesn't hold!



I was going to weld the frame to the saw in situ but after some thought, I realised that it'll be a lot easier on the flat concrete in the garage. So, the next step of the project is to move the saw. As you already are aware, I have just the tool for the job!

Two Tractors

From my observations of the real farming community, it's become apparent that whilst most jobs can be done with just one tractor, the vast majority require at least 2 tractors to be completed in the most effective manner possible.

After our success of getting the DB working we were keen to put it to use and find out if it really made all the difference having a second tractor. After a little manouvering and sliding about on the ice outside the top barn we had the wood cleaver connected to the DB and the trailer, still full of the unsplit logs that our parents help load up during their "Christmas break" hitched up to the Zetor.



As you can see we carefully placed the cleaver and trailer to give minimal transport distances of both unsplit logs to the cleaver and spit logs to the stacking place inside the car port. The only way it could have been better was if the DB fitted in the carport, then the chute from the cleaver would have dropped the split logs right beside the stacking place. Sadly it's to tall, saying that I do know of another tractor.....



Yet again, I got to spend realatively little time operating my new toy, London son was very quick to take the controls. Mind you, he did his fair share of the hard work, so he deserved to have a bit of fun!

It turned out that we had plenty of spare space for 40cm logs, so once we finished that lot we set to work on the unsplit logs which have been lying in the pig house for the last year or so.

To our pleasent surprise we found out that the chute from the cleaver is just higher than the trailer so we were able to set up as shown.



The job was finished in no time with minimal handling of the wood. As promised, here's a little video of the system in action

Baby Room Part 1 - Dismantling

After Fridays success with the David Brown and some more wood splitting, it was time to move inside and start on the "Baby room". The decision had already been taken that it was going to be easier to remove walls and ceiling instead of removing wall paper and fixing the multitude of holes that were, for one reason or another in the walls.

During the course of Saturday morning we removed the panels from 3 of the walls and the thin panels that were covering the floor boards.

After another wood chopping session on Saturday afternoon(see next post) and Sunday mornings visit to the swimming pool, this part of the job was more or less finished by Sunday late afternoon.

Just a little more tidying and a trip to buy the neccesary materials next weekend and we'll be ready to start putting it all back together.

What goes up must come down.

Those of you who have been following the progress of the David Brown project on More Power will know that I had got it tantalisingly close to a functioning tractor, only to struggle to get the hydraulic system commissioned after the oil change.

Fridays job with London Son was to bolt all the bits back on that I had taken off so that I could free up the control valve(s).

The extra pair of hands made relatively light work of the heavy components and by lunch time we had enough bits bolted back on so that we could test it. It appeared to work to a fashion in that everything hydraulic went up but nothign came down again.

After a rather subdued lunch, coming to terms with the fact taht we may have to take it all apart again, we gave it another go, and found out all that we were missing was a little extra weight. With this applied, all the other bits bolted back on and adjustments made, here are the result.

Up

Down

I think it's fair to say that both the boys in the picture were more than happy. There's still work to do, electrics to sort out, clutch to change and body work to tidy but those are formalities compared to the acheivement to get it this far. As ever I havn't done it all on my own, many thanks to all those who have helped. I won't name you all, I think there's a mention of everyone in the various blog posts and photo's on here and More-power.

A Productive Weekend With London Son.

London Son arrived on Thursday evening and left on Tuesday morning. Both Mrs Vl and myself took Friday off and I also took Monday off to make the most of the oppurtunity.

Being a student, London Sons break from city life was all expenses paid so he was to be put to good use. Money well spent, not only did we acheive way more than I had ever expected, we had a great time and it was great to see London Son in Norway. It was over 2 years since he was last here.

I won't go into details of our acheivements, but I will say that I now have to write the following blog posts.

"What goes up must come down", "Baby Room Part 1", "Two Tractors, One Job" and "Saw Modification Part 1". All with photo's and there'll even be a video in there somewhere!

Skiing with the "Tummy Girls"

I'm aware that there's been few updates of Mrs VL's progress, so here's one (albeit 2 weeks out of date already).

This years been pretty rubbish for snow and we have hardly had skiing conditions locally. We were therefore all ears when Mrs VLs former college, another pregnant vet, was determined to get out skiing. After a quick check that a gentle cross country ski was OK for girls in that condition we set of to Kongsberg, a one hour drive away.

Mrs VLs pace was reduced and being furthest "on the way" she dictated the pace around the 10Km curcuit. All the same, despite her modified balance point she coped with the ups and downs admirably.

Some photos for your appreciation!

Mechanised farming, phase 2.

My first "Mechanised farming" attempts were my highly successful Potato harvesting efforts. Driving the tractor on that occasion and watching hours of digging being done quickly and effortlessly in my wake made me realise that if I was to manage to get control and produce to the full potential of the small holding I was going to have to drop my town house kitchen garden mentality and go mechanised.

Another huge and one of the most essential parts of keeping this place going is the production of large quantites of fire wood. As you can see from the first photo's many of our visitors have helped with this activity and since we have been lucky enough to recieve the great wood piles of 2005/6 and 2007 from the real farmers next door we have not gone short, all without having to chop down many trees ourselves.

The whole process is quite time consuming, involving the following steps. Harvesting, moving to saw (or moving saw to wood), cutting, splitting, moving to stacking position, outside stacking to dry, moving to final stacking position, stacking again, moving to fireplace and burning. The above procedure, in effect, means that you handle each piece of firewood 7 to 8 times before it's in the fire and producing heat. It's clear to me that some cycle time reduction is required. I have plans to modify the saw such that I can attach it to the back of the tractor and move it to either the location of the uncut wood or the location of the stack, removing one of the moving steps. I also have plans (hopefully I will soon have the front end loader on the David Brown working) to come up with a smarter stacking and transporting method to remove the loading/unloading of a trailer and multiple stackings of the wood.

One of the slowest and most pysically demanding steps, when done by hand, that can not be engineered out of the cycle is splitting the wood. If the logs are too big to go in the oven you've got no chioce but to split them into smaller bits. Quite a lot of the wood that we have stored and after a large Birch was cut down outside work an amount recently processed needs splitting. As you can see from the pictures, our New years purchase by the wonders of hydraulics takes the axe out of the equation, saving a huge amount of time and effort.

It's so easy that my dear expecting wife stepped in and promptly took over after I had had about 3 tries, leaving me to cart the wheel barrow back and forth and stack the wood.

I had hoped to use this for the first time on the freshly recommisioned David Brown, but as you will see from the pictures and blog post (coming soon) on More-Power, getting the hydraulics working on that has taken a little more than a simple oil change. The trailer is full of dried wood, ready for moving down to the car port, splitting and stacking. I had hoped to have the trailer on one tractor and the splitter on the other, we may well run out (yes the pile that Our Parents helped us move early in the new year is nearly used up) before that is possible