What a little Gem .....

bit like a guillotine?

I think I'd have trouble understanding the workings of it aswell, like your "the wife" - but I used to chop firewood with an axe years ago. There were no complicated gadjets then, nust brute force lol

I saw this at an exibition last year, it does look like a good gadget.

Fascinating :o)

Interesting,

Happening upon your blog, the first thing that struck me was "20 acres of open woodland and therefore felt it would be a good thing to do as the logs would be free."
In itself, 20 acres of open woodland doesn't constitute free logs.
I'm sure you are on top of it all, but be careful, just in case someone owns the rights to the woodland. Theft is not something that is compromised by the size of the action.

Thank you Tony for the little gem info your just about 48 years too late for me to use it as I was chopping logs when I was 18 to feed a rayburn. It s a great idea though and saves a lot of sawing or chopping.

Very interesting!

On the "Free wood thing"....

JasonF is correct in so much as there is no such thing as "Free Wood".

This land is designated common land and i believe owned by the local council.

We have recently had the loggers in to clear the wood under the pylons.

They have left piles of logs in there wake and do not intend to move them.

In their words. "No mate .. we can't give them to you, but if they're not there in the morning no one will call the police".

The law in it's infinite wisdom is very muddy on this one but basically the wood always belongs to someone and you have to have their permission in order to gather it.

You are absolutely not allowed to cut down trees - even in your own garden - but they can be pruned with the owners permission.

However you have to give the pruned parts back to the owner...

There is no law that says that your dog can't pick up and carry a stick home.

I always buy in logs for the winter as they have to be almost 80% dry before you can burn them and the splitter is really to assist with cutting some of these logs smaller for kindling - which it does extremely well.

And by the way, i have these logs delivered from Scotland in 2 mtre agg bags at a cost of £108 per bag delivered, which is actually a lot cheaper than i can get them locally .... how does that work?

However, we have a small store of fallen logs drying out for use next winter.

Oh, the joys of living off the land.

Two issues Tony:
1 - "However you have to give the pruned parts back to the owner..." I believe a recent case in the press highlighted the locale for return, in that you cannot stuff the prunings through the letter box etc. In fact, the prunings have to be returned in the "immediate location". At what point it doesn't become "immediate" was not explained.
2 - "There is no law that says that your dog can't pick up and carry a stick home." However, there is a law that covers 3rd parties, in that a dog or whatever, a child perhaps, bringing home an item of value that does not belong to them, still constitutes theft on your part, in that the dog, and indeed the child, has to be under "effective control" in a public place.
To that end, tying up your dog to a post, and then walking off into the shop, is a breach of this requirement.
As a final protection, it might be worth checking with your LC, to ensure that the person who gave you permission, had the authority to do so. If not, your security disappears out of the window, as in the usual excuse, "there is no excuse in the eyes of the law for ignorance".
I know things can get a bit ridiculous, but now-a-days everything is protectable and sueable.
As my Dad used to say, "if it ain't yours, don't touch it, and if it ain't screwed down, screw it down, before someone claims you were just about to have it away!"

We had terrible gales last night and it blew all of these logs into my garden officer....!!!!!

Nice one Tony !

Yes I heard there was a Whirlwind in that area, you be surprised what they can pick up and drop lol hehe haha.

I actually saw it happening, (me, being a Hampshire Hog) had some shocking gales here, amazing what blows past our windows!!

Lol Dottydaisy