My Special Firewood Cart

[3RRL]

Now that we have a wood burning stove, Loretta and I wanted to make our own firewood cart.
We're going to keep it out on the deck near the door, so we wanted it to be similar looking and sort of match our Log Home. The cart holds about a 1/2 rick of wood. In our area it's not as cold as in some places, so we don't know how long that will last until we need to refill it. It was a fun little project and of course, we used all scrap materials to build it to keep the cost down to a minimum.
I'll post some details of them later, but here is what the cart turned out like.



Rob-

[3RRL]

There are a few little "extras" we gave it so it would be special to us.
It needed to match our Log Home theme, so we used left over log siding and decking planks. You can see the pile of wood we got out of the scrap pile, which was left over building lumber. We used scrap angle iron for the frame. I got the scrap angle iron from when the implements which were crated when we got Loretta’s tractor.



This is how it looks up on the deck where it will be stored.
You can also see it has a couple special features like a lid that opens when you step on the yellow bar below.

[3RRL]

We made the lid so when it opens up it "locks" up.
You have to drag the foot pedal back to allow it to close. We used hitch pins for the lid pivots. We also made it have removable sections up front for easy loading and unloading when the pile gets low.

[3RRL]

The lid with the wood siding on it was very heavy so the cart needed some helper springs to make it really easy to open up. Then, when you let it down, we added some shock absorbers so it wouldn't slam down. You can also see the wood handle we needed to drag the cart around. I made all the little brackets out of that scrap angle iron.
I added a video to show how all that works when I was testing it in the barn.

[3RRL]

We don't have forks made for the tractors yet, so in the mean time I needed to make an attachment so the firewood cart could be attached to the toothbar and the grapples. We decided a quick release for the bottom connections would help in unlatching it and some lynch pins to the grapple would allow us to easily remove the cart from the tractor bucket.

[3RRL]

So this is how we get the box, now loaded with wood up onto the deck level. I pull up the quick release levers to disengage the bottom of the cart and then remove the lynch pins from the grapple. Then I roll the cart around the back to where it's easy to get to and closer to the wood stove.
Also one last video of testing in the barn.
Thank you for viewing...
Rob-

[quikduk]

F'ING INGENIOUS ROB (and Loretta)!!!

That thing is the bitchinest (Hey, I live in SoCal guys) firewood cart I have ever seen. Waaay to cool.

Now why doesn't it load itself? Sheesh you are starting to slack off man!

See you next week.

[FlyHiFlyLo]

Oh man.... That's fucking cool!

But what about the sliding wood railing...Huuuh??? Ain't done yet? Ha ha

[GuglioLS]

Rob,

That is the best looking, most cleverly engineered wood bin on the planet. It sure does match nicely with the lodge. How long does the wood it holds last? I bet it's starting to cool down quite a bit up at your place now. So I was wondering about how often you're building fires in the stove?

We've been burning every morning and evening since about mid October, sometimes we have it going nonstop for a stretch of several days in a row. Or until I have to empty the ashes, our old stove holds about 6 gallons of ashes so I shovel them out about every two weeks.

Does the FEL on Loretta's 284 lift the bin when it's completely full? If so that's pretty damn good. Nice going on the wood bin cart combo unit. After word of this get out, you will probably see one just like it on-line and in mail order catalogs in the near future.

Super nice work Rob,


Larry

[3RRL]

Thanks you guys, so you like the cart then?
Shees, you guys are tough. No automatic loader and no sliding gate. I wanted to make it seem like hard living circumstances. ;D

We don't know how long that cart full will last yet.
We just started using the stove a couple weeks ago and finished the "burn in" period. For the stove, it takes about 3 to 4 good size logs to burn all day and the same for the night. My estimate would be the cartfull would last about 10-12 days burning 24/7 ?? But I'd need to empty the ashes in the stove about every 3rd or 4th day since our ash holder is small.
The 284 just barely lifts the woodcart when completely full. that's because I've got it pinned on the tips outside the bucket and grapple. But it lifts it fully. That photo of the Jinma lifting it up is when the cart was full. When I get forks made, it will do it a lot easier, I'm sure.
Thanks, and stay warm !!!
Rob-