Sawbuck

Now that we're living in the middle of nowhere, and heating with wood, our priorities have begun to shift a little. We're burning through wood faster than I expected; that's not the best news, but we have plenty of dead trees – seasoned firewood! The problem lies in getting them out of the back yard and into the wood pile.

Of course we don't want to burn unseasoned wood, but the wood that we know has been down for at least a year is eligible for immediate burning. Wood that's too old we can still burn in a firepit, but we don't want it in our stove. Wood that's still green is worth processing for next year, but it's a mistake to try and burn it too early.

We've processed wood with axe, bow saw, and chainsaw. The chainsaw is the fastest, the bow saw is the most exercise. I finally gave in and built a sawbuck to get the wood up off the ground so I can get a good angle with either saw.

I made the sawbuck from six eight-foot 2x6 boards. There's almost a complete board left over: I had planned to use half of it as a stringer, but there are already three stringers on it, and it's heavier than I wanted.

The construction is simple: the three uprights are made from two four-foot lengths joined with a carriage bolt. I drilled a 3/8" hole in the center of each board, 30" above the bottom. Then I ran a 3/8" carriage bolt through each pair. Each upright has the bottom inside corner cut off at 30° to make it more stable.

There are two pieces on each upright section cut with a 30° mitre at each end: they're 12" long on the bottom. Those are to fix the uprights at a permanent angle. They're fastened in with 3" long decking screws.

One is butted up to the front leg and screwed to the back, the other is butted up to the back and screwed to the front. They're screwed together in the middle. I thought of gluing them together, but I think the screws will hold just fine. The idea was to keep the legs at a fixed angle, and "fill in" the gaps to make it easier to assemble the sawbuck.

The stringers are just 48" 2x6 boards attached with decking screws to the legs. I cut four stringers, but only used three because of the weight.

I'm surprised how much better it is to cut on the sawbuck. And the 2x6 weight, while difficult to move around, makes the whole system stable, even when bucking logs with a chainsaw. Now I'm wondering why I waited so long to make it...