Thread: The Tribulations of Kafe Zac.

Can I swap places with you for a few weeks?

The end of the cue is in Brisbane, Phil.

[QUOTE=Mutawintji; I wore my welder as a backpack ...[/QUOTE]

You are either built like Paul Bunyan or have a small light weight inverter.

It works well , judging by the fillets in the pic.! It would be of interest to some of us to tell what breed of welder and some details on the amps settings and electrodes used.

Thanks for the post and living the dream.

Grahame

Originally Posted by PDW

Not sure I'd have the patience for AirBnB stuff myself

PDW

It's not so bad. It would be different if I had to share bathrooms, kitchens, etc. But I don't, my quarters are separate to the main shack. I have a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and lounge. Both shacks are soundproofed, a consequence of meeting fire regulations ... so unless it's desired there is no real contact between myself and the guests.

Greg

Originally Posted by SurfinNev

Now there's a place I'd like to visit sometime.

Originally Posted by Machtool

Can I swap places with you for a few weeks?

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

The end of the cue is in Brisbane, Phil.

Thanx for these kind remarks. But anyone can do this, it's not expensive.

There are only 22 blocks here, in the form of a pie, they all meet the road (track) at their narrow ends and have small frontages. We are inside the national park and so our enclave is fixed in size forever. Only 4 blocks occupied, many for sale. But just recently a 2 hectare block (of the 22 blocks) sold for 43,000. It has views to China and the new owner is busy welding together shipping containers into a house. No block is flat, all are rugged.

Land:
10.5 hectares. (30acres+/-) frontage 40m, rear 300m, length 1.2kms,
Height front 650m, rear 850m (above sea level)
It's a very steep rugged block and it cost 130,000.

Bulldozer excavations plus road in (my own road into the shacks is 300m long) 40,000

Container/Workshop plus all tools (new), welder, small lathe, small mill, grinders, chainsaw etc ... 12,000

Bush Pig logging truck (Polaris Ranger 400 new) 12,400

Sewage treatment plant (up to 10 toilets) 12,000

Shacks 293,000

Meeting BAL 29 (bush fire attack level) 15,000

Road base (dirt) 8,600

Connect to the Ergon grid 8,600

Design, Draughting, Engineer certificates etc 10,000

The paperwork with Council, National Parks, some govt dept associated with Parks and Wildlife, and others took 12 months. To build the Shacks took six months.

So all up, and other minor incidentals, from first-idea to turning on the ignition-key cost 500,000. I don't think you can buy a house block in Brisbane for under 400,000. I probably wouldn't get that if I sold it.

So it's not expensive, but it is time consuming if you don't have a project manager.

If your interested here is a sorta time-lapse video of the build.

Originally Posted by Mutawintji; I wore my welder as a backpack ...[/QUOTE

You are either built like Paul Bunyan or have a small light weight inverter.

It works well , judging by the fillets in the pic.! It would be of interest to some of us to tell what breed of welder and some details on the amps settings and electrodes used.

Thanks for the post and living the dream.

Grahame

Heheee .... my welder only weighs about 1.5 kg, so it's easy to wear as a shoulder bag. It has it's own strap.

Here's a pic of my 'welding rig'

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Firstly, I'm self taught, so I don't know the technical terms, I just teach myself as I go.

The welder is a Fronius, it cost about $1600 from memory 7 years ago. Made in Italy I think. It's featherweight and strikes it's own arc. It also adjusts it's arc according to the 'old-age-wobble' of the welder (me) It's waterproof and will run on an alternator. I have never had need to raise it over 100amps. For box-tubing (2mm) I run between 50 and 80 amps depending on the join. For thicker metal I run 90-100amp. I can't imagine any situation where I would need to run at more than 100amps unless I was building the hull of an Oil Tanker .... heheee.

The 9" angle grinder is a Fein. It has a VSD start and a safety clutch on 'jam'. It's a two-switch start, so both hands are required. It's my most dangerous piece of equipment. It's brutal, but when your familiar it's a very powerful and quick tool. 2000 watts or 3hp. I think it cost me $800.00

The welding rods are general purpose (I think) The Huyndais are 2.6mm and they seem to suit me for anything and everything. But I'm running out of them and Equipment sales in Kingaroy don't have them. So I bought the Austarcs, 3.2mm, but have yet to try them.

I don't have an Oxy set so I use the ... ummm.... I forget the gas, but it's hot and I bend steel and pre-heat welds with it.

Greg

My Chainsaw is my second most dangerous piece of equipment. But unlike the 9" grinder, the chainsaw has a personality. It's probably my favourite tool. It is certainly the most necessary.

My Shacks are eco-friendly ie: I'm on the grid, but all lighting is mostly LED and a few energy saver floodlights. So heating is enormously important in winter. Fire is the only heating I have. And that's why the chainsaw is so important.

It's a Makita, it cost around $800.00 I think. It came with a little booklet of instructions which, at first, I ignored. I dont ignore it anymore, it's simply packed with information.

Chainsaws require tuning constantly as well as sharpening constantly. The tiny little carburettor has three jets and all must be tuned so the note they play is in perfect harmony. In fact you actually need a rev-counter to tune perfectly, but I can't afford one and so I tune by ear.

In a working day I can tune it and sharpen 3-4 times when it's working hard. I can tell instantly by it's scream when it needs doing. The little book tells me how to factory tune it to achieve full power at 13,800 rpm.

I mostly tune it in the vice, but also tune when I have to in the forest. I wear the little orange tool bag with the brush and spanner attached to my jeans. A tank of fuel lasts around thirty minutes and I have to refill the bar oil tank with every other fuel refill. So I carry the fuel and the bar oil in the red jerry. The paint brush is indispensible for brushing off the sawdust on the saw before opening the fuel or oil tank

The little screwdriver has a flag on it and this makes it very easy to tune on the fly because you can count the turns on the jets.

The Chainsaw gets tender loving care. It's is always cleaned down and prepared every single day I use it. It also has a personality and you can tell if it's feeling crook, or mentally not with it just by listening to it's scream. It's a beautiful thing and I'm so glad I bought a quality one. Three pulls with the choke on, then one with it off and it starts, never fails.

It does an enormous amount of work. The picture of the billets are all one single trunk of a huge ironbark, including the logs they're resting on, that was wider than the bar is long. But this tree is green and I cut it because it was in the way of something else. It will take about 3 years before I can burn this.

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Back on the welding for a moment ... This is something I used 100 amps on.

I used 100 on the fence posts and 70 on the cattle rail. The bolts are just because I got so sick of seeing every cattle yard made from 'cattle-rail' and just welded to the posts. Farmers put nothing at all into appearance, just weld it up with cheep- cattle-rail. I decided to be a bit fancier than that heheee

I carry the Bush-Pig (the little truck) on the back of the big-truck. And the Law says that within the city limits two tyres must be tied down with strap. Outside the city limits all 4 tyres must be tied down.

But actually that only works if the tyre PSI is 30+. The Bush-Pig's tyres are only 10 PSI and that is like trying to strap down a balloon. it wiggles out somewhere no matter how tight you ratchet it down. So I built a tie-rod that locks the Bush Pig onto the tray. The tie-down straps are just for show, to keep the Policemen happy. But the Pig is really secured by the tie-rod

I don't really have a picture of it in use, but if you look close in the last pic you will see it on the back holding the pig down.

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Hope you enjoy ... Greg

Chainsaws require tuning constantly as well as sharpening constantly. The tiny little carburettor has three jets and all must be tuned so the note they play is in perfect harmony. In fact you actually need a rev-counter to tune perfectly, but I can't afford one and so I tune by ear.

You can get a laser (I think) digital tacho from EBay for $20 or $30. I think a white mark on a link would work. They have been mentioned on the forum. I have been cutting firewood for getting on to 30yrs and I only recall playing with the tuning once or twice. Does your manual say to constantly tune it or just explains how to do it? What about dressing the bar? This needs doing at times too.

I have to refill the bar oil tank with every other fuel refill

My understanding is the oil tank should last about this long, but the idea is to fill it every time so you don't risk running out.

The picture of the billets are all one single trunk of a huge ironbark

Huge? My big saw has a 28" bar. Huge to me is when this bar won't reach from both sides although I don't do much of that sort of wood any more. I am getting too old to move this size around. A couple of years ago a Redgum was dropped along the road in the process of widening. It was about 1200mm diam. I was disappointed that it was not dumped in my paddock. They dumped probably 30-40 tonne of other gum trunks and some older Redgum there tho. A Manna Gum near our drive dropped one of its 5 trunks / branches so that the top section blocked the drive. I have cleared a lot of it, but there is still some to go. The trunk would be 900mm diam, but it has termites in it and so there is a limit to how far back I can cut.

I cut mostly green wood because until recently nobody else did so it was easier to find, it is usually cleaner than old wood and it cuts easier so easier on the saw, chain and bar. I have several years of split wood drying out in rows. I leave it to dry for about 2 years, but I do split it first. We have a lot of trees fall along the road around here.

Dean

Hi Mate,

Regarding the tuning. When the chain is pulling without drag, and I know it's sharp, then I can tell by the sound if I'm approaching peak revs ... and I bite a bit deeper ... and if still responds, then deeper still. But sometimes the full response is not fully there ... it's working efficiently, but it's making harder work of it. So then I check the ironbark, perhaps it's the timber. I only cut dead wood, the one above in the picture was a rare kill.

if the timber looks clean and normal then I sit down and hone the chain. Now, if it's still a bit 'not-quite-there' then I fit the little screw driver in thru the rubber housing and the flag shows me were the jets are sitting. If they're sitting at the correct o'clock, I leave them and try another tree. But if it's still there, then I brush the whole thing down, take off the air-filter and clean it best I can. Then I wind all the jets home to closed. Then I unwind them to the factory settings, 1.5 turns out. Then I clean the rough filter on the outer casing. Then I unscrew the spark arrestor on the exhaust and chk it. This complete ritual takes about 5 mins and usually it solves the problem.

But ... the adjustments are so fine on the carburetor. That is, they never appear to have moved. A suspicion is dawning on me that perhaps I should be measuring the oil in the two-stroke mix, rather than guesstimating it. And that the slight varying mixture may be at the heart of these adjustments.

I'm self taught, no one has ever shown me how to cut down a tree. That ironbark above is the biggest tree I've ever cut down. It had me running scared. It was on a slope and in a narrow bit of gully. Escape was either up or down. I sat there looking at it for about two hours, drinking coffee and smoking rollies. I was trying to build up my courage. However, I started and much to my delighted surprise I managed to cut a V and I tapped it with the back of the axe and the cake-slice slid out perfect.

My plan called for the tree to fall down the gully and I'd taken the cake-slice from that side. Now nervously, I cleared the lantana with chain in a wide arc on the upper side. I now had to crouch real low to meet the cake-slice with the cut. I started and my eyes were glued to the crack where the chain was buried. At the instant that cut widened I abandoned the chainsaw to it's fate and flew up the slope.

Watching it fall and the THUMP when it hit the lower slope was pure pleasure. It may have been a baby to you mate, but to me it was a Sequoia ... heheeeee

I only cut up fallen trees unless there is a reason to remove a tree so I have not cut many trees down.

It may have been a baby to you mate, but to me it was a Sequoia

I'm not saying it was a baby, I just thought the "Huge" designation was amusing. Cutting trees down is not something to be taken lightly. I have watched a number of videos from YouTube showing what the results can be. Some people.

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I have also seen one where the operator was nonchalantly doing stuff that would scare the carp out of any normal person. Climbing up an enormously high tree using just a simple sling cutting the branches off as he went, then when near the top he lopped it off. There was a crane to put tension on the top. The tree trunk whipped around like crazy when it let go. He then climbed down a bit, lopped off the trunk again and again until he got to the bottom. The crane helped with all the trunk bits.

A mate took a tree falling course. To pass the test they had to drop a number of pine trees. Seems easy? The trees had to land on a peg driven into the ground a fair distance out from the base.

You may have a point with measuring the oil. I use a squeeze bottle that pushes the contents into a measuring chamber at the top. My big saw uses 25:1, but my baby saw uses 50:1 and I have to have a seperate mix for each. There are other members with lots more knowledge and experience than me. I am also self taught. I have been splitting wood yesterday and today with my home made hydraulic splitter. I spoilt it today and smeared some grease on the mast. The wood I am splitting is from a couple of branches that fell around the beginning of the year. One landed on my implement shed. It now needs some posts replaced although the branch just gave it an extra push. The biggest branch would have been about the same size as your ironbark. I am trying to decide whether to cut those 2 trees down as they keep dropping branches on the shed. I was looking at these trees today and besides the 2 next to the shed there are a couple very close by that have dropped 2 trunks (multiple trunks) and 1 branch all of which would be as big in diam as your ironbark. I haven't had to go far to get firewood for a long time now.

Dean

Hi Dean

I can't imagine what a chainsaw with a 28" bar would even look like. The bar on mine is 500mm ... but only 450mm useable. After a few hours of wielding it I'm knackered.

When you say the branches are falling then I'm guessing your talking about eucalypt trees. Dangerous trees. I wouldn't even sit under one to have a coffee. Every storm up here I usually hear or find a couple of eucalypts have fallen. But I never use them for fire-wood .. to gummy and put coke build up in the chimney. So far as I know, Ironbarks (mine are all narrow-leafed) never drop their branches.

I have a few photos of the above ironbark before I felled it. It was around 1m across at the base, and 600mm diameter 1m above the ground.

By huge I mean that there was 2-3 tonne hanging 40m above my head and I was cutting the pole that was holding all that up

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I don't have winches or anything to handle it. I have to cut it up where it falls, and then jinker 2m sections home (just towing it with a rope) or billet it into 300mm sections and hand load it. It took two days to get that back to the house-pad.

Greg

This is probably more the size tree your familiar with. This is a sheoak (Causaurina). Normally sheoaks are scrubby, twisted, uninteresting trees. But this one really is HUGE .

It's in the bottom of a ravine and I think it's roots are deep down below the creek bed. It's about 2.5m diameter and I calculate it at around 400 years old. It probably stood here as a sapling hundreds of years before Cook set sail down the Thames. I would never touch it. It has branches easily 600mm in diameter. It's covered in 1000+ orchids.

It's a magnificent tree.

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Orchids love growing on Sheoaks. It's their favourite tree. These are tiny cucumber orchids, their leaves are exactly like a cucumber.

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Normally sheoaks are scrubby, twisted, uninteresting trees.

I have a different opinion about this. I love nearly all trees. Scrubby twisted trees have suffered, and show great character. I have heard lots of people say "why don't you get rid of that tree?" Why do humans insist on visual perfection? I like magnificent trees, and trees with character. You have bigger sheoaks than we do, by a long way. There was a female sheoak tree behind our property that had a huge amount of character. It was laying all over the place, but still alive. There was a very nice looking male tree a couple hundred metres away, big for this area. When the property was cleared for bluegum planting in 2000, the female was bulldozed and burnt. I am not aware of any other females in the area except for a couple we have managed to grow and have only just flowered.

I can't imagine what a chainsaw with a 28" bar would even look like.

Bigger than yours and orange in colour. What size chain do you use? My saw is actually on permanent loan from a mate who used to do firewood for a living. No, the saw is not flogged out, it was a later purchase. This mate used and recommended the 404 chain/bar. I bought the 28" bar and chains when the original bar was worn out. Sometimes I wonder whether a 3/8" chain would be better. I buy a new bar and 2 chains. I don't sharpen while I am cutting, I just swap chains, flipping the bar around when I do. I now use an electric sharpener.

When you say the branches are falling then I'm guessing your talking about eucalypt trees. Dangerous trees. I wouldn't even sit under one to have a coffee.

"Gum Trees" so yeah, eucalypts. Quick tale. Back when they were young and silly, the mate who owns my saw, and a friend caught a sheep that had escaped from somewhere and tied it to a hanging gum branch. They were going to use the branch to lift it up for slaughter. While they were getting prepared the sheep went mental, snapped the rope and bolted. Off they went after it. Behind them they heard a crack and crash. The branch had fallen right where they were just standing. They let the sheep go.

Years ago we had done a quick trip to town on a Saturday morning and were almost home when we saw a tree across the road and the neighbours working to clear it so we stopped and helped. 2 weeks later on a Saturday morning we did a quick trip to town on a Saturday morning. Nearing home I stopped the car in the middle of the road (it is a very quiet road) and watched in disbelief as another tree of the same type slowly toppled onto the road about 50m from the previous one. Then we went and got the neighbours to help clear it.

I don't worry too much about falling branches, but I do keep it in mind.

But I never use them for fire-wood .. to gummy and put coke build up in the chimney.

Chimney or flue? I have never used a chimney fire for a long period. Waste of effort. We have 2 wood stoves. Kitchen range and lounge. Both have flues up a chimney. I rarely have to clean the flues and it only involves dropping a short chain on a rope and rattling it around. That is all I have ever done. What do you mean by "to gummy"? Where does this cause problems? There was a tree down over the road last year that had been trimmed enough to let cars get around it by someone. I cut the rest of it, finally back to the stump. It bled huge amounts of blood red gum/sap all over the road and into the trailer. Maybe a litre in total. It looked like a crime scene.

Dean