Log skidding cone

[forgeblast]

those 55 gallon blue drums are used by some people to make cheap armor for the mock battles (sca). Its pretty impressive watching people get wacked by it and it hold up. I would imagine you might be able to heat it up and make a cone like shape, it would have flutes in it if you did not want to cut it.

 

[Hermio]

I thought of the plastic barrel approach, but their bottoms are rather flat. Heating them to change the shape is an iffy proposition. But I found out that used olive and pickle barrels have a more rounded bottom, so I plan to try one of those. They look like this:

 

[GLyford]

You could cut out the bottom, and maybe some of the side up a bit to get rid of the thickest part of that bottom corner. Then cut a "wedge" out of the side to allow you to pull the sides together into a tighter (if lopsided) cone. Drill and bolt as you pull it together so you aren't fighting to get a bunch of predrilled holes lined up.

If something closer to the size of the one the OP made is what you want, you could use the barrel side to cut out a more traditional cone pattern.



As drawn, that could be made as follows: At a point where the straight side meets the bottom curve, drill a small hole and put in a nail. On a piece of string, mark 2-1/2" and 22", and pivot on the string to transfer those onto the barrel. Measure down an inch on both sides of the semicircles and connect them with straight lines, this would give you enough for a 2" overlap. Cut out, leave in the sun to get warm and bendy, then start pulling it together, drilling and bolting. I would likely start at the big end.

For that matter, if you had access to an old aluminum road sign or two, you could cut out the same pattern and drill and bolt it the same way after making a series of bends over a sawhorse or some such...some towns give their old signs away, others guard them jealously, so it would depend on what you could find.

 

[Hermio]

I think the bottom of the olive barrel is rounded enough so that I will not need to alter it. We will see.

 

[GLyford]

It's certainly more round than the stump end of a log, so you may be right. At the very least it won't make it any worse, and will keep the wood out of the dirt.

 

[Hermio]

I finally tried it. It seemed to help a bit, but it was hard to keep the log in the barrel. Also, knobs on the tree still tore up the ground.

 

[Peter Stoffregen]

Hi Folks;
I'm trying to find a quick cheap solution for a homemade logging cone; What about cutting up a 20lb BBQ propane tank? I will fill it with water before I start cutting the bottom off!!

 

[SpringHollow]

That sounds pretty small to me. We have some heavy duty plastic barrels that are around 20 gallon in size. One of those might work for smaller logs since these have very curved sides.

Ken

 

[Hermio]

That sounds small to me also. I tried an olive barrel. It works OK, but does not always orient itself properly. BTW, I cannot use "BBQ" and "propane" together. To me, making BBQ requires slowly smoking the meat with indirect heat and a wood fire. Propane-cooked meat is not BBQ!

 

[KiwiBro]

That sounds pretty small to me. We have some heavy duty plastic barrels that are around 20 gallon in size. One of those might work for smaller logs since these have very curved sides.

Ken

They work, surprisingly well. Especially the ones with a taper to the top or bottom. Back in the pre-tractorlithic period, I spent a Summer and one clutch pulling pines off a steep hillside. The plastic drum helped plenty.