which_chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
which_chick) wrote2007-08-23 10:16 pm
which_chick) wrote2007-08-23 10:16 pm
(no subject)
I don't think it's ever going to stop being dank and rainy, though tomorrow it's supposed to be ninety degrees with humidity. I'm not sure that riding in ninety degree heat with high humidity sounds like more fun than not-riding at all.
I've picked up the HoHI again. Finding my place on the pattern was not so bad. I did four rounds last night and expect to do a similar number tonight to the background noise of the first DVD of BBC Middlemarch. I would really like to get these damn socks done before winter hits. I want to be able to wear them in public. I want them to be done, damn it all. (If wishes were horses...)
I've also spent some time attacking Mt. Wood, which is sitting in my (mostly) mown lawn and looking balefully at me. Mt. Wood is made of a delightful red oak tree that recently died but still smells like fresh wood. Fresh red oak smells sweet and heavy. It's a lot of smell for wood and it always reminds me of fall. Anyway. Mt. Wood has some pieces which, despite being only sixteen inches long, outweigh me. They're very big around, see. I've been splitting them. I make a whole into halves. Then I halve the halves to get quarters. Then I make eighths. Then I split out the center of each eighth and split the remaining thing in half.
"
That's a lot of splitting. Yes, you get a lot of pieces, but it's not particularly productive.
Smallish rounds, you whack 'em once, you have two pieces of ready-to-use size. Slightly bigger rounds, you whack three times and you have four pieces that are ready to use. One of these big damn rounds... half (one whack), then quarters (three whacks) then eighths (7 whacks) then center-cut for sixteen pieces (15 whacks) and then halves of eight of those for 24 ready-to-use pieces and 23 whacks total. Assuming that it's JUST as easy to split 25" diameter rounds as it is to split 6" diameter rounds (It is not.), you're getting two pieces from one splitting incident with small logs. After you get past halves, additional strokes *decrease* your wood production ratio. What's the wood production ratio? Well, I just made it up, but it sounds scientific, doesn't it? The wood production ratio is defined as "number of pieces" divided by "number of strokes" In the first instance, we have a ratio of 2. To make quarters, the ratio goes to 4/3. To make 24 pieces out of a huge red oak round, the production ratio goes to 24/23. As we can see from the wood production ratio, bigger pieces of wood are less efficient. Pieces that you do not have to split at all, those are divide-by-zero nirvana, I say. (They are, however, lumpy and bumpy and don't stack aesthetically. They also don't dry as efficiently or start as easily when I'm lighting a fire. You can't have everything.)
I've picked up the HoHI again. Finding my place on the pattern was not so bad. I did four rounds last night and expect to do a similar number tonight to the background noise of the first DVD of BBC Middlemarch. I would really like to get these damn socks done before winter hits. I want to be able to wear them in public. I want them to be done, damn it all. (If wishes were horses...)
I've also spent some time attacking Mt. Wood, which is sitting in my (mostly) mown lawn and looking balefully at me. Mt. Wood is made of a delightful red oak tree that recently died but still smells like fresh wood. Fresh red oak smells sweet and heavy. It's a lot of smell for wood and it always reminds me of fall. Anyway. Mt. Wood has some pieces which, despite being only sixteen inches long, outweigh me. They're very big around, see. I've been splitting them. I make a whole into halves. Then I halve the halves to get quarters. Then I make eighths. Then I split out the center of each eighth and split the remaining thing in half.
"That's a lot of splitting. Yes, you get a lot of pieces, but it's not particularly productive.
Smallish rounds, you whack 'em once, you have two pieces of ready-to-use size. Slightly bigger rounds, you whack three times and you have four pieces that are ready to use. One of these big damn rounds... half (one whack), then quarters (three whacks) then eighths (7 whacks) then center-cut for sixteen pieces (15 whacks) and then halves of eight of those for 24 ready-to-use pieces and 23 whacks total. Assuming that it's JUST as easy to split 25" diameter rounds as it is to split 6" diameter rounds (It is not.), you're getting two pieces from one splitting incident with small logs. After you get past halves, additional strokes *decrease* your wood production ratio. What's the wood production ratio? Well, I just made it up, but it sounds scientific, doesn't it? The wood production ratio is defined as "number of pieces" divided by "number of strokes" In the first instance, we have a ratio of 2. To make quarters, the ratio goes to 4/3. To make 24 pieces out of a huge red oak round, the production ratio goes to 24/23. As we can see from the wood production ratio, bigger pieces of wood are less efficient. Pieces that you do not have to split at all, those are divide-by-zero nirvana, I say. (They are, however, lumpy and bumpy and don't stack aesthetically. They also don't dry as efficiently or start as easily when I'm lighting a fire. You can't have everything.)
no subject
no subject
no subject