"Mark Jerde" wrote in message
news:qOHpd.3$Hk6.1@trnddc05...
Charlie Self wrote:

I used to buy firewood from a sawmill in upstate NY where the owner
cut wood to length on a 30" blade, though at that point in my life, I
didn't know enough to check what tip grind and other features that
saw had. You might call that a buzz saw. I'd call it a portable
crosscut saw, with one helluva long support table to the left.

A neighbor had one back in the 1970's. It was powered by a wide leather
belt from his Ford tractor. (For the terminally curious he had a
PTO-to-pulley attachment, the only one I've ever seen.) It cut logs into
fireplace length extremely efficiently but that huge, exposed spinning
blade
scared the snot out of me. I opted for jobs that kept me at least 10'
away
from the blade & belt.

My dad and a neighbor made one from spare parts laying around from a sawmill
salvage job. The circular blade must have been at least 40" if not bigger.
It had a clampon file guide for sharpening. The file was at least 18" long.

It ran off a rubber belt from a PTO wheel off the side of our old
International Harvester tractor. It had a front end loader on it and he
could pick the whole thing up and drive to the neighbors with it. We could
cut up logs for firewood much faster than using a chainsaw. He would either
accept cash for his services or a percentage of the wood. The logs would
have to be cut down, yarded and limbed first.