Five Fantastic Machines That Take the Work Out of Chopping Wood

A sliding boom crane, the C6 works efficiently on each section of a tree. Ponsse's website notes that the "benefits of a sliding boom crane are especially evident on steep hills." Capable of pulling a tree out of a ground, it moves with a surprising quickness. It's definitely head and shoulders above taking something down with hand tools.

If you've got way more wood than you could ever hope to handle manually, the Mighty Ox can handle up to 1,200 pounds of wood at once. With a six-wedge splitter, it can split logs that are over 36 inches in diameter. All this can be your for a price of $12,490. A lovely machine for sure, but maybe not worth it unless you're cutting wood for a living. 

No, you can't. Wood-Mizer calls its LT-15 a portable sawmill, and this haul video shows why. Wood-Mizer calls it a "compact, powerhouse sawmill for hobbyists, small businesses, and timber framers" and can saw logs up to 28 inches in diameter. There are extensions for longer logs, and the entire things comes in at the relative bargin of $7,495.00.

Of course, you don't need the fanciest new tools to cut wood. This DIY rig that uses an uneven cylinder mounted to a tractor can't cut wood at particularly high speeds or in particularly crazy volumes, but it does reduce the work involved to simply pushing a log forward every now and then. Not bad at all. 

The device is made out of a spring, possibly from a car shock absorber. It's a simple lever, and looks to be about as efficient as a kitchen knife cutting steak. There are faster ways to do things, but unless you're professional you've got no choice to go as fast as you can with what's around you. Necessity is the mother of invention.