If the tree came from someones yard, especially the back yard, it’s possible that at one point long ago someone nailed something to the tree, wrapped wore around it, or put clothesline hardware on it and then the tree grew over it, but you get to discover it in 2008 with your chainsaw, 20 years later. Ever build a tree house in your backyard? My brothers and i probably left ten pond of nails in my parents oak trees over the years!
If the trees came from the woods or forest, there’s less of a chance of someone nailing or screwing metal in them as they have been isolated since they were saplings.
In other parts of the country, bullets are regularly found as well, but we don’t have that problem too much here on Long Isaland.
All I was trying to say is that trees growing near buildings almost always contain things like nails, barbed wire, ceramic insulators, spikes, lag bolts, etc., and that tree services usually work in populated areas, so their wood is more likely to contain metal. If you buy a load of logs from a logger, chances are it came from deep in the woods somewhere and is probably clean. That’s not to say that some pretty strange stuff isn’t found (the hard way) in forest-grown trees, either. From shotguns to axes to lag bolts from deer stands, etc.--it can get pretty interesting. Most sawmills have a collection of hardware that has mangled their saws over the years. One mill I visited once hit a maple syrup tap--in an oak log. Another one cut through a horseshoe--twice. Time to get a new saw, and probably a new sawyer.
I’m slated to get a large delivery of wood tomorrow morning from a tree service company that’s subcontracting for LIPA. He says we’ll get a bout 50 yds of hardwood in tree length form, pretty much like the first post here. It’s free and he says if I want more, let the trucker know and he’ll bring by another truck load. He’s got a grappler and he’ll drive it into the backyard and unload it. From there I’ll cut it up and split it. It’s free and I don’t have to go get it.
If it works out OK, I’ll give you his number and maybe you can take some if you have the room for it and the means to process it. He needs more people like myself to drop it off at the end of every day, that’s what he says at least. We’ll see tomorrow! Maybe I’ll try and post a pic.
All I was trying to say is that trees growing near buildings almost always contain things like nails, barbed wire, ceramic insulators, spikes, lag bolts, etc., and that tree services usually work in populated areas, so their wood is more likely to contain metal. If you buy a load of logs from a logger, chances are it came from deep in the woods somewhere and is probably clean. That’s not to say that some pretty strange stuff isn’t found (the hard way) in forest-grown trees, either. From shotguns to axes to lag bolts from deer stands, etc.--it can get pretty interesting. Most sawmills have a collection of hardware that has mangled their saws over the years. One mill I visited once hit a maple syrup tap--in an oak log. Another one cut through a horseshoe--twice. Time to get a new saw, and probably a new sawyer.
My family has an old smaller mill - worst thing we ever hit was buried inside of an old Oak tree that was lining a street or town common somewhere in western MA. It seems that as the older trees die, they rot out in the middle, and to stop the tree from rotting anymore, they fill it with concrete!!! Quite a shock on Pop’s (or was it Gramp’s) face when the 52” circular got into that!!! Changed the teeth after that one.
I was cutting into a large cottonwood tree bucking it and hit something at least a foot into the tree and trashed the chain. I kept cuttign around said item as chain was shot at his point and it was a big a$$ nail that was put there at least 50 years ago. .
It is just the risk we take. I have hit multiple nails over the last few years but never one so deep into a tree as that one was.
My family has an old smaller mill - worst thing we ever hit was buried inside of an old Oak tree that was lining a street or town common somewhere in western MA. It seems that as the older trees die, they rot out in the middle, and to stop the tree from rotting anymore, they fill it with concrete!!! Quite a shock on Pop’s (or was it Gramp’s) face when the 52” circular got into that!!! Changed the teeth after that one.
I know the feeling. I needed wood pretty badly one year so I went to cut some at a construction site five miles from here. The logs were all neatly piled about ten feet high. I picked a free one a few feet up the side of the pile. One cut through it and I found the large chuck of concrete it was laying on. Completely hidden under the logs. The chain was five minutes old and had to go in the trash.
My cabin was partial farm land at one time, and the farmer left old sleighs, and broken farm equipment lay in the woods. Well the trees grow right up around the steel. I could retrieve some of these items but would have to cut down the trees. So you can find all kinds of hazards in any wood, might be why I need an electric chain sharpener.
I once sawed into a cache of landscape rock in the base of a yard maple. Grinder rescued the chain.
On our MI property there is sandstone everywhere which is well camouflaged on the sandy ground. I’ve cut many a sandstone groove bucking on the ground there. I don’t seem to learn.
I’ve tried to cut stumps down below the soil line at various times over the years and always am reminded, the hard way, that there are lots of little stones and sand and other chain wreckers apparently embedded in stump wood. Even if you carefully dig everything out and clean the area to be cut, you’re always going to ruin your chain pretty quick. The closer to the ground you cut any tree, the more grit your chain is going to encounter, if for no other reason that sand and other stuff splashes up against the trunk when it rains or the wind blows, and some of it is going to stick.
maybe its just me--but if I had oak and hickory and maple that bog aorund I would get someone to saw it up into dimensional lumber, not burn it.
sell 1/2 of it- and have enough money to buy split delivered wood and also a of great woodworking lumber…
Very little demand for hardwoods right now, not much building going on. Last year I logged part of my property and the only thing the loggers wanted was black walnut, they did not want red oak, white oak, or cherry.
