How much wood...

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Jjm457

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Jan 10, 2012
28
SW Virginia
do you think would come from this 12' long ...24" diameter log? 1/4...1/3 cord maybe? My son and his friend dropped this off at my house while I was out. Holy crap, it's huge!

Thanks!
 

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Maybe a face cord. Not really big, but big is relative.
 
The nuns always said show your work. !!!
 
3.14 times the radius squared times the length is 37.6 cubic feet - or 1/4 cord

Bzzzt, Thank you for playing.

A cord is 128 cubic feet of wood *and air space between pieces*, which is typically estimated at 90 cubic feet of wood plus 38 cubic feet of air. 37.6 cubic feet of solid wood therefore yields about 0.42 cords of CSS firewood.
 
Bzzzt, Thank you for playing.

A cord is 128 cubic feet of wood *and air space between pieces*, which is typically estimated at 90 cubic feet of wood plus 38 cubic feet of air. 37.6 cubic feet of solid wood therefore yields about 0.42 cords of CSS firewood.

I was asking myself that exact question.
Because I had my driveway loaded with rounds that were stacked and measured 6'x5'x30' = 900 cf= 7 cord
After splitting and stacking most of it I allready have 8 cord and still have a big pile left.
I stack pretty tight which is bad for air circulation but good for space consolidation.
 
Jmj47, I love trunks that size with no knots and crotches for converting into firewood. I would be pleased. In my opinion though I think it is tulip poplar. Not a great firewood tree to get excited about.
 
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Bzzzt, Thank you for playing.

A cord is 128 cubic feet of wood *and air space between pieces*, which is typically estimated at 90 cubic feet of wood plus 38 cubic feet of air. 37.6 cubic feet of solid wood therefore yields about 0.42 cords of CSS firewood.
Yes. but you need a starting point and I don't think any of us can get an accurate count on the cubic feet of air. How long your splits are and how big they are will vary. I use a Woodgun so my split length will be 30 inches and 4x6 or 6x6 is size. Much different from some using a wood stove and smaller pieces of wood.
 
Bzzzt, Thank you for playing.

A cord is 128 cubic feet of wood *and air space between pieces*, which is typically estimated at 90 cubic feet of wood plus 38 cubic feet of air. 37.6 cubic feet of solid wood therefore yields about 0.42 cords of CSS firewood.
Now Infinity Mike, that is a show off :p
 
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Bzzzt, Thank you for playing.

A cord is 128 cubic feet of wood *and air space between pieces*, which is typically estimated at 90 cubic feet of wood plus 38 cubic feet of air. 37.6 cubic feet of solid wood therefore yields about 0.42 cords of CSS firewood.

Those "typical" estimates to me are nothing but baloney. I've seen them quoted many times and I've seen a few stacks that probably would be that loose but not many. To think that 30% of a wood stack is nothing but air..... No. The air comes from the fools who figure that.

Just for kicks, wouldn't it be really nice to see some of those so-called experts tell and then try to prove to Dexter Day that his wood stacks were 30% air?! It's worse than baloney, it is pure bull.
 
FWIW, if you take a 4' x 4' x 8' box, and fill it with as many perfect 6" diameter, 48" long cylinders as can fit (140 of them, to be exact), all aligned and snug up against each other, you'll have just over 14% airspace. That's with perfectly consistent sizes, no gaps between the ends of short splits (because all the pieces run the full 4' width) and no surface irregularities.
 
Jmj47, I love trunks that size with no knots and crotches for converting into firewood. I would be pleased. In my opinion though I think it is tulip poplar. Not a great firewood tree to get excited about.

I prefer to convert such trunks into boards.. and use the tops of the trees for firewood.... but that's just me..
 
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Just for kicks, wouldn't it be really nice to see some of those so-called experts tell and then try to prove to Dexter Day that his wood stacks were 30% air?!

For kicks (but not to claim any expertise), I found a way to use Photoshop to do something like this. I cut this section out of a bigger image of Dexter's woodpiles in another thread:

Dexter woodpile.jpg

Then, I was able to select just the shadowy areas between the splits.

airspace.jpg

When you select areas like this, Photoshop has a histogram function that tells you how many pixels are selected. The orange / airspace area here is 7,441 pixels. The entire frame contains 35,624 pixels. So we're looking at 20.9% airspace assuming all the splits are precisely the same length. Looks like Dennis is right about Dexter's woodpiles being tighter than the typical estimate.
 
And, one of Dexter's unsplit piles, this one coming out at 17.7%:

Dexter rounds.jpg

Dexter rounds selection.jpg
 
Jmj47, I love trunks that size with no knots and crotches for converting into firewood. I would be pleased. In my opinion though I think it is tulip poplar. Not a great firewood tree to get excited about.

!00% Tulip/Yellow Poplar
 
For kicks (but not to claim any expertise), I found a way to use Photoshop to do something like this. I cut this section out of a bigger image of Dexter's woodpiles in another thread:



Then, I was able to select just the shadowy areas between the splits.



When you select areas like this, Photoshop has a histogram function that tells you how many pixels are selected. The orange / airspace area here is 7,441 pixels. The entire frame contains 35,624 pixels. So we're looking at 20.9% airspace assuming all the splits are precisely the same length. Looks like Dennis is right about Dexter's woodpiles being tighter than the typical estimate.

And for sure Dexter could have stacked that tighter. I just get a bit disgusted that someone says 30% (or more) of a wood stack is air. That may be true on some but to say all is ignorance.
 
I just get a bit disgusted that someone says 30% (or more) of a wood stack is air. That may be true on some but to say all is ignorance.

I've never seen the 30% thing presented as a hard rule, just a rough approximation. I've seen criss-cross stacks that are obviously more than half air, but I suppose one wouldn't claim 128 cubic feet of wood stacked that way to be a cord anyhow. Oh wait, I have seen Craigslist sellers make that claim... :confused:.
 
Jon, for some reason your post jogged my memory a bit. I had a couple guys come in to do some cutting. Know-it-all types. One asked my wife how much wood was in one stack and she said a cord. After he so proudly straightened her out on the fact that it couldn't be a cord because the ends were cribbed, I handed him a tape measure and told him to measure the pile. He refused as it was obvious it was 8' long. So, I measure it and asked him to look at the tape. It was 10 1/2' long. So much for knowledge....
 
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One asked my wife how much wood was in one stack and she said a cord.

Sounds like he was trying to set her up to be proven wrong. Mansplaining has a tendency to backfire.
 
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