Weekend Scrounge - Huge Maple

Well I have been looking for the Craigslist scrounge that would put me up and over 6 cords, and I found it this weekend! A homeowner had a 50+ year old maple taken down, and had kept/given away all the easy stuff and was left with these huge stumps.

I was a little intimated at first, its the biggest tree I have ever cut, I am guessing 28" across. You can see a shoe in the picture to the left for perspective, I should have put my saw on the round, just didn't think of it. My Farm Boss did an awesome job, didn't bog down (muffler mod likely helped) and just tore through it. I got the load below that you see, and also a second load similar in size.

I cut the pieces off to length, as the trunks were about 5 feet long still, and then noodled them into quarters (something I learned how to do on this forum).

Everything went great and I had a good time, only bummer was something I have heard all of you warn about: A nail in the middle! Smack dab in the middle of this huge tree was a 3 inch nail, buried in the center of the round, and of course I hit it! Oh well, it was worth a sharpening for this much awesome maple!

The maple will go into the stack for next year!

I did attempt to split it with my maul which I had with me, but it was so sopping wet I wasn't getting anywhere. I had one wedge with me, but it was cutting so nicely and the homeowner was helping me move wood around and set it up so I went with noodling.

With effort I think I might have been able to crack them open with a wedge, but time wise (and I was in a time crunch having to get back and cleaned up for dinner out) I think the noodling was faster.

I could be wrong though, I am still learning all the techniques you guys all use!

rkshed said:

I scrounged a huge silver Maple last fall and when I cut with the grain while quartering, I got thin strips of wood instead of sawdust.
Is this noodling? I couldn't figure out why this was happening and I have been felling trees for years and this never happened.

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I believe from your description this would be called noodling, the thin strips of wood is what you get when you noodle. Its much easier to cut this way then "ripping", which would be trying to cut a round in half from the top down (unless you have a ripping chain).

golfandwoodnut said:

Good job JW. That maple will dry out real fast, I think it dries faster than even cherry. We will have to hook up some day, I do have some easy stuff you can access with the truck on our driveway you could cut up and take if you like. The big stuff is down in the woods and requires a quad.

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That would be awesome golf, not only for the wood which I would be grateful for but also getting the chance to meet a forum member!