Is there any practical way of processing an Oak tree this dang huge?

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Grateful11

Feeling the Heat
Jan 5, 2014
273
NC
Lightning got one of the huge old Red Oaks here on our sons farm last Fall. He had a tree cutter bring it down this week. The cutter said it's probably pushing 200 years old. It has 3 siblings nearby, one bigger and two a little smaller. Anyway it measures 54" in diameter and over 14' in circumference 6 foot off the ground. I think we can get the manpower and womanpower but is it even practical to try and process these rounds as we get closer to the stump? We have access to a really good horizontal splitter but how would one load rounds that large safely, we do have a nice tractor with a FEL and pallet forks? We've even thought about buying a horizontal splitter for this tree and some others that need splitting that are in the 24"-32" range. Right now it all seems a bit overwhelming. The tree is solid all the way through but the lightning must have just fried it as all the exposed fibers seem bone dry soon after it was cut. Our insert does really well with 18" long firewood. Is it crazy to even consider it?

I'm all bundled up, unbelievably cold here this past week. As a comparison I'm 6'1", 215 lbs.

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This about 35-40' from where it was cutoff.
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Wow! What a bonanza. I'd definitely go for it. Do you have access to a large saw with a long bar? That would make your life a lot easier in this situation. Either way, just start at the top and work your way back towards the stump. As you get the top cleared out and get good access to the main trunk, you could always start taking blocks out with a combo of a regular bucking cut, a ripping cut, and a noodling cut. In fact, that would be your best bet if you don't have a bar that is at least 1/2 the diameter. Oh, and you may want to get 5 gallons of saw gas mixed up cause it looks like it could take a while. Good Luck.
 
I've done rounds up to 40 inches with a vertical splitter. The trick is to put a piece of pipe under the round when you push it over flat onto the splitter. If the ground is soft you put some plywood or 2xs down for the pipe to roll on. With a piece of pipe under the round it is very easy to move it into position. Having a pickaroon also helps pulling those large pieces about.
 
I recently processed an oak tree that was 36" in diameter. I ended up cutting the rounds to 10" just so it was easier to maneuver into a vertical splitter.
 
I've done three this size in the last year. Stihl 064 with a 28" or 36" bar does it. I wouldn't even try it if you don't have a saw > 75cc. Plan every cut carefully. Each round will weigh over 1600 lb., if bucked to 20" lengths. You won't be moving these onto the splitter whole, even vertically.

Plus side is every 4 rounds = 1 cord.
 
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Big saw with bar at least 1/2 dia is best. Otherwise you will be ripping and taking chunks off the sides. With some manpower it can be done. Noodle down to manageable size then split. Two people can lift a lot more wood than one.

No reason not to attack it. You will get a lot of good clean wood and almost no bark.

Other use would be a saw log if the lightening didn't damage.
 
That certainly is not out of the question. Buck it up and if you have only a horizontal splitter, get yourself 3 or 4 steel wedges and a sledge hammer and go to work. It may seem like a lot of work to split one of those rounds but just look at the amount of wood you get from one log then compare that to how many other rounds you would have split. Usually we've found that although it takes longer to completely split one of those big ones, you actually end up splitting faster overall. I've never really figured out why so many are afraid of the big rounds but there seems to be something that holds them back. Of course they are harder to handle until they are split into smaller pieces. And I do not like the noodling either.

Over the years we've cut up lots of stuff like that but only one time have we had the benefits of hydraulics. However, our hydraulics will work very nicely going vertical. Actually, all our wood gets split in vertical mode.

Enjoy this. It is good experience and some mighty fine wood.
 
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That's what I'd do...buck it into rounds and stand a round on end. Go at it with wedges and sledge hammer to split it into pieces small enough to lift....actually,no..I don't have hydraulics....so I wouldn't bother lifting anything until it was time to move splits out of the way. Just split it all on theground
I don't think it would be too hard to set a round on end when it's 54" diameter and 18" long..and being red oak it oughtta split easy.
 
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I had one about that size taken down to get a septic system into a house I flipped about 10 years ago, this was before I burned. The neighbor asked if he could have the wood since he was a burner and I said sure. He cut it up using an 18" bar, took him a while but he did it like the poster above said, bucking, ripping and noodling, took him a long time but eventually he did get it all cut and out of my yard.
 
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Did one around that size once. Its a lot of work but a lot of wood. It goes pretty fast with a big sharp saw.
 
One piece at a time.
 
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And remember, you don't have to take it all ... :) But I figure you have somewhere to put it all or you wouldn't be asking, right. I've left wood behind, just taking what I need, sometimes, when the bonanza is bountiful. Reminds me of a story ... a bunch of times I've gone to the golf driving range and left behind a 5- 10 -15, 20 balls for various reasons usually connected with time or I'd hit enough and there was no need to go overboard.Last month I get to the range, a bit late but still plenty of light. But the local range closes early. No prob I practiced a few swings whacking the rubber tee, until I had gotten my alignment recalibrated. I turn around, to go down further to pick just a few balls out of the close grass, and whaddaya know, I find someone left about 3/4 of a medium bucketful. Thanks, and cheers. What goes around comes around, sometimes.

P.S. Love the story above of the guy who bucked, ripped, and noodled a giant tree with an 18" bar. Man I'd be more worried about getting rolled over by one of those rounds, in case I did something daft, like making my last cut a finishing cut from underneath .... splat!
 
Just take the small stuff. Put the really big stuff on CL for free. Let someone else break their b!@ls for wood that won't be ready for 2 yrs.
 
Its not like yours but. I just worked a 36" dia. hickory off a 35% incline. Make sure you have a big saw, then quartering with wedges, quartering may not be enough, maybe 1/8ths..... Thats a pile of good fire fodder. Have you thought of having that monster milled instead of turning it to firewood. You may pay for an equal amount of firewood seasoned and delivered for the $$ that thing could bring. You could make solid 36"x 2" table tops with that thing........
 
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Get a saw large enough for the job with a good sharp chain and go to town. I bet you'll be surprised at how quickly it goes. I personally would use a maul and a few wedges to at least quarter those monster rounds, but it looks like you can get the splitter right up to that tree, so that may be the route you want to go. That is an incredible amount of super firewood you got there!
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Buck it up and if you have only a horizontal splitter, get yourself 3 or 4 steel wedges and a sledge hammer and go to work.
Click to expand...
BEConklin said:
Go at it with wedges and sledge hammer to split it into pieces small enough to lift....
Click to expand...
bobdog2o02 said:
Make sure you have a big saw, then quartering with wedges...
Click to expand...
red oak said:
I personally would use a maul and a few wedges to at least quarter those monster rounds...
Click to expand...
No disrespect to Dennis (he's been doing this longer than I've been alive), or anyone else, but I think that's a mighty tough way of going at this. I simply noodle rounds this size into 6" thick slabs (6" th x 54" W x 20" L = 235 lb.), and then move those slabs onto the splitter for breaking off the splits. With a big saw, noodling is a heck of a lot faster and easier on my body than sledge and wedge. I've had rounds much smaller than these, that can eat many wedges before they let go, and even then you're often left with halves or quarters too big to move.

I leave the rounds on their side as they come off the tree, and just spin them 90 degrees to the trunk. Then I noodle thru all but the last 2", so what I'm left with looks like a loaf of bread just standing there, waiting for me to pull off the slices. I keep a small mini-maul (2 - 3 lb., one-hander), and whack it into the top of the kerf when I want to pull one of the slabs off the round, and take it to the splitter. I don't try to lift the slabs, but instead walk them on their corners, like moving a filing cabinet single-handed.

red oak said:
...but it looks like you can get the splitter right up to that tree, so that may be the route you want to go.
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Again guys, tree is reported to be 54" diameter. Each round will weigh about 1600 lbs. at 20" bucked lengths. I've never handled rounds quite that big, but I've had many very close in the 48" - 50" range (1400 lb.), and they're incredibly difficult to maneuver.
 
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bobdog2o02 said:
Its not like yours but. I just worked a 36" dia. hickory off a 35% incline. Make sure you have a big saw, then quartering with wedges, quartering may not be enough, maybe 1/8ths..... Thats a pile of good fire fodder. Have you thought of having that monster milled instead of turning it to firewood. You may pay for an equal amount of firewood seasoned and delivered for the $$ that thing could bring. You could make solid 36"x 2" table tops with that thing........
Click to expand...

^ brilliant -- and that would make some sweet furniture, I would think, assuming the lightning didn't do any major damage.

Meanwhile you don't have to wait 2-3 yrs for the massive piles to season.
 
Joful said:
Plus side is every 4 rounds = 1 cord.
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That is just CRAZY........Just seems like your time/ cord goes way up on stuff this big.

As a scrounger, I wouldn't touch this (cause people want it gone yesterday). But if it was somewhere I could take my time, heck yeah I would jump on it.

Be safe, those rounds are very heavy, even cut short.
 
Thanks everyone for the tips, keep them coming.

As far as time and leaving it behind, some of it can be left behind for a while but it's across an interior pasture fence line between two pastures. Wife and son are going to put up a temporary post on each side of the trunk until we can get cut back past that point and then fix it back permanently. The cows have already found the gap between around the tree and took advantage of crossing into the greener grass on the other side. The bark, 1" thick, from the tree actually tore up the fence not the cutting of the tree.

We need to at least get the small limbs off of it and go back as far as we can until it gets too warm to cut this Spring and Summer if cold weather ever ends, we're still in heat mode here, no AC yet ;-) We can go back to the trunk this Fall and try and finish it. I think the cutter cut it off as high as he did to avoid possible fence wire. Believe or not we did not get to see it cut. He was suppose to let us know when he was going to cut, I wanted to video it coming down.

As far as a larger saw, I've been looking for a bigger used saws but the nice ones it seems everyone wants close to new prices. I had a Husqvarna 371XP with a 24" bar at one time but someone decided they wanted it and a Husq. 55 and some other outdoor power equipment worse than I did and lifted it all from our garage. That 371 was sweet.

There's a Kubota here with a front end loader and it has a set pallet forks for it so hopefully that will help moving the rounds once we get to that point. Most of the firewood we've in the few years we've brought logs to the splitter instead of splitter to the logs because it's an electric splitter and it just seems to work out better do all the cutting in one spot. Also we can stack logs up and cut the from a more comfortable height. Obviously we can't do this with this tree and it will, for the most part, have to be processed where it's at.
 
That looks like a hell of a lot of fun. Get a big saw, it would pay for itself in that tree alone. Big saw, big fun.
 
I would dig in the pocket and get a vertical splitter, If your son burns to, you could split the $1000.00 cost .
Drop the rounds onto some 3 or 4in branches, If need be noodle em in half first, Use the Kubota with pallet forks to get rounds to the splitter,use Paul Bunion's pipe trick and go at it.
Sure I could use sledge n wedges do some noodling, use my 7 ton electric splitter but , it would be a lot more work and take a lot lot longer
 
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