Gnarly Red Oak

Just got around to splitting the base logs of a large red oak that was standing dead for a couple years, then bucked for 2 more years. It's still some very nice wood, but the majority of the base logs (probably would have been the bottom 8' of the tree) were stringy. Worse than any sweet gum I've ever dealt with. Usually the straight grain of the red oak makes it a pleasure to manually split, but these were impossible. So, thank God for the hydraulic splitter. Some of this wood feels like tire rubber. Really weird. It'll cure and burn just fine in a couple years, though.

Most of the base logs were like this throughout:





But this last pic shows how some areas were encapsulated. This is a side-by-side split. The one on the left is domed (convex) and the one of the right is concave. Almost as if you could scoop it out.

Applesister said:

Please dont burn that, find someone who does woodwork and give it to them. That is beautiful.

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You act like I got my bandages to keep me warm.

D8Chumley said:

Crazy, what would make it grow like that?

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I'm assuming disease/parasite that may have been responsible for its death. I really don't know, though.

Ashful said:

I wonder if that's the result of coppicing, many years ago. That grain took many years to form, not likely the result of what attacked it in its final years.

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Good point. It is deep in the center of the tree. For what it's worth, it was a straight, normal looking tree prior to its death.

chazcarr said:

That wood looks familiar...View attachment 161410

Is that tree related to van Gogh?

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Yep. That's exactly what I told my wife it looked like to me. Starry Night.