30" maple trunk with embedded metal :-(

If you have a catalytic stove letting those metal bits into the stove could ruin your cat too.

Do you have a fire pit or a non cat stove?

Hmm I have some kindling I've been using (really only a handful of times) pine strapping with nails in it, you saying this is a bad idea? I have other kindling but I thought this was putting this to good use. Good thing is that I've had to relight it so little...

mwhitnee said:

Hmm I have some kindling I've been using (really only a handful of times) pine strapping with nails in it, you saying this is a bad idea?

Click to expand...

Not sure, maybe could poison the cat if they were zinc-coated or something, like a roofing nail, but they probably aren't. I don't think an iron nail would hurt the cat, but I don't know for sure...

I get a lot of big maples with nails and other bits in them. It is part of the deal. Most of these big trees are free and some even come with free delivery.
You will take some damage, but the amount of wood is worth it. The city removed a big maple in town and dumped it about a 1/4 mile from our house and were going to burn it. I called and they said I could take what I wanted and that the neighbor would be out there soon to get some too. I took the dually dump truck to the pile and the city's front end loader did a good job of filling it up at least 3 times. That truck was loaded, but it was only a short run down the driveway, so it didn't matter. I got some nice milling logs and lots of good firewood. More than enough for this year.

I also scored BIG in the trailer park in town. They took down a couple of maples and one of them was BIG, as in over 4 feet wide. I got the entire thing, except for a few smaller pieces that someone else was able to put in their pickup truck before I got there. The biggest rounds weighed 1,000 lbs. My wife helped me roll them up a ramp onto the trailer when I wrecked all my chains on nails. I ended up with a hernia after that and will not be doing it again. I want to make a small crane for the truck to help with loading. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a simple hydraulic boom with a hinge in the middle. no grapple, just chain hooks. Simple. The truck has hydraulics already, so it is only a matter of plumbing in a second line.

I took a large Black Cheery to the sawmill a few weeks ago and I thought I had cut above the barbed wire that was embedded into the trunk. Whoops. He hit the barbed wire a foot above where I had cut and that cost me a new saw blade. We cut off an extra bit with the chainsaw to be safe. When I got home, I split the round and there were 3 or more ceramic insulators embedded deep in the trunk plus a lot of barbed wire. Crazy how the tree grows around all of this and hides it.

that's why sawmills won't take anything out of your yard not matter how good looking it is.

The screw hooks that hold my hammock are slowly getting engulfed by a big oak.

I've found all kinds of stuff inside trees. Barbed wire, nails, clothesline pulleys, hooks, even cut into an old chain lost off a chainsaw.