Another wood ID
- Thread starter Diabel
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firefighterjake
Minister of Fire
I assumed that black locust would be dense & heavy...& hard to cut through. But this stuff is light & cuts through like butter. That is why I am not sure. The trees surly look like locust.
smokinj
Minister of Fire
Diabel said:
You must be running some awesome chains! Thats bl I can see your raker marks Probally a little high. What saw you running?
If you guys say it is black locust...then I must go get some more. The city is taking most of these trees down due to ash borer.... that is what I was told (why would bl be attacked by ash borer???).
I just went to my woodshed & grabbed a split of honey locust (drying for 2yrs) & it is twice as heavy as the wood in the picture...
I just went to my woodshed & grabbed a split of honey locust (drying for 2yrs) & it is twice as heavy as the wood in the picture...
I took a whole tree of black locust last year. I did not find it to be hard to cut or real heavy wood. Split easily. Lots of little splinters when you handle it. Not the greatest heat output - atleast for me. It doesn't compare to the output of oak.
Looks like a good score for you - go get the rest!
Looks like a good score for you - go get the rest!
indiana4spartans
Member
I'm going to play devil's advocate. I cut a lot of BL as well and have yet to meet one that I would consider "light" - always heavy and tight grained. I think you might have some cottonwood there. Same kind of bark structure, although it tends to deeper furrowed and thicker - like whats in the pics.
indiana4spartans said:
I have seen the trees in the summer.... leaves look like honey/black locust & the smaller branches have thorns
indiana4spartans
Member
Wood Duck
Minister of Fire
I think it is Black Locust, not Honey Locust or anything else. If it stood there dead for a long time it might be dried out and therefore might seem light. It appears to have some decay in the middle, and those decayed areas are surely a lot lighter than the wood that rotted away, adding to the light feel. With Black Locust I think you'll find some nice solid wood even in a partially decayed piece. Black Locust doesn't get punky the whole way through like some other woods do, it tends to have decay or ant damage localized to certain parts of the round, with undamaged wood right next to it.
CodyWayne718
Feeling the Heat
Black Locust guarantee it! I'm with jay on wantin to know what saw and also more on why jay wants to know lol.....
I just cut an identical tree and also found it to be what I thought was light. Of course, it was suffering lead borer disease at the bottom six feet.
smokinj
Minister of Fire
MMMM..... one of my favorite little saws... very light and maneuverable and power isn't bad with a muffler/carb mod pulling a 14" B&C.Diabel said:
But eventually you'll fall for a bigger saw like I did...
smokinj
Minister of Fire
CountryBoy19 said:
It has served me very well...unbelievably well I must add. On few occasions while working big rounds & had to get creative & cut from both sides....with no problems!
I have worked bigger/heavier saws but I find I get tired faster with bigger saw....& had occasional kick backs (no fun). With the 170 no kick back in 5 yrs. maybe due to its weight.
smokinjay said:
Sometime ago I was cutting some dead apple tree & it was the only time the saw was jamming/choking up but it could have been the user error.
Diabel said:
I hear you there. I started out with a 170 as my first saw. Got it pretty cheap on CL. It was almost brand new, I could barely tell it was used much, looked really good. The guy was getting rid of it because he said he was tired of buying a new chain every time he got it in the dirt. I wasn't about to tell him he could sharpen the chains, good thing he had kept them all. I got 5 NIB chains, 4 dull, but never sharpened chains, and the saw all for $75.
Carb/muffle mod is "easy" if you're handy. First of all, because the carb isn't adjustable you can't do a muffler mod safely w/o first doing a carb mod. You need to find a Walbro WT215 carb for the easiest swap.
When you find one cheap (I got mine for $20 on ebay, but I had to be patient to get it at that price), then you can find a thread on "how to" over on arboristsite. The basics of it is, you have to "tweak" your throttle linkage, plug the "intellicarb" hole in your airbox, and swith the impulse port. Switching the impulse port is easy, the necessary impulse port is already in place on the WT215, there will be a small brass plug in it. You will want to take this plug out, and then JB weld or epoxy shut the other impulse port. Regarding the intellicarb hole in the airbox. Some people have reported ok results by switching the intellicarb cover over to the walbro carb, but if you can tune a saw (really easy once you get the hang of it) there is no need for that. It's much easier to just leave the intellicarb cover off and go "old school" and plug up the hole in the air box. I turned a small delrin plug on a lathe to fill the hole, but you can probably find a rubber plug somewhere in town to do that.
Overall for $100 I have a small, light saw that will almost keep up with my brother 250. And a few months back cutting up an ash tree, I was making 3 cuts to every 5 cuts my friend made with his 460 Mag which isn't bad considering the 460 mag is 3 times the displacement.
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