Iron Wood

[JoeB]

I got my hands on a really nice iron wood log today. The trouble is it has been sitting on the forest floor for 2-3 years. The barks pulled right off but the wood was still solid.
I cut it into lengths and took it home. Now I have split a few rounds with the maul and the wood is like petrified. It seems solid, or is it rotten and just frozen? How long will ironwood hold up on the ground? Do you think it will season well?

 

[smokinj]

Should still be great stuff hard as a rock for sure!

 

[webie]

I got my hands on a really nice iron wood log today. The trouble is it has been sitting on the forest floor for 2-3 years. The barks pulled right off but the wood was still solid.
I cut it into lengths and took it home. Now I have split a few rounds with the maul and the wood is like petrified. It seems solid, or is it rotten and just frozen? How long will ironwood hold up on the ground? Do you think it will season well?

Ussualy you can tell if it is rotten or starting too just by how it cuts , even if it is frozen . If its a nice smoth cut its generally good but if it looks like something you chewed through well its gone bad . Shouldnt make alot of difference if it is frozen , infact alot of the old timers use to say the really hard pieces of wood they had to split they did it when it was below zero as it split easier ( personally I think they worked harder to stay warm But whos to argue )
I dont get to see to much Iron wood around here so I cant even recall how good or bad it does split .

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Ironwood, like ash, rots very slow. My guess is you have some good wood there.

 

[lukem]

the wood is like petrified.

They don't call it ironwood for nothing. I have some in my woods but the tree are all very small. Had to cut a few to use as a pry-bar to un-pinch a saw a couple times...works great for that. Careful it doesn't shatter your maul.

 

[pybyr]

If it's Hophornbeam (not blue beech- the 'other ironwood'- which I have no direct experience with) then in my experience, it's still great firewood even after it's been laying on the ground in the woods for who knows how long. Even after it gets spalted, it's still dense and as far as I can tell, pretty dry, and still has huge heat content. I gather and burn the stuff- live, dead, or fallen, any chance that I get. I use a splitter, and it does seem to be less easy to split than some woods, but worth the effort.

 

[rottiman]

Great stuff if you use common sense with it. When seasoned it throws MEGA HEAT. Too much in the stove all at once and YOU WILL overheat your stove. Know a lad in this area who put a good warp in his stove when he got overzealous with it.

 

[Jags]

Yeah, as said above, just make sure you don't hurt your maul head with that stuff. It might just put flat spots on the blade.

Its not "petrified" - its "iron wood". Lots of fence posts were made with that - so I doubt that laying on the ground a couple of years is gonna hurt it at all.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

If it's Hophornbeam (not blue beech- the 'other ironwood'- which I have no direct experience with) then in my experience, it's still great firewood even after it's been laying on the ground in the woods for who knows how long. Even after it gets spalted, it's still dense and as far as I can tell, pretty dry, and still has huge heat content. I gather and burn the stuff- live, dead, or fallen, any chance that I get. I use a splitter, and it does seem to be less easy to split than some woods, but worth the effort.

If you ever get your hands on some of the blue beech, it is great for holding fires. Hard stuff it is.