Slab Wood Score

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walhondingnashua

Minister of Fire
Jul 23, 2016
619
ohio
I know I am not the first person to find something like this on here, but I just hit a good score for end of the season wood. Got hooked up with a local guy who runs a woodmizer to make blocking for oil and gas. All the slab wood I can process and its been outside for at least a year so it dries out fast once under roof. Probably going to make it a regular thing and keep a good bit of it for the whole burning season. Its all poplar, ash and oak.

The only challenge (which I am not complaining about) is processing it to length. Anyone else do this or have a good trick?
 
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What are the rough dimensions of the slabs?
 
Search for slab cutting rack on Google Images. This is the basic idea though
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They are all very random lengths and widths. I have been brainstorming something like that. Thought maybe I could do something with my saw buck. Its such good wood and easy to come by, I will come up with something.
 
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I think the biggest thing people that burn slabs struggle with is stacking. They might stack straight up real nice but there’s no airflow that way.
 
Not a fan of slab wood. Around here have of that would be bark. Guess if it's free and still will burn.
 
Not a fan of slab wood. Around here have of that would be bark. Guess if it's free and still will burn.

Same here but for different reasons:

Too much labor to process: load the slabs, move them to some jig for cutting, then have to handle them for transport, then handle again to stack. Too much direct labor, not very conducive to having the tractor do it.

On the plus side, you usually don't have to split them, so there's that.
 
I agree with the stacking so they will dry but the load I got has been out in the weather for at least a year and just laying in a random pile, so its pretty well seasoned. It must be because he is just making blocking out of the logs, but its actually very little bark. Really good size pieces that I would be splitting everything into anyway. From cutting trees down aspect, it actually seems like this would be a lot of waste just rotting. From what I understand, he has a few guys that come to him for it and he's glad to see it used.
 
the load I got has been out in the weather for at least a year and just laying in a random pile, so its pretty well seasoned.
That wood is no where seasoned.. every time it rains it absorbs moisture. Wood seasons when it has the opportunity to dry and with rain and snow that has been across the country its way wet.. the good thing is it should dry quick if you get it under cover it will be ready for the fall if you stack it right
 
I hate you (in a nice way). Where I'm from, the only "slabs" I ever see are pine and fir. Poplar is common, keep that stuff 100 feet off the ground or it will rot, rot, rot. I could try to store Oak and Ash on my property, but someone would just come by at night and help themselves. If someone burned Oak around here, everybody would think they are either weird or a total fiend. That stuff is priced about the same as Palladium or Tungsten around here.