Very hard wood

[manfred]

I cut a dead red oak yesterday that was so hard I expected to see sparks from my chain!
What causes wood to get this hard after it has been dead for awhile?
It looks like it will really burn good.

 

[Battenkiller]

The other day I cut about a cord of black locust that was standing dead until the bark was falling off, and I did see sparks... lots of them. Brand new chain needs sharpening already.

I don't know the biological reason, but it seems that any kind of standing dead tree gets sort of petrified after a while. Even the pine and spruce trees in the forests I camp in get hard as a rock, ringing like a bell when I hit them with the back of my bow saw. Best campfire wood there is IMO.

 

[albertj03]

I usually cut a few standing dead red oaks every fall and the wood usually has a very very thin layer of rot on the outside but the rest of the wood is super hard and dense. I usually get a moisture reading between 10 - 20% and the stuff burns great. Most of the time these are dead off-shoots of a large living oak so they aren't to big and the top is typically rotted out. I just cut some the other day and found it fairly easy to split with my Fiskars Super Splitter. I love cutting stuff like this and being able to burn it right away.

 

[oldspark]

Just pointing out the obvious, green wood cuts way easier than seasoned wood.