Almost Ruined my Chain

[Wood Duck]

I was splitting some old rounds this weekend when I noticed this big steel hook imbedded a round. I sawed this pine from the neighbor's yard into rounds last winter and never noticed the hook. You can see that I was very close to hitting the hook - the rust stained wood surrounding the threaded part of the hook is visible in the cut end of the round. Missing the hook was purely luck, not skill or careful planning, but I'll take it!

 

[pen]

I didn't get so lucky this last weekend. Cut up an ash behind my parents house. I knew there used to swing that hung from that tree, and knew about where the bolt should have been, but I caught it anyway. Had I been 1/2 in further down the log I would have been clear as I just nicked the lag's head, cut the washer off the side, and nicked a few threads down further. Took 5 teeth off the chain Luckily, that had only had 1 or 2 sharpenings left in it before it would have been trash anyhow.

Last year I hit a bolt burried 50 years deep in a tree that took 2 teeth off of a chain that hadn't even had a tank of gas on it since being pulled out of the box. Ugh.

pen

 

[Senatormofo]

I was splitting some old rounds this weekend when I noticed this big steel hook imbedded a round. I sawed this pine from the neighbor's yard into rounds last winter and never noticed the hook. You can see that I was very close to hitting the hook - the rust stained wood surrounding the threaded part of the hook is visible in the cut end of the round. Missing the hook was purely luck, not skill or careful planning, but I'll take it!

Wow! You can't get any closer than that! Your chain lives another day!

 

[Nixon]

That was indeed close ! Glad you didnt hit it as I would have done a job on your chain for sure. The only thing I've managed to hit that was close to that was some bailing wire . It actually got wrapped up in the nose sprocket .

 

[bogydave]

Close call!
Sometimes "it's better to be lucky than good."

I cut some spruce for the neighbor, hit a small rock imbedded in the bark, with the right side teeth. Finished up with 1/2 moon cuts.

 

[Gark]

Years ago, my saw was a Homelite "zipsaw" which ran into the head of a big spike. Not knowing why the saw was making no progress, I just pushed down harder with no effect. Alot of noise and smoke for a long time, heheh. By the time I gave up, the fronts of the cutter chisels were more dull than the backs! Didn't even try to sharpen it. Since then, only stones, barbed wire, cement and lead shot.

 

[woodchip]

I'm very wary of any stone or foreign object embedded in wood, but at the end of the day, it's sometimes down to good or bad luck whether you hit or miss something.
Sounds like your chain had a lucky day

 

[ScotO]

That was a close call, WD! I smoked three 28" Stihl RSC chains a couple years ago in a gigantic ash I cut down. It was polluted with railroad spikes up the length of the main trunk, someone must have used it for a deerstand or something many moons ago......luckily the owner of the property added the cost of three chains to the final price of the job.......

 

[swagler85]

Always hate hitting a rock or nail. Always seem to do it right after I put a fresh chain in too

 

[red oak]

I believe the title of this thread should be "Look at this precision cutting! Less than half an inch from a metal hook and no damage to the chain!"

 

[clemsonfor]

When i was rebuilding a porch on my house a few years back, i was cutting down an azalia (spelling) bush on the corner to get better access to the wood area. I took out the saw to just hack the overgrown bush down. I cut a few branches off the side then came at it from the top to cut down one side of it to shear the branches off to the stump area. Well inside the crotches of the bush was a hunk of mortar about the size of a softball (dont know where from but was there for years)(i had just purchased the house a year or so earlier) and i was cutting and cutting and not going anywhere. I had my head kind of turned to stay out of the branches and stuff so i kept pushing, then saw some smoke/dust?? Stopped and looked and see the hunk of motor i was cutting I had cut about a half inch or so into it. Dulled all my cutter so dull at they would not cut your finger if you tried. I just took that chain off and put it on the shelf and put a new chain on to finish. That chain has been onthe shelf till this last spring when i got the Harbor Freight Chain grinder/sharpener. That was one of my tests, it sharpened it to brand new sharp

 

[clemsonfor]

Oh is that pine still any good? looks like it may be a bit punky?

 

[Wood Duck]

The wood is solid. The round was on the bottom of a pile of rounds all summer so the underside of the bark was a little slimy and it makes the thing look punky, but it isn't.

 

[muncybob]

You just never know what you may hit when working on "yard trees". I always take extra chains and hope for the best. I too was lucky recently, hit some nails of some sort but didn't ruin the chain. Property owner said years ago it was common to imbed some metal into hickory trees to stress them and yield larger nuts. I told him I thought it would have the opposite effect, but what do Ii know??

 

[clemsonfor]

No, he was correct stressed trees do produce more fruit/nuts. Not sure about metal stressing them though?

Its natures way to ensure survival of a particular species. Take oak for example, get lightning struck and is going to die, it will produce huge amounts of acorns that next crop (assuming it has not set buds at that point, so may be the following year if still alive) to ensure once that tree is dead that there will be a bunch of young oaks to potentially fill that large oaks spot and not some other tree. Pine does the same thing, look at a thin crowned pine that is about to die and you will see tiny short needles and a ton of pine cones, same reason.

 

[Eric Schaefer]

Close call. This past weekend I split a smaller round and a huge nail larger than a gutter nail was completely through the final 1/4, didn't notice it when splitting the other two sides. It stuck out about 1-2" from each side of it.

 

[amateur cutter]

Nice clean miss Wood Duck, I never seem to get that lucky. I've hit everything from concrete to horseshoes, wrenches, wire, you name it I've found it in trees. Usually in fence rows. I try to avoid yard trees if I can, but it happens. Sometimes you see it, & sometimes you see sparks. Oh well, cost of doing business I guess. A C