Finally Felled A Beech

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thewoodlands

Minister of Fire
Aug 25, 2009
16,570
In The Woods
When I was clearing a trail in this area about two weeks ago I noticed this beech that had part of the top break off and was starting to rot, so today I decided to drop it. Looking at the tree from the back you could tell it was starting to rot so I cleared my escape routes then made my notch and back cut. When it started to go I was out of there, everything went perfect and we have some nice beech.

Picture 2513 is the top broken off and rotting, 2514 & 2515 is before and after,2516 is the stump,2517 & 2516 are the first three rounds off the stump and 2519 is the beech heading home.


zap
 

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There's some blue beech Love it!
 
Love burning beech. Probably 40% of my wood this year is beech.

Glad the felling went well. Nothing worse than felling a tree with a hollow / punky base. They sometimes seem to have a mind of their own.
 
DuckDog said:
Love burning beech. Probably 40% of my wood this year is beech.

Glad the felling went well. Nothing worse than felling a tree with a hollow / punky base. They sometimes seem to have a mind of their own.

I was worried it might blow out the back so once it started to go so did I. The good thing was it had a natural lean in the direction that was easiest to fell it in.


zap
 
smokinjay said:
There's some blue beech Love it!

It looks like American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) to me. Blue beech (Carpinus caroliniana) has muscle like bulges in the lower trunk. Am I missing something?

Matt
 
EatenByLimestone said:
smokinjay said:
There's some blue beech Love it!

It looks like American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) to me. Blue beech (Carpinus caroliniana) has muscle like bulges in the lower trunk. Am I missing something?

Matt

Nope - you are correct - blue beech = musclewood = Carpinus caroliniana. I'm sure Smokin' was talking about American beech. Cheers!
 
NH_Wood said:
EatenByLimestone said:
smokinjay said:
There's some blue beech Love it!

It looks like American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) to me. Blue beech (Carpinus caroliniana) has muscle like bulges in the lower trunk. Am I missing something?

Matt

Nope - you are correct - blue beech = musclewood = Carpinus caroliniana. I'm sure Smokin' was talking about American beech. Cheers!

Heck I have only seen one kind. Got picks around here some where I need you to look at them and see what I got. It does have flares at the bottom very hard to remove the stump.
 
wood spliter said:
As much beech as I have around here I've never burned it. How is the burn?

Burns great and gives off some nice btu's.


zap
 
I love burning beech, but I think the name got skewed somewhere because it had to originate from the fact that it splits like a b@#ch.

The beech blight is doing a number on ours. The way that ash and beech are getting hit in my area, I doubt my grandkids will know what they are.

pen
 
Zap, that looks like a very typical beech! It is amazing how many of them get hollowed out. Darned good burning wood though.
 
smokinjay said:
NH_Wood said:
EatenByLimestone said:
smokinjay said:
There's some blue beech Love it!

It looks like American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) to me. Blue beech (Carpinus caroliniana) has muscle like bulges in the lower trunk. Am I missing something?

Matt

Nope - you are correct - blue beech = musclewood = Carpinus caroliniana. I'm sure Smokin' was talking about American beech. Cheers!

Heck I have only seen one kind. Got picks around here some where I need you to look at them and see what I got. It does have flares at the bottom very hard to remove the stump.

My ref only covers the northern US and Canada, but it shows the blue beech strong though northern IN, but does not show the bottom of the state so I don't know if they are found all through the state. The best way I know to tell them apart is the base of the trunk having ridges like muscles and really big catkin like flowers... sort of like 3 inches long. The leaves look a little similar to a regular beech so I wouldn't use that as a point. I can't remember what the buds of the blue beech look like. I've only seen small ones also. I don't know how large they get.

Matt
 
EatenByLimestone said:
smokinjay said:
NH_Wood said:
EatenByLimestone said:
smokinjay said:
There's some blue beech Love it!

It looks like American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) to me. Blue beech (Carpinus caroliniana) has muscle like bulges in the lower trunk. Am I missing something?

Matt

Nope - you are correct - blue beech = musclewood = Carpinus caroliniana. I'm sure Smokin' was talking about American beech. Cheers!

Heck I have only seen one kind. Got picks around here some where I need you to look at them and see what I got. It does have flares at the bottom very hard to remove the stump.

My ref only covers the northern US and Canada, but it shows the blue beech strong though northern IN, but does not show the bottom of the state so I don't know if they are found all through the state. The best way I know to tell them apart is the base of the trunk having ridges like muscles and really big catkin like flowers... sort of like 3 inches long. The leaves look a little similar to a regular beech so I wouldn't use that as a point. I can't remember what the buds of the blue beech look like. I've only seen small ones also. I don't know how large they get.

Cant find the pic on the site will post it monday. Would like to know.

Matt
 
wood spliter said:
As much beech as I have around here I've never burned it. How is the burn?

Can't speak to the Blue Beech . . . never even heard of it before I started hanging around here . . . but American beech is a fanastic wood . .. high BTU and long burns. I grab as much of it as I can . . . nearly had a seizure when I found a beech that had toppled over beside the field a year or two ago . . . prime wood and it was just lying there . . . grabbed as much of it as I could.
 
I burn mostly red maple, birch, ash and beech as they are what grows in the area (just north of the oak line). Beech burns great but it definitely takes longer to dry. The other three can be burnt in about a 3/4 of a year while beech should be 1.5 to 2 years. I hand split and beech is definitely a work out, I usually donate the beech chcunks I cant split to folks who like big bonfires.
 
peakbagger said:
I burn mostly red maple, birch, ash and beech as they are what grows in the area (just north of the oak line). Beech burns great but it definitely takes longer to dry. The other three can be burnt in about a 3/4 of a year while beech should be 1.5 to 2 years. I hand split and beech is definitely a work out, I usually donate the beech chcunks I cant split to folks who like big bonfires.

I never realized that beech took that long to season.


Zap
 
I dont think its that the beech take a long tme to dry, its just that ash, red maple and split white birch are all fast driers. Part of the effect is that its easy to hand split them so I tend to make smaller splits. With the workout that beech requires, I probably leave the splits bigger. Therefore its not a really fair comparision if someone has a splitter.
 
We love the way seasoned beech burns.

Maple (hard and soft) and beech are the only wood types we burn. The beech (no idea what kind) in our neighborhood are dying from the beech bark disease so when the storms roll in, we can bank on a limb or two (or three or four) coming down across the line. If at all possible, we harvest while it's still green. Husband says it cuts and splits easier then when seasoned. Cloverland Electric took one down two/three months ago - we ended up with a nice pile in the yard to season through the winter/spring. While out walking, I noticed two other beech trees down and several nice size limbs. Husband said we'll get in and clean up when the snow starts to melt off.

Be careful, though, when dropping one. We've been warned ourselves that they will explode upon impact if the tree is dead.
 
YooperWife said:
We love the way seasoned beech burns.

Maple (hard and soft) and beech are the only wood types we burn. The beech (no idea what kind) in our neighborhood are dying from the beech bark disease so when the storms roll in, we can bank on a limb or two (or three or four) coming down across the line. If at all possible, we harvest while it's still green. Husband says it cuts and splits easier then when seasoned. Cloverland Electric took one down two/three months ago - we ended up with a nice pile in the yard to season through the winter/spring. While out walking, I noticed two other beech trees down and several nice size limbs. Husband said we'll get in and clean up when the snow starts to melt off.

Be careful, though, when dropping one. We've been warned ourselves that they will explode upon impact if the tree is dead.

YooperWife, we have some like that and I won't touch those. I'll take another beech this weekend, that will only be a total of three dropped since we bought the property.


zap
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Zap, that looks like a very typical beech! It is amazing how many of them get hollowed out. Darned good burning wood though.

Concerning seasoning time for beech, if you get a good summer and fall (weather) of seasoning in full sun and wind will the beech be ready in one year.



zap
 
zapny said:
Backwoods Savage said:
Zap, that looks like a very typical beech! It is amazing how many of them get hollowed out. Darned good burning wood though.

Concerning seasoning time for beech, if you get a good summer and fall (weather) of seasoning in full sun and wind will the beech be ready in one year.



zap
One I am burning now zap is about 18 months burning really good.
 
[One I am burning now zap is about 18 months burning really good.[/quote]



The load of logs (mostly beech) we bought last February then cut,split and stacked hopefully will be ready for the 2011=2012 heating season.



Zap
 
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