WOOD I.D.(by odor)?

[Mischa Shashumshkavich]

Sorry, but i have no pictures, so i have to go a different route......I was offered to take a tree, and was told it was white oak, but a soon as i started to cut and split it, it reminded me of a tree i got last year....It has an aroma of bubblegum mixed with some cow manure,and as soon as the splitter hit it there were lots of strings and things making it difficult to pull the splits apart.....some of the splits looked like stringy beef or tangled hair.....any i.d. uhs?

 

[Fred Wright]

Could be sweet gum.

 

[Mischa Shashumshkavich]

Could be sweet gum.

....i will look that up in google images....but i think you may be correct....

 

[PA. Woodsman]

This HAS to be the most unique way that anyone has ever described wood here!

And I have no idea, despite your great description!!

 

[Mischa Shashumshkavich]

why thank you....and i looked up sweetgum and saw some pics. on here, and i would say that is what it is...the tree was standing dead for quite some time, but it actually split pretty easily( with a hydraulic splitter)....i started with the outer(dry) edges and worked inward, some chunks were tough, but i have a little italian made old style hatchet that made it a lot easier than trying to pull them apart by hand.

 

[Mischa Shashumshkavich]

i actually found the head of the hatchet inside a big log of box elder when i was splitting it.....took it to the grinder and used the steel brush on it and it came out looking good...i wonder how old it is....must have been in the tree for at least 15-20 years for it to grow around and over it.....

 

[TreePointer]

Can white oak be stringy? Absolutely. I have experienced this with white oak but never northern red oak or pin oak (a red oak).

Can oak smell like cow manure? Absolutely. I've frequently encountered this odor with pin oak, but I wouldn't be surprised to find it in other oaks as I've been told this odor is caused by a fungus infection.

 

[Paulywalnut]

It would make sense that sweet gum smells like bubblegum though.

 

[Mischa Shashumshkavich]

Can white oak be stringy? Absolutely. I have experienced this with white oak but never northern red oak or pin oak (a red oak).

Can oak smell like cow manure? Absolutely. I've frequently encountered this odor with pin oak, but I wouldn't be surprised to find it in other oaks as I've been told this odor is caused by a fungus infection.

....I think i have a mix of white and red oak with some sweetgum and a lot of hard maple.... some of what i think is oak splits easy,almost no effort, some is much tougher and a bit stringy.....nowhere as stringy as this tree that must be gum....i just hope it doesn't start to turn punky/spongy before winter ( the sweetgum that is)

 

[Fred Wright]

Keep it top covered, it'll be OK. Gum tends to get moldy when left exposed to weather. It's a great wood for growing mushrooms.

We have a stack of sweetgum that's a couple years old. Bone-dry and will probably burn quickly. But we didn't have to pay for it.

 

[Mischa Shashumshkavich]

Keep it top covered, it'll be OK. Gum tends to get moldy when left exposed to weather. It's a great wood for growing mushrooms.

We have a stack of sweetgum that's a couple years old. Bone-dry and will probably burn quickly. But we didn't have to pay for it.

....that's a great thing about woodburning,if you have the means, there is free wood out there...i was pumped up when last year i came across a huge fallen tree that was semi-bucked, the bottom rounds must have been at least 60" in diameter, i loaded up as much as i could of the logs i could get on the truck and was so happy to get so much free seasoned wood, and was wondering why nobody else grabbed it up........then i started to split it....or ''try'' to split it...man oh man, the centers of those huge rounds were a test on man and machine both....but those stringy scraps do make good kindling though...now i know about sweetgum....but i'll still take it if it is free...