Hardest Timber you cut with your saw?

[Fish]

I have a large Osage Orange {Hedge} laid down up by my garden, I let
it lie a year before I tried to cut it, I gave up..........

Hardest, dense-est wood anywhere, burns like coal.

 

[Fish]

those hedge/osage trees grow like #### around here, i wouldnt wana mess with them
all twisted, covered in branches every 6 inches, never very large in diameter, never any straight pieces, just a mess !

I have one in my front yard with a 5-6 foot dia. trunk. The one I laid down
is @ 18-20 inch trunk. They are both males, no oranges.

 

[tdi-rick]

[snip]
(and just wait until the Aussies wake up)
[snip]

Haven't we bored you lot enough with our tales of battling through the petrified timber we routinely cut




Oh, and the tales of sparks some describe I believe come from the silica that can be pulled up by the tree when under stress (e.g. drought) and solidified into sand like crystals within the timber.
It's very common here for old Eucs to shoot sparks even during daylight.

 

[teacherman]

Haven't we bored you lot enough with our tales of battling through the petrified timber we routinely cut




Oh, and the tales of sparks some describe I believe come from the silica that can be pulled up by the tree when under stress (e.g. drought) and solidified into sand like crystals within the timber.
It's very common here for old Eucs to shoot sparks even during daylight.

I bet hedge and locust are like balsa wood compared to the stuff out your way.

I have had sparks from hedge, locust, and mulberry. No embedded nails necessary. Many times. I don't have a problem believing it. The silica idea makes a lot of sense to me, was wondering if trees pulled up minerals like that.

 

[sachsmo]

If Osage Orange is the same as what we call "Thorn" around here, then It is the hottest burnin', toughest wood around these parts.

Even hotter than "Ironwood" (Hop Hornbeam),.

At my old place we had a open fireplace with steel grate. Had a good fire going with "Thorn" and tossed a big round on top, the grate was so hot it bowed and drooped in the middle.

Got a cast Iron grate, problem solved.

My question is;

Does Osage Orange have the big clumps of long knarly thorns sometimes imbedded, or grown into the wood?

 

[redunshee]

shag hickory

I'll go along with Shagbark Hickory. Plentiful in the NorthEast and I've seen many a spark.

 

[redunshee]

If Osage Orange is the same as what we call "Thorn" around here, then It is the hottest burnin', toughest wood around these parts.

Even hotter than "Ironwood" (Hop Hornbeam),.

At my old place we had a open fireplace with steel grate. Had a good fire going with "Thorn" and tossed a big round on top, the grate was so hot it bowed and drooped in the middle.

Got a cast Iron grate, problem solved.

My question is;

Does Osage Orange have the big clumps of long knarly thorns sometimes imbedded, or grown into the wood?

I believe Osage Orange, at least in Texas, is also called Beaux D'Arc(Sp.) or HorseApple from the large green apple like fruit that falls off in the fall. Not sure if there are thorns on the tree, though. If it burns hotter that Ironwood(Hophornbeam) or as its also called Hardhack in Vermont, I'm impressed.

 

[sachsmo]

Yeah, that "Ironwood" is some dense stuff, can't even make out the growth rings in it.

Most the stuff around here just falls over before it gets 10" DBH.

Sounds like bowling pins when you clink pieces together.

 

[Anthony_Va.]

I have to agree with Osage Orange (hedgeapple as it's called around here) being the hardest I cut. Stuff is sooo yellow inside. It twist as it grows making it almost impossible to split with a maul. The Shagbark Hickory and Yellow Locust get honerable mention.

 

[Trigger-Time]

Osage Orange...........Osage river is 20 min to north of me.
I have pushed a few out with dozer, the roots are covered
with a very orange paper like stuff. After it is dried the stuff
is even hard to belt sand or cut with a file.

It was on the fence......

TT

 

[c5rulz]

Guess you've never cut Shagbark Hickory either, Have you?

Somehow, grits will get into a tree and produce sparks when cutting, and it's not always near the stump. I guess when the tree was growing, it took some grits up with it. I've seen it alot over the years.

I'll go along with Shagbark Hickory. Plentiful in the NorthEast and I've seen many a spark.

:agree2:


Cut a shagbark hickory that has been growing all it's life on the edge of a farm field incorporating dirt in the bark all it's life and it will make a chain go away real fast. I don't know that the wood is that hard to cut, it's just the chain dulls so fast.


I haven't cut osage orange but hear they can be used for corner posts and they will never rot. I see a bunch of them in Iowa where I hunt, and the fruit is the strangest thing I have ever seen.

 

[Bob Wright]

Years ago i had some property and it was full of blown over Locust trees most 24" and up. That stuff was hard cutting. My Echo's front mounted muffler had some nice bark fires going by the time i got to the bottom of the log...Bob

 

[cowboyvet]

I would say some 100 year old plus fir I tried to reclaim from a barn would top it for me. Finally gave up. Saws wouldn't hardly cut it and it just ate the chains for lunch. Impossible to even drive a nail into. Trying to mill white oak with my CSM would be the worst I've dealt with recently. Ripping any wood is hard....

 

[caleath]

Osage Orange...........Osage river is 20 min to north of me.
I have pushed a few out with dozer, the roots are covered
with a very orange paper like stuff. After it is dried the stuff
is even hard to belt sand or cut with a file.

It was on the fence......

TT

That picture made me cringe...

 

[Trigger-Time]

After I feed hay I took pictures of Osage Orange and fence for thoses
who have never seen it used for post and one of the big oaks I have.

TT

 

[PLMCRZY]

Post and live Oak.

 

[sachsmo]

OK,

Hedge Apple trees eh? We have them around here, my oldest friends' Great Grama kept them in her basement to keep the spyders out.

I have never cut one up (yet) and don't have any on my property.

But them knarly "Thorn" tree's gotta be just as baddass.

 

[MCW]

(and just wait until the Aussies wake up)

Hah hah. Actually I think the OP was more interested in US trees but here goes...

The worst tree I ever cut down was a dead old River Box on a floodplain. It was about 36" diameter and it took three chains just to get it on the ground. I was using the 32" bar and semi chisel on one of my 7900's.
I then swapped over to my 3120 and 36" Hard Nose with .404" semi chisel and in one of the limbs about 20" I was going through a chain per cut (and I'm not talking just blunt, I'm talking severe visible damage to the cutting edge).
After a few cuts I gave up and that tree is still laying there near Dareton, New South Wales. It will still be there in 3 billion years.
My mate and I put the 3 rounds we cut in his trailer and it was by far the heaviest wood I've ever lifted. His 30 tonne splitter also wouldn't touch it.
I am still scarred and receiving therapy over that tree...

 

[eyolf]

Nothing really hard up here in MN...not uniformly hard anyway. Hophornbeam and its cousin, Blue Beech are middlin' hard, and on occasion you can run into a tamarack knot that will stymie you, but none of these trees are usually cut often enough to require woodsmen to carry lots of extra chains. I got involved with dry Bodock/Hedge, etc. once, and it really is a bugger.

Other than that, Elm and Hackberry can be really bad: they draw silica up into the wood while growing. Not enough to throw sparks, but it is tough on steel. Honorable mention goes to Juneberry or Service. Not often one sees a Juneberry big enough to matter, but on rare occasion they'll reach 30' and nearly a foot in diameter. I took one down almost that big growing in the middle of a Lilac row, and it was pretty hard. Lilacs are pretty hard, too, but I've never seen an individual stem more than about 4 or 5".

Used railroad ties, trees growing on the edge of gravel roads, and "town trees" full of nails, clotheslines, etc don't count. You just know you're going to have trouble there.

 

[Trigger-Time]

Lots have said RXR ties are hard to cut, living in a RXR town all my life and
around men that cut ties for a living. RXR ties are all made of kinds
of wood. Not sure on price now, but Black Walnut was cheap
couple years ago and it was cut for ties. It's the dirt
and grave and creosol that are so hard on the chains that make
them so hard to cut. If anyone can come up with something
to replace RXR ties that are just as cheap as wood ties.
They could be rich, rich, rich!!!!!!!!!

Man, do them old ties ever burn good, back when RXR cut them in
3 pieces when replacing them. We would drive along the tracks
and pick them up for a friend that had a huge Auto Body shop.
He had a 300 gallon tank with 10" flue, we would fill it with ties
and it would get to puffing like a old train. I seen it many a times
blowing fire a good foot out of the ash pan damper. It would
blow the flame out and suck it back in about 4 times per second.


TT