Took down an old Beech at the cabin.

[Kevin in Ohio]

Decided it was time to take down this tree at our cabin in the woods. We'd had a tire swing in it for years and it's health has been dropping off every year. Typical beech as it lost it's top and has center rot. Dad had cleaned up the latest limb fall and decided it was time to take the whole thing down.

That's a 660 with a 3ft bar for scale. Tree is 62" average. Around here Beech grow about 1 ft in diameter in 75 years so this one is over 400 years old.

Did a fairly deep notch and fears were confirmed. hollow and doady. The weight is going the right way but with these, you have to watch quick snaps as there is no holding wood.

I watched till I started to see it move and notice the splits in the trunk starting. possible barber chair situation so very cautious here.

Call me a wimp but I'll err on the side of life! LOL. Decided to wedge it over as I could get even push, hopefully avoiding the trunk split.

Went over slow and steady and just let a pillar of dirt in the middle. trunk broke out when it landed. You can see now how bad it was.

Didn't take but a couple hrs to work up but not much quality wood here. It'll burn though once dried out so not all is lost.

Time to get the splitter out now.

Drove this limb in the ground and ground was smeary enough that Dad's 4wd would pull it out, even with a log lift. That's a 3/8" chain so it does have some size to it.

 

[ThackMan]

Looks like a productive day. One hellava big tree.


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[Kevin in Ohio]

Looks like a productive day. One hellava big tree.


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This was the biggest beech we had on this farm. Made the on above look like a seedling. Remnants of Hurrican Ike knocked it out. 20 cord from one tree.

 

[buzz sawyer]

Yep, none too soon on that one. Any historical carvings on it? Initials, etc?

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

Yep, none too soon on that one. Any historical carvings on it? Initials, etc?

None in that one but we others with. One of them was my uncle when he was a kid about 75 years ago. It died too and we cut it out and gave it to my cousins to keep.

 

[Acornhill]

Looks like you are over 6’ yourself, sad it was so hollow in the middle


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[rarefish383]

My parents bought 5 acres from a neighbor when they sub divded their farm. It had a dozen or so big Beeches on the property, and most had old carvings in them. One carving was only about ten years old at the time. My friends older sister carved a heart in the trunk, and wrote in it, "planted my pot patch here" with the point of the heart pointing at her garden. I remember my friend complaining the garden never did well, too shady.

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

Looks like you are over 6’ yourself, sad it was so hollow in the middle


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I'm 6'5". that was what was so rare with the tree in the second post. Completely solid tree. the wind just blew the top out were it forked 20 ft up. One side was 4 ft and the other was just over 3 ft in diameter. that one hurt as we counted the rings and it was growing when the pilgrims landed!

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

Used Dad's 3 point splitter to work it up. I'm VERY spoiled with mine but didn't figure we had enough to make it worth while. I regret that decision. LOL We got a late start in the afternoon.

Not very good quality and even worse that it's all curvy grain. they'll be a lot of "boiler chunks" here.

Not a lot here but it'll provide some heat.

We got the biggest stuff done today so just some smalls and the rest of the top pictured here to go.

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

Snow melted off so we could get back at it.

A little delay due to a snow but we finish the rest of the splitting. Top is all done now.

Not a whole lot of wood but it'll keep us warm for a little while. We'll do the hauling next.

Bad news was the whole tree was what I call wavy grain. Laughs at a maul and I bet a Kinetic would be beating itself to death. Makes for a lot of junk and nasty stacking.

If you've never had the "pleasure" of working with this stuff consider yourself lucky. We've had some that you can't even start a wedge and sledge. Before we had my splitter and couldn't move 4 ft rounds, we actually would plunge cut a slot for the wedge to start so we could 1/4 the round to be able to move it.

It's really wild as we've had beech right beside each other that one was like this and the other was all straight grain.

No rhyme or reason on why it grows like this but you can imaging how hard it would be. This piece was NOT a knot, just the way the grain of the wood grew.

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

Got it all hauled so we will burn the brush tomorrow as Dad want's it cleaned up as he mows here around the cabin.

Had a couple of missed ones we'll work up as they were under the trunk.

Going to burn the brush on the stump in an effort to get rid of it. Going to try an experiment and we'll take a poll here to see if you guys think it will work. I'll know tomorrow if it does so we will see. I dug as much rot as I could from the stump.

In the center I got down over 2 feet so I'm to the dirt there. Good size hole in the center to start the fire.

Stump is about 5 foot across and it has been completely dead for a year. Dirt/rot held a lot of moisture but the wood on the outside is fairly solid.

Here's my experiment. I made a bunch of cuts through the stump. had the saw with the bar out and the head in the center hole. Dug the spikes into the center and pivoted the bar on a sweep cut till it broke through at the bottom.

I did the cuts at the lowest part of the "web" on the trunk. My theory is it will be like one of the Norway camp log stoves and will burn the stump quicker. Do you guys think it will work? Comment below and I'll report back tomorrow with pics. I was kind of surprised as the 192 made all those cuts on one tank of fuel. I had sharpened the chain prior but it did hit some dirt at the start and finish of most cuts. Still was cutting decent at the end.

 

[Ronaldo]

Got it all hauled so we will burn the brush tomorrow as Dad want's it cleaned up as he mows here around the cabin.

Had a couple of missed ones we'll work up as they were under the trunk.

Going to burn the brush on the stump in an effort to get rid of it. Going to try an experiment and we'll take a poll here to see if you guys think it will work. I'll know tomorrow if it does so we will see. I dug as much rot as I could from the stump.

In the center I got down over 2 feet so I'm to the dirt there. Good size hole in the center to start the fire.

Stump is about 5 foot across and it has been completely dead for a year. Dirt/rot held a lot of moisture but the wood on the outside is fairly solid.

Here's my experiment. I made a bunch of cuts through the stump. had the saw with the bar out and the head in the center hole. Dug the spikes into the center and pivoted the bar on a sweep cut till it broke through at the bottom.

I did the cuts at the lowest part of the "web" on the trunk. My theory is it will be like one of the Norway camp log stoves and will burn the stump quicker. Do you guys think it will work? Comment below and I'll report back tomorrow with pics. I was kind of surprised as the 192 made all those cuts on one tank of fuel. I had sharpened the chain prior but it did hit some dirt at the start and finish of most cuts. Still was cutting decent at the end.

I sure think those cuts will allow enough fresh air in to burn. Yup, Swedish candle style.

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[066blaster]

narley old tree. thankfully the beech i have cut were nice straight grained. was the tree dead? We have a ton of beech trees, and i am yet to see a dead one. some are hollow with maybe 90% of the wood missing, but still standing and alive

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

narley old tree. thankfully the beech i have cut were nice straight grained. was the tree dead? We have a ton of beech trees, and i am yet to see a dead one. some are hollow with maybe 90% of the wood missing, but still standing and alive

Lost all it's leaves I believe last spring so yes, standing dead. We have lots of beech on this farm and I'll get a pic of one tomorrow that is like you say, mostly gone but still going. We leave it just for the conversations it causes but tell people don't park next to it!

 

[Bobby Kirbos]

That wood would make a beautiful something. Too bad you didn't know until after it was cut for firewood.

 

[buzz sawyer]

That wood would make a beautiful something. Too bad you didn't know until after it was cut for firewood.

I thought the same but wondered if you could get it to dry without serious cracking or warping.

 

[GVS]

Snow melted off so we could get back at it.

A little delay due to a snow but we finish the rest of the splitting. Top is all done now.

Not a whole lot of wood but it'll keep us warm for a little while. We'll do the hauling next.

Bad news was the whole tree was what I call wavy grain. Laughs at a maul and I bet a Kinetic would be beating itself to death. Makes for a lot of junk and nasty stacking.

If you've never had the "pleasure" of working with this stuff consider yourself lucky. We've had some that you can't even start a wedge and sledge. Before we had my splitter and couldn't move 4 ft rounds, we actually would plunge cut a slot for the wedge to start so we could 1/4 the round to be able to move it.
Straight grained or twisted like that one is beach makes great firewood.

It's really wild as we've had beech right beside each other that one was like this and the other was all straight grain.

No rhyme or reason on why it grows like this but you can imaging how hard it would be. This piece was NOT a knot, just the way the grain of the wood grew.

 

[macattack_ga]

Bad news was the whole tree was what I call wavy grain. Laughs at a maul and I bet a Kinetic would be beating itself to death.

I can confirm the above about wavy beech and kinetic splitters!

 

[macattack_ga]

I did the cuts at the lowest part of the "web" on the trunk. My theory is it will be like one of the Norway camp log stoves and will burn the stump quicker. Do you guys think it will work? Comment below and I'll report back tomorrow with pics. I was kind of surprised as the 192 made all those cuts on one tank of fuel. I had sharpened the chain prior but it did hit some dirt at the start and finish of most cuts. Still was cutting decent at the end.

How I've dealt preping hollow stumps to burn:
Leave the stump taller maybe 3 or 4 ft and bore cut a hole as close to the bottom as possible, maybe 4 or 6 inches square and you'll have a "rocket stove".

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

narley old tree. thankfully the beech i have cut were nice straight grained. was the tree dead? We have a ton of beech trees, and i am yet to see a dead one. some are hollow with maybe 90% of the wood missing, but still standing and alive

Here is the tree and there isn't much left of it but it still grows on the one side. Not close enough to hit the cabin so we are letting it fight till the end. LOL It's sure is standing on one leg anymore and is supporting a good bit of weight yet. with beech, if you let them go till they're dead, there usually is only about 50% good wood. We get a lot of blow overs and those are pretty good. In the first pic you can see a pine tree my niece planted years ago just to the right. Deer have rubbed it bare this year so it looks like it's a goner too.