buckeye trees

[smitty12]

Hi everybody,

Soon the hot weather will be here and the dust and mosquitos will be sticking to us.

I have a question>

I need to thin out some large buckeye trees. they are crowding some nice chestnut oaks and I want to give the space to the oaks.

Does anyone have experience with this wood?

The trees I have cut down so far were smaller, but the wood seemed to be pretty brittle when green anyway.

I dont want to waste time and fuel milling these trees if the wood is junk. I wasted last Sat. on a 35 inch burr oak which fell over in the ice storms this winter...milled off a couple slabs and it was rotten. I counted 175 rings on the tree. There goes my plans for table tops down the drain! Now the squirrels have a nice flat spot in the woods to cut nuts.

 

[WadePatton]

Dern squirrels.

So what's the deal? Nobody sawed no buckeye?

I have some. While I don't plan on cutting any--I will saw them out if they fall over. And trees do fall over out on the ridge.

 

[smitty12]

I did a google on them. apparently buckeye is used for making prosthetics because it is light and resists splitting.

Maybe I should get some stickered in case I make a bad cut some day!

 

[ericjeeper]

Probably make 5x5 cuts..

That should cover the socket if you cut it just below the knee. LOL Not sure if quartersawn would look better in shorts though.

 

[daemon2525]

I tried to split some green one time. It cannot be done! Period!

You'll drive your wedges in the round like nails. Then try and get them out.
Maybe a hydraulic splitter would, I did not have one at the time.

Funny thing though. I had to leave it alone because I could not split it and a year or two later, I split it without so much trouble.