Free is not always good

[jellyroll]

My buddy removed a tree from his backyard and is having a hard time giving it away it is a black gum.
I just can't muster any affection for taking it home because it with it being impossible to split.
It would have to be blocked and noodled to be used in my stove and that would be a little more work and fuel than i care to deal with.

 

[Bill G]

My buddy removed a tree from his backyard,.........

There are two words right in the beginning that say run away...tree and backyard. Trees in yards are notorious for containing steel and ruining chains. Every homeowner says .."I have never nailed anything in that tree". You look at the tree and roughly estimate it at 60 plus years old. The homeowner is about 45 and lived there 20 years. You can do the math on that.

 

[husky455rancher]

There are two words right in the beginning that say run away...tree and backyard. Trees in yards are notorious for containing steel and ruining chains. Every homeowner says .."I have never nailed anything in that tree". You look at the tree and roughly estimate it at 60 plus years old. The homeowner is about 45 and lived there 20 years. You can do the math on that.

My dad had a few big oaks cut down this summer. I lent him my 562xp cuse he had a wind up toy of a Home Depot echo. He fell in love with the saw. He was like it cut great until it didn’t then I realized I was cutting I to metal. To his credit he got totally through the aluminum flag bracket that the tree grew around……I was like don’t worry about it. But you cut through the whole thing before you figured out what was going on?!?! He’ll be 69 in February his mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be sometimes.

 

[jellyroll]

There are two words right in the beginning that say run away...tree and backyard. Trees in yards are notorious for containing steel and ruining chains. Every homeowner says .."I have never nailed anything in that tree". You look at the tree and roughly estimate it at 60 plus years old. The homeowner is about 45 and lived there 20 years. You can do the math on that.

I blocked it up for him since his little saw couldn't do it. i didn't hit anything but from the rings on the tree it is about 50 years old.

 

[Del_]

Black gum burns good with a bright yellow flame.

When seasoned well anything that fits in the stove will burn well if place on a nice bed of coals. It's pretty light. The limbs burn well and don't need splitting.

My splitter can split it two ways but not four ways.

I'd not cut it for firewood but if I was charging for the removal I'll take it home for the woodstove. It would be great for a wood boiler.

 

[Bill G]

I blocked it up for him since his little saw couldn't do it. i didn't hit anything but from the rings on the tree it is about 50 years old.

Well I am glad you got through it without problems. In many cases yard trees ruin chains

 

[sean donato]

I get a lot of wood from my logging buddy when he gets to old fence rows and border lines, just out of fear of him getting pinged with the metal detector at the mill. I'd say about 30% of the trees that I get from him have metal or something else nasty imbeded in them.
Either way, you bucked it into rounds. I'd take it home and split it... but I have a splitter as well.

 

[unclemoustache]

Well I am glad you got through it without problems. In many cases yard trees ruin chains

I seem to have more luck than most. I use mostly yard trees for firewood AND for milling. Hit a few things, of course, but certainly not enough to make me stop.
But I use a metal detector for my mill.

 

[jellyroll]

Black gum burns good with a bright yellow flame.

When seasoned well anything that fits in the stove will burn well if place on a nice bed of coals. It's pretty light. The limbs burn well and don't need splitting.

My splitter can split it two ways but not four ways.

I'd not cut it for firewood but if I was charging for the removal I'll take it home for the woodstove. It would be great for a wood boiler.

My splitter is a 8lb splitting maul and gum is impossible to split in my case i can use sledgehammers and metal splitting wedges but that is a ton of work.

Well I am glad you got through it without problems. In many cases yard trees ruin chains

So far i have only found metal embedded trees in fence rows.

I seem to have more luck than most. I use mostly yard trees for firewood AND for milling. Hit a few things, of course, but certainly not enough to make me stop.
But I use a metal detector for my mill.

I have been lucky so far.

 

[thenne1713]

I learned "loan chainsaw" means OWNER be prepared to buy a new one with no compensation from the borrower, esp. if a relative

 

[jellyroll]

I learned "loan chainsaw" means OWNER be prepared to buy a new one with no compensation from the borrower, esp. if a relative

I don't have that problem.

 

[501Maico]

Thought I had slipped into the Twilight Zone when trying to split my first black gum before I knew it existed. My woods has its fair share and I still have a few small ones to drop and noodle. Another odd characteristic is it turns into a balsa wood likeness if killed and left standing. I did a basal bark treatment on one and a few years later it broke about 3' up from the base and fell over. Went to clean it up and it felt like there was nothing but air inside of the bark.

 

[unclemoustache]

I learned "loan chainsaw" means OWNER be prepared to buy a new one with no compensation from the borrower, esp. if a relative

I have a cheap Dolmar that I use for a loaner. Good chain and it starts all right, but low power. But it’s very smooth- really good anti-vibe on it. Don’t ever use it myself.

But I haven’t been asked in years anyway.
I will never again loan out a good saw (to someone I don’t trust). And I have some very good friends I don’t trust. Perhaps one of my closest friends is really hard on tools and machinery, particularly skids and tractors.

 

[ElevatorGuy]

Not sure if black gum is much different than the sweet gum we have here but I don’t keep it. My 30 ton splitter has zero issue splitting it but it’s not worth my time. I give them all to a buddy.

 

[Del_]

Not sure if black gum is much different than the sweet gum we have here but I don’t keep it. My 30 ton splitter has zero issue splitting it but it’s not worth my time. I give them all to a buddy.

Black gum is much more difficult to split than sweet gum. Black gum really doesn't split, the splitter just cuts through it with it's wedge.

https://www.google.com/search?q=nys...rome..69i57.5475j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidambar_styraciflua

 

[JD Guy]

We had a pro come take down a huge (47”DBH) sweet gum that was close enough to our barn/machine shed that I didn’t feel comfortable with doing it. I had him grind up all of the smaller limbs and cut the remainder into 6 ft lengths (easily divisible by 18” ). When he was on his last cut about 5 feet up from the butt he hit metal and just said it was better on that cut than an earlier one. The tree had obviously been there a long time and there was (is) no telling what may be in there.

I am super happy that the tree is down as I was SOOOOO tired of dealing with those DanG sweet gum balls every spring and fall

We do split and burn some sweet gum but usually for quick heat and not for long, or to get a fire going.