iron wood?

[mga]

have been cutting quite a few trees I thought for sure was iron wood. when cut, they look similar to this picture: dark brown center:



am I correct that this is iron wood? the damn stuff is very heavy and extremely stringy when split.

i'll have to take a picture of it and post it. i'll go out back tomorrow and grab a picture of it along with the bark.

 

[Rangerbait]

What's the bark look like? Looks kinda like Shagbark Hickory

 

[stumpy75]

Kind of hard to tell from your pic. As you said, you'll get more pics tomorrow, and that will help a lot. The few ironwood I've cut had light colored wood and did not have the dark center, but it's not a common tree in my area either.

 

[Mad Professor]

Ironwood makes great heads for big wooden mallets/beetles

 

[svk]

Would be good to see a pic of bark.

 

[T. Mainus]

Heavy and stringy sounds like Elm.

 

[mga]

Would be good to see a pic of bark.

I'll post one tomorrow. Too dark out there right now. I'm starting to think I may have been wrong all this time.

 

[mga]

ok here's some pix....
as I stated above, the wood is very heavy and dense.

 

[svk]

Elm

 

[GVS]

ok here's some pix....
as I stated above, the wood is very heavy and dense.

It does look like elm but I've never seen elm annual rings that spread out.

 

[twoclones]

I did some research on ironwood a while back and I found that "ironwood" is a common name for up to 25 different tree species having a reputation for hardness.

 

[lone wolf]

have been cutting quite a few trees I thought for sure was iron wood. when cut, they look similar to this picture: dark brown center:



am I correct that this is iron wood? the damn stuff is very heavy and extremely stringy when split.

i'll have to take a picture of it and post it. i'll go out back tomorrow and grab a picture of it along with the bark.

Any thorns on it?

 

[thor97]

Sure looks like siberian elm to me. Got real rough bark, stringy, and a dark center. The leaves will look just like american elm, only 1/3 the size. Very small leaves. It is very heavy when first cut, as it holds a lot of water. It will dry quickly and be very light. It is only marginal for firewood, doesn't throw a lot of heat. It was brought in in the 30's because it is very drought resistant. I've only cut ironwood once and it was a long time ago, but it seems to me it was very gray, extremely heavy(much more so than oak), and had very thin bark. (a lot like young hickory) But if it's free I wouldn't turn it down.

 

[Trapper_Pete]

I also think you have an elm there based on the bark

if you ask most people in north America near , north or east of the Mississippi what they are calling Iron wood is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrya_virginiana Hophornbeam or American Hophornbeam and has a grey shaggy but small grained bark , like a miniature shag bark hickory.

I find them most often in northern Wisconsin in rocky soil glacial shield also called Canadian shield , they don't get very big and often are choked out by the canopy and die an fall over because the roots are so shallow most I see here are 2-6 inches in diameter and generally strait they make nice poles if you need poles for something

they can be cut green with a saw as just a hard wood but when dry are much harder to cut and some say they throw sparks from their chain when cutting it dry

 

[mga]

thanks every one. good thing I didn't keep too much of it.

I was told it was iron wood by some one, however, when looking at iron wood photos I had my doubts.

lesson learned: always check here first! i'll use it for bon fires instead.

Any thorns on it?

no thorns.

 

[svk]

It is still decent stuff, but it is pretty water logged to start with.

 

[Trapper_Pete]

there is nothing wrong with burning elm at all , any free hardwood is good wood.

I burn all sorts of things , if it is dead , dying , damaged or Down that should be a new term 4D WOOD

I haven't found a would yet that didn't burn fine when dry

poplar , feels like paper it is so light when dry but ti still burns cheaper than oil or LP as long as it is free for the cutting.

 

[mga]

there is nothing wrong with burning elm at all , any free hardwood is good wood.

I burn all sorts of things , if it is dead , dying , damaged or Down that should be a new term 4D WOOD

I haven't found a would yet that didn't burn fine when dry

poplar , feels like paper it is so light when dry but ti still burns cheaper than oil or LP as long as it is free for the cutting.

true.

i'm just turning into a dreaded "wood snob"...always looking for the "top shelf" wood to burn. in the past two years I must have dropped over 150 trees, mostly ash, but oak and cherry and some hickory. I always keep the last three for myself.

tomorrow, i'm dropping two huge cherry trees and i'm eye balling a huge hickory as my next victim.

the ash trees we push into a huge pile for the wood scroungers to cut up.

 

[Trapper_Pete]

true.

i'm just turning into a dreaded "wood snob"...always looking for the "top shelf" wood to burn. in the past two years I must have dropped over 150 trees, mostly ash, but oak and cherry and some hickory. I always keep the last three for myself.

tomorrow, i'm dropping two huge cherry trees and i'm eye balling a huge hickory as my next victim.

the ash trees we push into a huge pile for the wood scroungers to cut up.

I don't take down that many , took down a hundred nice tall pines for the boy scouts in fall of 2014 a family was donating , was going to build a log cabin then ended up selling the logs and they built a picnic pavilion with the money when we all realized we didn't have the necessary time to build a log cabin they built the shelter in one weekend it took us about 5 Saturdays to get all those trees down and stacked my wife was going to kill me If I spent my whole summer building a cabin for the scouts.

spent 15 and 16 cleaning up stuff that came down in wind storms mostly had 90 mph strait line winds in 15

I think I have taken down about 25-30 for the year so far at the farm many are not that big most everything I have been cutting is maple , I don't really count the mulberry the big stuff seems to keep falling on it's own 2 big ones over the road this month , we have several more big maple that are hollow in the middle but right now they are standing so I need to deal with splitting all I have cut so far.

 

[mga]

if you do a log cabin, the bark has to be stripped away....right?