Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[LondonNeil]

Ahhhhhh, I knew our syc is not the same as yours, but didn't know yours is London plane. Aka lace wood? It's a super common tree in parks and road sides but not in private gardens. Planted by the Victorians, our smog was clogging pores and suffocating most trees but plane sheds is bark and hence keeps pores open, and some micrscopic hairs on the leaf do something similar. It's rare as firewood as council tree workers don't leave the wood behind, I thought it was supposed to be fairly good though. I've heard it's got awesome grain pattern (hence the aka) so great for furniture

Yes English is a white oak. I split small and dry it ok in 2, am going to try the stuff stacked out front, against the south facing house wall, after one, but it dries far slower than most woods. Cutting and splitting big, 2 minimum I would think.
I've always doubted the wood database figure, other databases seem to put it at about 0.7-0.75 specific gravity seasoned. It's denser than ash.

 

[LondonNeil]

Jeez!, out of curiosity i just looked at the price of firewood from a very very large UK supplier. I guess with gas and oil going up they follow. ~£135/m³ !! That's over $600/cord. At that price I've got 3 to 3.5 grand in my garden! I don't feel guilty about ordering my dolmakita now..... If it ever arrives it'll earn it's keep fairly fast. Little Icklewoo, (the 180) has done well!

 

[Cowboy254]

Posted pic pg 1559 post #31166
I now have 1 cord of fresh pine and 1 cord of fresh oak ready to split and stack.

That's 20 pages ago. You can't expect me to remember that!

But I remember the pine. How come I remember the pine but not the oak?

 

[rarefish383]

Yes. But I meant when dry.

I'll have to find one and cut a limb off and dry a chunk out and see if it floats?

Neil, I guess it burns OK. I only tried it one time in the 55 gallon drum stove we built in the work shop. It was very dry, burned quick and hot, not many ashes. We are just blessed with so many better woods, we don't bother with it.

 

[Cowboy254]

Jeez!, out of curiosity i just looked at the price of firewood from a very very large UK supplier. I guess with gas and oil going up they follow. ~£135/m³ !! That's over $600/cord. At that price I've got 3 to 3.5 grand in my garden! I don't feel guilty about ordering my dolmakita now..... If it ever arrives it'll earn it's keep fairly fast. Little Icklewoo, (the 180) has done well!

I think that's comparable with red gum (900kg/m3 - between locust and hedge for northerners) in capital cities here. Much better locally, I bought a cube of redgum for A$150 or mebbe 75 quid UK a few years ago for open fire ambiance, but if they have to truck it 200-300+km to Melbourne, well....

If your tree guy can keep you supplied in wood and Londonwife doesn't find out about the saws, you're in business!

 

[svk]

Guess I jinxed myself.

After we left I got a picture of this in my yard. Lost another about this size on the lawn. Could definitely have been worse!

Cabin is still without power.

 

[MustangMike]

The pic of that leaf looks like our White Oak, but the bark on that tree is nothing like it. However, based on the leaf, it is in the "White Oak Family".

White Oak is often used for making wine barrels and ships. It is not porous like Red Oak, and will dry very slowly, but when dry it should have VG BTUs. Keep us posted.

All of our trees in the White Oak Family (includes Chestnut/aka Rock Oak) are dense and good burners.

 

[Jeffkrib]

Keep reading about Sycamore trees, just looked it up, we have them here too. I remember we had them on the grounds of my high school, I recall some kids putting the dry seed balls down the back of other peoples shirts. They were mega itchy like fibre glass.

 

[chipper1]

Wowsers! We call that ''coal" .Only ours is found undergound.

You need some spruce, . We all need some spruce from time to time, for those vibrant flames for quick heat or to cosy by with a cuddle partner.

Got me some Norway Spruce now, just gonna have to wait a while to harvest any big ones lol.
Friends family has a nursery that specializes in evergreens, they do millions of trees a year . They freeze them once they get to the desired size/size they sell to keep the sizes the same, when they reach 6 months they loose viability and they start throwing them out. We got over 200 trees this size for free all I had to do was drive 15 min to pick up said buddy, drive another 50 min to the warehouse and get them then reverse the trip. I still have a whole bunch left over, anyone want some .
From the main drive to the accessory drive.

From the accessory drive looking to the main drive.

From the accessory drive looking towards the house, same spot as the previous picture.
Where the trailers are is the future pole building site.

Extra trees, just over 200 in there, great scrounge, sure wish had more use for them.

 

[chipper1]

Guess I jinxed myself.

After we left I got a picture of this in my yard. Lost another about this size on the lawn. Could definitely have been worse!

Cabin is still without power.

View attachment 660426

Bummer Steve, do you burn that there.
Is it just high winds breaking them.

 

[svk]

Absolutely, I’ll probsbly just cut it up for the fire pit. It appears it uprooted from wind as it’s on the edge of the gravel driveway. But that stand does have hypoxylon canker as well which caused them to rot and break off at the spot of infection.

 

[LondonNeil]

The pic of that leaf looks like our White Oak, but the bark on that tree is nothing like it. However, based on the leaf, it is in the "White Oak Family".

White Oak is often used for making wine barrels and ships. It is not porous like Red Oak, and will dry very slowly, but when dry it should have VG BTUs. Keep us posted.

All of our trees in the White Oak Family (includes Chestnut/aka Rock Oak) are dense and good burners.

Ships. It's THE reason we are blessed with so much Oak, it's our most common woodland tree. You see we have always had a rather good navy (it's small these days though). We used to enjoy beating up the French, spanish, well anyone really but the French a good deal.... And the Spanish. Now king Henry VIII (the one that had 6 wives) was forward thinking in some respects beyond divorce, he spent money on ship building and our ship Wright's learnt to make hulls strong enough to withstand a French cannnon ball (or other nationality). It required many feet thick layers of Oak.... Lots and lots. Henry new Oak took 100 years to grow to maturity, more even for some long timbers and made the country plant Oak trees to secure our seafaring future. He wasn't too know about iron ships.

 

[panolo]

Picture of contraption, please. Ron

Not quite finished but with the hot days I wanted to test it. Should have shot a pic this AM but 71 outside and 94 inside. I had some of the material already so I maybe have $300 into it. The cattle panels and the green house film take up most of that at about $215 total.

 

[rwoods]

Thanks. Ron

 

[James Miller]

@Philbert Any thoughts on this old girl. Had it for a few years and said I'm gona set it up but never have.

 

[James Miller]

Not all scrounged wood goes in the fire. these cherry cookies finally had there day.

 

[svk]

Well I’m beat. Spent over 8 hours working on the wood pile at camp. Only split/noodled about a cord but burned at least two more cords of punky stuff from the pile. I put up lots of pics in the dedicated thread.

I haven’t drank in nearly 7 months. May need to crack one after I rehydrate.

 

[Philbert]

View attachment 660474 Any thoughts on this old girl. Had it for a few years and said I'm gona set it up but never have.

Never seen or used one. Looks a bit like the Foley grinders.

Philbert

 

[rarefish383]

Never seen or used one. Looks a bit like the Foley grinders.

Philbert

My first thought was a Foley-Belsaw also. I just did a search of the Bell Industries grinder. It seems that Bell Industries was a part of Bell Telephone, and went out of business in the early 60's. It said parts would be like hens teeth, few and far between.

 

[chipper1]

My first thought was a Foley-Belsaw also. I just did a search of the Bell Industries grinder. It seems that Bell Industries was a part of Bell Telephone, and went out of business in the early 60's. It said parts would be like hens teeth, few and far between.

I think it's the grinder that sends morse code to your friends saying bring your dull chains over, and don't forget the beer.