dwasifar
ArboristSite Operative
Yeah, live and learn, I guess.
Son of a bee! New chain time
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dwasifar
ArboristSite Operative
Here are the results of that for the piece on the right in the original pic:
Judging from how some of those nails were bent while being driven in, I'd say the "kids' treehouse" theory is probably right.
The other piece went in the fire tonight, but I can't dig through the ashes until tomorrow.
safety chain, ick
I have seen those, they are neat.
I have a chain from a guy that kept jumping on him. Turns out that several of the rivets do not move smoothly so although it rolls around the bar OK at slow speeds it will jump quickly while under power. That one is going to @Philbert for a chain challenge.
Having been surprised even by trees in my own yard (where I have been for my whole life), whenever I do a yard tree I drop the tree and process the entire tree before I do the bucking cuts on the bottom ten feet of the trunk as this is where the nails and or other goodies would be located. Of course when dealing with scrounge, it is always a gamble.
Throw the chain away, not worth fooling with. Cutting wood is too hard of a job with a sharp good chain little long one that is damaged. if you cut long enough that probably won't be your last one. I don't like cutting yard trees that's on old homesteads. those trees are almost always full of metal.
Please take this with the best of intentions and no disrespect. You need to learn what it feels like when you hit metal. Someone else said you can "feel" it. They are right. When you are cutting a piece of wood and strike a nail like that the saw will jump, you can't miss it. My 100 plus CC saws with .404 chain will go through a nail like that pretty easy, but you definitely feel it and stop. To go through all of those nails you had to be leaning on it hard just to keep going. All of the teeth didn't fall off just as you finished the cut. By the time you hit the second nail it had to be dull, dull. If you had of pulled up at the first sign you would have saved your chain. I can't imagine what it was like trying to cut with half the teeth gone.I picked up a CL scrounge load today, mostly some sort of fruitwood but also a chunk of black walnut and a section of something big and unidentified that someone had already noodled into quarters. I'd have taken more of it because it looked good, and there was a lot of it lying around the site, but the fruitwood was closer and looked easier to handle.
Took it home, cut up the fruitwood, zip zap zip, no problem there, and then started noodling down that giant quarter of unidentified wood. By the time I got through it the saw wasn't cutting very fast at all. I thought, what kind of wood is this that dulls a blade so fast? So I took a closer look at the cut:
Son of a beeyotch!
After going through that many nails I'm pretty sure the chain is toast. I'll try to sharpen it anyway but somehow I don't think it's gonna work out.
Expensive free firewood, huh? At least now I know why nobody wants the other pieces.
dwasifar
ArboristSite Operative
No offense taken. You're absolutely right. I do plan to learn from my mistake here. I just didn't realize at the time what was happening, because this is the first time I've hit metal with the saw.
Another thing to look for, especially when cutting Oak, is Blue Stain on the ends of the log. If there is any Iron in the tree like nails, it will discolor the wood, and the metal will be in a direct line with the stain. If you want to do a test to see what it looks like, drive a wedge into a piece of Oak and leave it there for a couple days. Then finish splitting it and you will see the stain. If your bar jumps and makes a kind of tink sound, stop cutting and look for blue saw dust. I don't know of any other wood that stains from Iron as fast as Oak does. I think it has to do with the tannin in Oaks. Oak and Sumac are the only two I can think of that have tannin in them, coffee and tea too.
Save the chain for cutting stumps and roots, just sharpen what's left for teeth.
I have cut my share of metal. Yes it happens when you think all is good. Galvanized steel does not make much stain in Oak or other woods, but the blue stain is definitely some thing to be alert over. One time I found a cable with a hook sticking out of a Oak crotch. So I cut the crotch out and let it fall to the ground. With about ten wedges a come a long started to appear. After a couple of hours sure enough I had fifty year old come along. Thanks
