Big wood

Here's the 090 at work in "BIG WOOD".

greenguy2 said:

Does this qualify for "BIG WOOD"? 090 Stihl w/ 50 inch bar.

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Yes that qualifies for big wood.:fing32: That also qualifies for Big Saw:trink39:

So what's up with the handle on the end of the bar? It looks like it would get in the way but work good for lining up notches and felling cuts with a helper.

Team_Green said:

Green Guy.. Nice pics.. Love the fire wood . err outside work table.. I'm not sure what all i would do with rounds that big.. Be a shame to cut up into fire wood.

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For this project we had a skid steer, an excavator and several Ford dually strokers with goose neck trailers to haul the wood away. One section was 10 feet long, that was cut into boards, the rest as you see was for firewood.. This was the second project for the "BIG SAW". I currently have a 53 inch diameter maple that was removed from Main Street in downtown Nichols,NY. Haven't counted the rings yet, but it has to be 200 years old! Haven't found anyone interested in any slices of the old maple, so it will go to firewood.

greenguy2 said:

For this project we had a skid steer, an excavator and several Ford dually strokers with goose neck trailers to haul the wood away. One section was 10 feet long, that was cut into boards, the rest as you see was for firewood.. This was the second project for the "BIG SAW". I currently have a 53 inch diameter maple that was removed from Main Street in downtown Nichols,NY. Haven't counted the rings yet, but it has to be 200 years old! Haven't found anyone interested in any slices of the old maple, so it will go to firewood.

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Wow! That's a big maple. I wish I were closer to you because I would love to have some of that lumber. Is there a sawmill close that might be willing to buy it from you?

fishcatchinman,
The guy that dumped the maple in my field had cut it in 5- 6 foot lengths, plus it has hardware in it, I found it!!! Do you know how many teeth on a 50 inch bar length? A LOT! So , regrettably it isn't suitable for lumber. The same guy did dump a huge pine also, my dad has a guy coming with a portable ban saw to make boards.

greenguy2 said:

fishcatchinman,
The guy that dumped the maple in my field had cut it in 5- 6 foot lengths, plus it has hardware in it, I found it!!! Do you know how many teeth on a 50 inch bar length? A LOT! So , regrettably it isn't suitable for lumber. The same guy did dump a huge pine also, my dad has a guy coming with a portable ban saw to make boards.

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Yeah, it's too bad that someone put nails, wire, etc in that tree. Totally ruins the wood. When the guy finishes sawing up that huge pine send him to Alabama, I have a really nice big red oak that I need to get sawed up. :fing32:

No skidder handy, in fact, not even a full size tractor. Moved these the old fashioned way, a little fall in the contour of the ground here, a stout hickory handled Peavey Cant Hook, and a lot of grunting. But, then I got to climb up on one and pose for the picture. This was a 42" poplar, and not worth bucking and splitting for firewood, so I moved it out of the way, and into the woods where it will gradually dispose of itself.

Jere39 said:

No skidder handy, in fact, not even a full size tractor. Moved these the old fashioned way, a little fall in the contour of the ground here, a stout hickory handled Peavey Cant Hook, and a lot of grunting. But, then I got to climb up on one and pose for the picture. This was a 42" poplar, and not worth bucking and splitting for firewood, so I moved it out of the way, and into the woods where it will gradually dispose of itself.

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Very manly pose there Jere 39.:thThumbsU:howdy:

I just re-built the can't hook I picked up for $20 off Craigslist. Can't hooks seem to have become a thing of the past. Very underated log handling tool in my opinion. I don't know if my "fixes" will work. If they don't I'll buy a quality one from Log Rite.







BTW, the stainless steel bottles in the back are going to be for chainsaw gas. Gottem for 3 for $10 @ Walgreens.:fing32::trink40:

c5rulz said:

I hauled this home yesterday. I was only able to get 18 pieces on a 6'x10' trailer.

Fiskars X27 handled this effortlessly. The Makita 6401 is a dream in big wood.:

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I got a bunch like that this fall when the power company dropped a mess of huge hard maples and red oaks on my property. Some of them were 13 feet around. For the "smaller pieces" I rolled them up a plank into the back of my truck. For the bigger pieces - I drove my tractor and splitter into the woods and split right there. I cut them all up also with a Makita 6401 with a 20" bar and my Stihl 045 Super with a 32" bar.

We still have many red oak and hard maples that measure 13.5 feet around. I prefer to leave them standing - but when they fall I cut them up, split them up and burn them. Also have a few huge Shagbark Hickories that seem to date to 1780. We had a size-age-region calculation charge.











Here's a maple that fell down recently . . .



Shagbark Hickory that dates to 1780 . .

I'm not sure I've ever seen a shagbark hickory that large before!

I don't know how I missed this thread, but I just read through it and found it fascinating. You guys are tackling some much larger wood than me with my 16" Poulan. But I have just about convinced myself to get that Fiskers splitting axe.

UrbanTractor said:

I'm not sure I've ever seen a shagbark hickory that large before!

I don't know how I missed this thread, but I just read through it and found it fascinating. You guys are tackling some much larger wood than me with my 16" Poulan. But I have just about convinced myself to get that Fiskers splitting axe.

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Go for it, you'll be glad you did, twice the sawing, but half the splitting:

Jere39 said:

Go for it, you'll be glad you did, twice the sawing, but half the splitting:

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It that a tulip-poplar in the photo? In my area of central New York, they are prone to splitting right down the middle (like in the photo). Here - all the poplars are considered nuisance woods. They grow fast and are shallow rooted. Whenever we get a big wind storm, I'll find a bunch down and they're basically useless for firewood. Last spring, I had over 50 huge poplars come down like dominos. I hate wasting chainsaw gas on them since they're not worth saving and burning. I've got 80 acres here and 3/4 of it is hard maple, white ash, red oak, pignut hickory, shag bark hickory, yellow birch, hemlock, and red maple. The other 1/4 is poplar.


Odd thing though - I've also own woods in northern Michigan. There - poplar (AKA "popple") is highly regarded as a cash tree. Loggers often clear cut lots and run the smaller trees through a chipper and then sell the chips to the local mills (to make OSB). Larger poplars are sawed into rough framing lumber. I went to a local mill to get some rough framing lumber and all they had was poplar or scotch pine. I passed and bought some KD stuff at Home Depot. Maybe I'm spoiled. Here in New York our rough lumber tends to be Eastern Hemlock and is pretty tough.

jdemaris said:

It that a tulip-poplar in the photo? In my area of central New York, they are prone to splitting right down the middle (like in the photo). Here - all the poplars are considered nuisance woods. . . ..

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The split tree is a nice Red Oak, as are about 90% of the trees in my woods. A mix of hickory, beech in there to, along the edges are a couple birch, wild cherry, walnut, and maple. The picture of me earlier in the thread leaning on a Cant Hook is while standing on a large tulip poplar that had died and I was disposing of it in large chunks, to save on chainsaw fuel.

And to clarify in case it wasn't as obvious as I hoped. I did not split that live Red Oak, mother nature in the form of our October snow storm did, from crown to ground. Unfortunately, it is pretty dangerously snagged now, so my plan is to wait for mother nature to finsh the job, and bring her the rest of the way down,

Jere39 said:

The split tree is a nice Red Oak, as are about 90% of the trees in my woods.,

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It's unusual for a Red or White Oak to split down the middle like that, top to bottom. At least in any area I've been around. Tulip Poplars are know for it.
Was it by lightning or just gravity and a flaw in the grain?

Half the wood I cut is red oak and it usually takes two seasons to dry properly in this part of NY. I try to mix with white ash and red maple since they dry much faster.

Not sure what part of NY State you are in, but at the end of October we had about 8" of very wet heavy snow. The trees were all still leaved out from the summer, so the canapies were over-loaded. That was bad enough, then the winds came and cleared out the weather, but absolutely devastated the woods. This particular Oak had a nice even distribution of limbs and each side just over loaded. I lost electric for several days, lost dozens of large trees, and hundreds of tree tops. Wife and I slept in the basement that first night, it sounded like artillery barrage as the trees snapped, fell and boomed shaking the ground. Worst storm damage in this area since June 1972 Hurricane Agnes.

Though not as unusual, here is the results on a nice 3 trunk clump. My buddy left this tree stand mid-day when the winds were howling. Seemed likely no deer would be moving in that weather anyway, and he was lucky to miss out on a good E-ticket ride when this baby split:

jdemaris said:

I cut them all up also with a Makita 6401 with a 20" bar and my Stihl 045 Super with a 32" bar.

We still have many red oak and hard maples that measure 13.5 feet around. I prefer to leave them standing - but when they fall I cut them up, split them up and burn them. Also have a few huge Shagbark Hickories that seem to date to 1780. We had a size-age-region calculation charge.

Shagbark Hickory that dates to 1780 . .

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That is a dandy of shagbark hickory. One of the biggest I have seen. Pretty hard on chain?

How are you liking the 6401? I am working on another used one for a 79cc big bore upgrade.:howdy: