Black Locust Bark Volume

Three years ago i didnt know black locust existed. The bark fascinates me with its unmistakable deep twisty furrows on larger trees. Ive often wonder what percentage the bark represents on a split/stacked cord of wood. I sell both barkless and bark on options.
I split about two face cords of ten month old rounds that were cut green. The bark was falling off as i split and i removed what was frozen on.
Ive discussed this on here in the past so this will be an experiment...FHC way.
Rounds prior to splitting...two rows deep. Mound of splits with no bark. Mound of bark and in wheelbarrow.
I will "measure" bark by wheelbarrows full and do split counts as im very close to yield when i count splits.
Stay tuned for results. My guess was 10-15%

 

Air space is difficult to measure as the bark is no longer tight to wood, on one side. It's now not tight to anything on both sides. More loft, eh?

 

I recently brought some big BL logs home. Bark is crazy thick but comes off relatively easy. It had been cut for a year and a half. I was getting 8’ long sections of bark off. It was like carrying 2X10s to the burn pile. It’s kind of strong for bark. Cool study

 

My score from September was the same. Logs sat for a year and it came off easily. My normal MO is to split green wood with bark intact and stack that way. Sadly i have a mound of bark on BL splits from late last Winter that havent got stacked yet. Im thinking they will be barkless now.

 

I think the general accepted air volume in a stacked cord is 15%??? My barkless stacks are a lot tighter than bark on BL. Of course with my "jigsaw puzzle" stacks its less.
Have you ever scrounged any with the bark on Mike?

 

I save as much of it as possible. Great for starting fires and great for bring a bed of coals back to life.

 

I burned a piece in the firepit and PU. Its compost. I like ash, oak and sugar maple bark.

 

A few times.

I was referring to the air volume in your stack of bark, if you were going to track it.

 

Gotcha. Ill see how many times it fills with bark vs loads of splits. Gonna brave the cold and go shortly.

 

Years ago I used BL bark to boil 5gal of water, wish I had specifics on it but it generates some heat that's for sure!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

Sorry to hear of the fire you had in your pick-up buZZsaw BRAD

 

I disposed of the bark today. Five wheelbarrows full. I did compact it pretty good. Most went to fill a sinkhole and the tarp dumped in the woods. The splits should get stacked soon. So if bark was 10% that means 50 wheelbarrows of splits. Im guessing roughly 20.

 

An interesting conundrum! It is def thick bark.

 

I save the bark of BL for restarts and I'll toss it on SS wood. I've used it to top cover small stacks too.
BL does have an odor, I kind of enjoy the stinkiness of it. to me it means BTUs at work.

 

Well it came out to 15 or so wheelbarrows of splits to 5 of bark. I honestly lost count on the splits.
You can see the difference in the stacks for sure.
Bark on stack. Bark off stack. So the bark can represent up to 25% of the volume based on this FHC unscientific experiment. It also depends on the round size too as larger rounds have thick bark...up to 2" IME.

 

Was the bark covered before you burned it.. I feel like bark in general picks up moisture pretty easy. I take some bins of bark and set them in the shed for the next year and it works pretty nice as kindling.
Also, I think we give locust a bad rep for sniffing the splits fresh off the ground.. no doubt putrid off the ground and slimy, but well seasoned the smell is not bad. The wood is used for aging wines in, they just call it “acacia” in the wine barrel industry. It is a much more neutral flavor as compared to oak.

 

It was a single piece of bark from somewhere that ended up in the truck so one day when i was starting the fire for grilling i threw it on top and the smell was less than pleasant to this ol factory. Other FHC members have mentioned about the odor, others have said they didnt mind it. Had a wood customer burn a BL split in his fireplace and it stunk up his house.

I warn new customers of the potential smell when burning and would rather sell it to stove/insert owners.

 

buZZsaw and buzz-saw,
Have you guys milled any BL yet? I need to make some 16 ft. posts and curious how it mills. I've been told it's pretty tough stuff.
Thanks,
HD

 

We have. A couple times. Scroll back in the milling section and they are there. One log was green and the other two dead. I think the dead is tougher. The green log was too heavy for us to load and transport so cut into 5" logs and we struggled to load it. Had to hack off dome dark as it was close to the limits. I have it stickered here drying outside under cover.