I pretty regularly cut into 30+ inch Doug Fir. The biggest I ever cut was a 52 inch Cottonwood at a friend's house in Lakewood. It was a team effort. That was probably around 2006? I didn't take the wood though. Too big to mess with.
The recent 42" DBH oak reminded me that that is too big for me to enjoy. Oak is dense and my back doesn't enjoy long cuts (time-wise) and maneuvering large rounds isn't fun. At my age anyway. I mean, heck, 30" to 36" is big enough! And the other factor is having plenty wood to scrounge for awhile, all I have to do is go get it. Getting cool enough soon.
Makes you wonder what was wrong with a log that that for them to leave it behind! That’s a lot of hours and a lot of work splitting. How long did campinspecter have into it?
Like it has been mentioned depends on species and location. I'll add it also depends on my current scrounging situation. Not any good scrounges, then more likely to tackle it. Also depends how I feel physically and mentally.
That is some big stuff and lots of heavy work involved. Here are a couple trees that got tore up at a couple of our GTG. The first one is red oak and the second one is white oak. My memory is not as good any more but I am thinking this was 62 or 63" at the stump. Below is a different tree. Not quite as big in diameter but huge. This was cut in 2019 and I will probably burn just a little bit from this tree this coming winter.
The log was wind shook so it wouldn't make lumber. If you look at the end grain, you will see that some of the layers are starting to separate. With the winch and the wood splitter, it probably didn't take as long to get a truck load as it has been for the alder he has been harvesting lately. The trip out to the site and back took longer than the processing of each load. I posted the alder harvest in this thread Firewood Morning
These are as big as I want to mess with. 43"ish. Big enough that my 24" bar with the big dogs didn't quite cut all the way through. Had to finish several cuts in the center with an old whipsaw that I have. I had to turn the splitter vertical (shhh, don't tell anyone!) to process these into manageable bolts that would work in the proper horizontal configuration.
This one I did for my SIL was 50" x 40". This Oak was a biggun' as well. If I recall correctly this one was around 52". I think it was a Tulip Poplar.
Seems everyone is like me in that we take jobs based on current inventory. With all the SS wood I have on hand plus all the ash coming down, I guess I’m not that hungry. There were years before I was a proper hoarder when I would have gotten every splinter of this oak. It doesn’t help my motivation to look at this sweet pile of 95% BL a stones throw away from Mike’s metal fest.
That’s funny, I remember dealing with giant cottonwoods at our first house in Lakewood (Alameda/Sheridan) back in 2009 when I first started burning. Had a few tree services that would dump their wood in my drive way. That usually involved giant 40”+, sopping wet cottonwood rounds. Sometimes giant silver maple. Totally blocking the driveway until I noodled them with an old 026 with a 18” b&c haha. Did score a lot of wood back in those days. I prefer to stay 36” max these days. 24” is perfect IMO. And no giant cottonwood rounds lol.
