Greetings friends, been a while since I've been on here. Back with a wood ID. I responded to an ad this week claiming all red oak available on the ground to be bucked up and taken. I got there to see what I thought was oak, sugar maple and beech. These are the pics of what I first thought was red oak. No leaves on any branches, but the wood doesn't smell like oak at all. Has a sweeter more pleasant scent. Very heavy too. Any chance it's a hickory of some sort? I know some of you practically ONLY get red oak so you can spot it from a mile away but I've yet to ever get a substantial score of it so besides going by leaves I'm not too sharp on ID'ing it.
Good to see you back woody5506 The tight rings, flat bark ridges, and coloration say Pignut Hickory to me. At least a few of the rounds… I see maple under that round in your pics.
Thanks! I was disappointed it most likely wasn't oak until I considered hickory a possibility. Definitely scooped up some maple from the same house as well as beech.
Pignut is some gooder stuff. I mean it’s no Shag, but I feel it rivals RO any day. I will say I prefer to let Pig & Shag sit for two years over one.
Shag is more common around here but not often is it up for grabs. This will all go into my 3 year rotation. The whole deal was kind of sketchy. It was posted on fb marketplace with terrible pics that were super blurry, couldn't see a thing. The guy surprisingly called me back and claimed every tree was red oak but maybe one maple. I get there and it looks like someone just cut these big trees without trimming one branch, and the whole front yard is a gigantic mess of brush and wood. Not one other person was there cutting or scrounging in the two days I went.
All of FB is sketchy. Sometimes it gets the job done tho. Some photos of free wood amaze me. Photos taken through a screen door of some tree way in the back yard. It’s like geez at least take a little walk You going back for more?
I thought I had a free score this Saturday am. I saw a tree crew cutting a tree on my way home from work in town. We went out for dinner Friday night and I drove by scoping it out. The trunk was still stand despite 3 tree service trucks being there after work. I figured they'd have the trunk down. Nope. Just all branches cut and all stacked in uniform 16-18" rounds at the curb. I wasn't dressed for scrounging and I really couldn't have put that much in the bed anyways so I figured I'd go first thing on sat morning. Got there with the trailer Saturday am. All gone. It's Honey locust. So I'll watch and hopefully get the trunk wood when they get it down. That's a lot of wood burners on that street though, even silver maples that have been cut have been quickly scooped up. We'll see. At least you got some, and good wood too. How much did you get?
Went the first day after work totally unprepared and managed a few longer maple rounds into the truck as well as some 16" rounds. Everything else needed cutting so I brought my saw and stuff the next day after work and went to town. Took a while cutting that hickory and I really could have used a timberjack. So much mess to work around in that yard! I filled the truck though with hickory and beech. I might go back but I feel like I took most of the best stuff already. Funny how you mentioned your entire wood score was just gone the next day. I was paranoid this place would be picked over too but there was really zero evidence of it. One guy came up when I was loading my truck asking if he could take a tiny branch chunk from the yard lol, but besides that, no one else! It seems when free wood requires cutting, it keeps a lot of people away. I much prefer to do my own cutting anyway so it works out.
You done better...it is hickory. Heavy when green and heavy when dried. Ill take hickory over oak anyday. Even better when you can cut your own length!
Well, green oak is just as heavy IME! I think rounds are getting heavier anyhow as i age! Ive gotten into the habit of halving, quartering, etc. bigger rounds just for the ease of handling.
Yup! Not even quarters now . . . all the way down to finish size. If it comes to it I could roll rounds into the trailer. But I just don't want to hustle big pieces anymore. I've put the back out too many times, not going to chance a weeks' pain for a chunk of wood I could have split to safe sizes.
The splits are cleaner than any Hickory I’ve ever split, unless it has been standing dead and on the verge of punky. At that point there’s no color in the wood. The one split appears to have a center pith. Another observation is I don’t see the circle of dark spots that I see in Hickory wood.
