From what I can tell there’s not a lot of strength to the wood. Sections where the bittersweet strangled it don’t split well. They break across the grain like punky ash does sometimes. Those areas are alive and well it just seems it’s easier for the wood to snap cross grain than follow major curves. Brad is wise to leave the gnarly sections behind. Straight or nothing.
Never entered my mind. Went unnoticed I guess. Had a video of TOH coming down. Yeah they seem to let go pretty fast.
Nice. I have a my grandfather's grandfather's (my gre. gre. grandfather's) froe that needs something straight and easy to learn cutting some shakes! This looks like the ticket.
Seems like there is a lot of TOH hate on here. I actually like burning the stuff. It’s easy for me to find in the city. It’s invasive, so everyone is trying to get rid of it. I find that it burns pretty well in my stoves. I go through about a cord of it per year. If you look it up, it’s pretty high on the btu scale.
When I was researching it I couldn’t find a btu number on it. Care to share? I have t had any complaints about its burning. Burns like Tulip.
This chart is in btu’s per pound. But I’d imagine it’s similar to per cord. https://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/va/Ailanthus_Control.pdf Page 10 is where I found the chart. Pretty cool site.
It does burn hot in my experience. When well seasoned it burns really clean. It’s also up there with some heavy hitters btu-wise.
Our property has a lot of tree of heaven. I find joy in cutting it down and turning it into firewood. When dried properly it does the job for me!
