Drove by this pile of honey locust several times last week. Stopped and got the okay to cut and take. Normally I wouldn't bother with such a small amount but HL a rare score for me so the little kid on Christmas morning hoarder in me comes out. Cut and loaded yesterday. I thanked the lady and she asks "Do you want the rest of the tree"? Turns out an arborist friend who does work on the side is slowly taking it down. Supposedly coming Monday to take the rest down. We all know what my answer was! Stay tuned. Split right off the truck at storage.
And here I thought you were busting my stones last night when you texted me saying the site was down and it was killing you that you couldn't share your epic HL score
Speaking of Honey Locust... I skidded 3 HL tops over to the south meadow and cut them at 21". I'll have to split some of it yet, but these are fairly well seasoned as they've been down out in the woods about 4 years. They'll still have to wait a year before going in the stove. There's about half a cord from these tops. The trunks of these were cut up for fence posts down in the steer pastures. I have TONs more HL either down or girdled. I ran the MS250 and a 445 that I ported for a buddy. I fought the carb on that 445 for a while but finally got it where it runs pretty good. Both of these saws are pretty good firewooders but I normally reach for bigger saws for anything over 8". Some of these are 12" and over.
The heartwood is very rot resistant? I'd like to save a log or two to mill. There was one dead limb that looked like your rounds. First time I've bucked dead HL. Plenty of landscape trees around here but seldom do I score any.
From what I understand the heartwood is as or nearly as rot resistant as Black Locust which was always sought out around here by the old timer farmers for fence posts. I know I've taken a few out here that were originally put in back in 1952 when this farm was a cattle operation that were still in good shape and holding up fence just fine. Most of the metal T-posts are either fallen over and many are mostly gone. The Locust corner posts from that era are all still looking pretty good. I'm not sure if the "domesticated" Honey Locust or Yellow Locust are as rot resistant but I know the thornless varieties can be much easier to work with. Once you get used to working around the thorny ones and know how to avoid issues, they're really not much different than processing regular firewood. Quartersawn Honey Locust is very nice looking wood. Ray flecks similar in look to oaks, but usually smaller finer texture to it with a pink to red tint.
Awesome!!! I would more than likely never take on another honey locust to csm but I’d imagine a band mill would plow right through. Sure does make some nice boards! Hope you get the chance to do that. Sure is some heavy chit. Transporting nice size log might be difficult, any strategy yet? Any idea on the reason for take down?
HEAVIEST wood I've ever encountered. I thought of the one big log pictured but truck wasnt empty. I told the lady to tell him to leave in long lengths for me to cut. Maybe a log or two will be decent mill fodder.
She says tree was hit by lightning IIRC. There was a couple smaller limbs that were dead, but IMO tree was healthy. Probably a yard planting from 50+ years ago. To load a mill log I'll get it parallel to the truck. Slowly lift one end back and forth onto props like stairs (limbs, shorts cookies, rounds etc) until its higher than the tailboard. Back truck under edge of log. Lift low end of log and slide into truck. Tried that technique with the katsura log back in the early Fall and it worked like a charm. Luckily here there is room to do that and its flat ground. Last big log was a cedar (16" and 9.5' long) that buzz-saw and I finagled onto his trailer a couple months back. Luckily that was very close to his place. If I were to scrounge mill logs all the time I'd have a winch and pulley sort of like jo191145's set up.
Buy a hitch from TSC, pound it into the log face, drag it up on some sort of wheels, hook to truck and go. .... That's a lot of tree!
When Brad says a lot, he means a LOT! That's a big tree, can't wait to see what the saw log(s) will look like. Nice score!
