It’s not the first time I’ve heard people speak of this pleasant smell of cherry. I don’t get it. Yes cutting and splitting cherry smells great. Burning it’s atrocious IMO. I’ve done a lot of woodworking with cherry in the past. Table saw for instance. Smells wonderful as you cut. Get a board with stress in it and the side of the blade Begins to burn it. Yuck. Wonderful goes out the window
I've made candles out of several different species of wood. Just like using it in the stove, they all burn, some faster than others, some longer than others, but none of them burn wet... If you try the plunge cuts, I find it much easier and SAFER to do them while they are still part of the log and raised up to a comfortable working height. 5 Plunge cuts (4 from the end all the way into the doggs on the saw, then the last one at an upward angle near the bottom to remove the square plug and provide air flow) then I cut it off the log. Easy to light too by just dropping a piece of burning fat wood down the hole and off it goes.
I like the "kiln" idea. I just told Ms. buZZsaw what a great idea that is and she said if i did that she'd leave me. The white birch i scrounged was about the same size. I have to ask...what did Mrs. JimBear say when you did that?
No much to say other than how long was I going to be using the oven because she wanted to make some meatloaf & asked if it was safe & I was going to but the house down.
I believe White Birch can be cooked in the oven during the 12 days of Christmas in keeping with the Yule log tradition. Let’s see Ms Buzzsaw Scrooge her way out of that LOL PS, have a little coal on hand just in case she prevails.
Heres my attempt with a couple spruce rounds. Took one camping last Summer and tried to light it. Heres the link We Have Ignition...I hope! Took it to a family picnic a month later and it worked much better. Some charcoal brickettes from the grill got it going. Not much flame being spruce. The extra month in the hot sun on the deck helped dry it out.
I made a torch out of a Cherry round the other night it burned pretty well. 3/4” hole @ 14” deep then used an 1-1/2 spade bit to drill in perpendicular to the vertical hole. I fed it with a Super Cedar. Then remembered a Silver Maple that was taken down about 3 years ago to put in a low water crossing & cut a bunch of 12” dia. rounds out of it & fashioned up some candles from them. I sliced them in 1/8’s. I burned one tonight. I stuffed about 1/4 of a Super Cedar in the middle & lit it. It worked well & no lighter fluid needed.
A neighbor burns one of these almost every evening (either spruce or hemlock). His pattern is the same as yours but he lights it using a propane torch stuck in an opening at the bottom. Definitely smokes a lot during the initial ignition phase but they do burn just about all night.
Semi hollowed out Cherry, from ants. I just knocked the soft stuff out. I am assuming the occasional snap & crackle was some ants combusting. It had been down about a year, I took it down to cut some table centerpieces for a bridal shower one of the girls was putting on for a friend, then I left ant infested sections laying & forgot about them till I saw them when I was mowing hay. 1/4 of a super Cedar in the bottom , some kindling to fill the hole & an 1-1/2” air hole in the side. BINGO. No more breaking up hollow Cherry chunks anymore. This made a very nice flame & burned well for a couple hours. It was about 10” dia.
Just got home from our neighbor's birthday party. He turned 40. We had several swedish candles going along with the fire in the firepit. I never though to get any pictures. We had 5 hatchet targets set up and a good time was had by all.
I got to try t his looks like fun . the kids would have a field day with only one log doing the work .
