Couple of days ago, two tornadoes here. Soon as my phone warning signal hit, I peeped outside my door and holy cow, the huge trees around my house were swirling like a huge vortex. I called the dog and we hit the bathroom. It didn't hit here but it was certainly violent, got my attention! But within five miles, two touchdowns confirmed. Seems to happen a lot more than when I grew up. Went out to my land and had a few casualties. This sweetgum bit the dust. Appeared to be totally healthy but its stump had some rot. Fell right across my trail. My ms400 bucked enough to clear it. I am going to let this sit a few months and then split it, believe it or not. Testing a theory, lol. Now to upload pics through Tapatalk...
Good luck splitting. I hand split and seem to remember it was easier to split right away. I've had them sit before and given up.
Glad you are safe Bill and your place wasn't damaged other than the trees. Those storms are scary for sure. I avoid gum at all costs. Be sure to follow up on your splitting experiment.
I have so many sweetgums on my land, I want to thin some. Would be nice if it could be used as firewood. I have looked into this before but recently, I spent quite a bit of time digging. I found a number of people who did split it, even with video, and I found a number of people who burned it and said it was fine. Like a shoulder season wood. No complaints about any odor. (Lack of negatives is new to me regarding sweetgum.) So, I felled a couple of small ones and also bucked one that had been down a few months. The fresh ones, I split just fine with the hydraulic splitter but it tore badly. Not as bad as elm. (And, yep, the secret to elm is split it when the bark falls off after it's dead.) As for the one not so fresh, it split better. So, I am going to experiment on large rounds like these. I have a lot of black gum, too. These two species are not closely related. But I recall one time I found some large, fresh black gum rounds at the dump and hauled them home. Didn't know what they were. Sheesh, really could not even split them with hydraulics. I gave up and hauled them back, lol. I am still researching ways to log large sweetgum and black gum logs out of my land. Without hiring a logger because I fear there would be too much collateral damage. I had a logger come by a few days ago and he concurs. At this time, a log arch might work. Just not sure how much work it would be and if it would be worth it. (Only reason to log them out is for firewood or sell the logs, if there is a market at that time.) Other options are fell them or girdle them and let them fall on their own. This would be for 'crop tree release,' to thin around desired trees, such as perfect white oaks. And other desirables.
Any sweet gum score is a good score because it's one less dropping those spiky balls everywhere. I think the frayed splits you get from it burn really well to start the fire with. It's one of 3 or 4 trees I have no guilt in cutting down live and healthy. Nice score.
We burn sweet gum but mostly to get even with it. It burns fine when dry, just leaves a lot of ash and not coals. Yes, it’s good shoulder season or for starting the woodstove up. As for splitting, it’s a PITA either way but worse if it’s left out too long. Splits “easier” (a relative term) when fresh. Also figured out that if you start splitting the outer edge of the rounds it works better than the conventional down the center first process. Also keep your hatchet close by. It’ll come in handy Haven’t split any elm, don’t think we have any here so don’t have any comparison.
It would have been hard for me to not just push or drag it into the woods and let it rot. Miserable stuff to deal with.
If you can get in with a mill, that would be best. We did a clearing job, hauled the big gum...>10" dia , 11-12' long to a local mill. Got $55/ton for it. Over $250 a load... 2nd load
T.Jeff Veal thanks much for your info and pics! If you could answer any of this, it's sure appreciated... I would like to ask... What kind of mill was this... small operation or large mill? Do you know what they were to do with it? How many trees made the loads? How long did you cut them? Did they have a minimum/maximum diameter they'd take? Did you load with a FEL grapple on a tractor? It appears you are able to deftly load them, I don't see a smashed-up trailer, lol! Your info is invaluable to me, as I have been researching this for a long time with loggers and foresters. My take has been that doing what you did would be my best choice IF I had the equipment. And helper! I'd have to buy a grapple and dump trailer. And get the logs out of the woods by skidding or a log arch. And widen and improve my trails! I could get it logged but 'too much' collateral damage is the concern. Profit is not the driver here. Many days, I consider forgetting about it all, lol. I love being the woods and working with trees but I'm aging and it's pretty overwhelming. If I had a reliable, inventive worker I'd probably already have been all over it. I may have to downsize my plans and just keep doing a lot of it alone but I'm not giving up yet. The issue with sweetgum and lumber is warping. Most of the ones who deal with it do so due to its attractive wood.
