So I've been working on some formerly standing dead red oak. The sap wood is completely punky and soaking wet, so I've been trying to trim it off with the splitter and/or an axe. So, what do all of you do in this situation, trim or just ignore? It sure slows me down alot.
It'll dry. Just keep it top covered. If it comes off splitting that's great, but I don't make special effort to take it off.
When I run into the punky stuff that is still attached, I remove it with a hand axe or the like. It is annoying and time consuming. If I can't salvage a large enough piece of wood after the punk is removed, it goes straight to the burn pit for bon fires. All the punk that is removed also goes to the pit. If I am at home and a piece turns up in the pile that I didn't catch before hand, it goes into the OWB as is.
That stuff makes a mess when dry. I tend to pass that stuff up. If you can wait long enough it will rot off in the woods and leave some nice wood behind. I have a couple logs that I cut a while ago and they got punky on me. Going to set them up off the ground and hopefully I'll still get some usable stuff once the sapwood is gone.
As long as the splits that have that punk are dried out, I don't mind it. But my stove is in the basement(not finished), so I don't care about any scrappy mess...just sweep it up when done. But it appears your stove is in the finished part of the house, so the mess might be detracting.
I don't like punky sapwood either. I usually find it in a red oak trunk. The last one I processed like this, I used the chainsaw and sawed most of it off the quartered rounds. It is time consuming but worth it to me. I also am retired and have plenty of time on my hands ha ha
Get the bark off. When that sapwood gets punky like that on Red Oak the bark will be hiding all manner of bug grubs. Once the bark is off it's not a problem. The sapwood will dry out. And, yes, it really does slow down things.
I usually pass now when there is that much punk although I have had a bunch in my stacks over the years. Trim what you can and as others have said, it will dry out if top covered well. Not many BTU's in that punk and it does tend to make a mess in the house.
Built in kindling! I usually just split and stack it. Top covered of course. Bang it together good when moving it and all is good. What doesn't fall off in moving amd banging helps the fire get rolling better!!
90% of the trees I cut are dead standing Red Oak with some degree of punk sap wood. Most of it is an inch or less but some close to what you have there. I split it stack it and top cover it and it's good to go by next season. To keep from messing up the stove area I bought a nice little handy log bag to bring the punky stuff (90% if my wood) to the stove area. It's seems to me you are doing a lot of extra work by cleaning it for no gain. That's the log bag on the left .
I burn it. The shoulder stove is in the house. I load wood for that into a large tote on a furniture dolly/cart by the door and roll into room with stove. The wood room for the big furnace doesn't matter. Cement floor sweeps up easy.
I took a large red oak like that several years ago with the outer 4" of the trunk punky. At the time I didn't know what it would do, so I knocked off the punk with a Fiskars and let it dry. That punky wood dries so that it'll almost light with just a match! If I went through it all again, I probably wouldn't bother to knock off the punk, I'd just split the rounds like I normally would and give it a couple/few years to dry.
Thanks for the inputs. I have several dozen large standings dead reds in my woods that need to be C/S/S down the road. BTW, the photo is of the worst case. Most of it is only around an inch.
I'm working some red oak with punk now. If the punk is more than an inch I'll stack it out by the road for someone in need. I come across good scrounges and I'm getting pretty far ahead so I can now afford to be more picky. The oak rounds are easily 36 to 40 inches across so there's lots of good heartwood for me. I figure by giving away the other stuff that the good wood karma will keep coming to me. This current red oak scrounge yielded me about 2/3 of a cord. I've stacked about half a face cord by the road in stages and it's always gone in hours. If it was my first year burning I'd have probably kept it all.
A little is okay but when there is as much as pictured, many times I'll throw the whole chunk out but other times I'll trim some of the punk. It really does make a mess that I don't like and there is not that much heat in the stuff and I am not hurting for firewood. In addition, I'd rather burn good stuff than junk.
I get a lot of that type wood. I typically run the splitter through the wood about an inch into the good part of the log. Doing this usually allows it to split cleanly. The punky split goes in the pile with the poplar for shoulder season, and the good part of the log goes into the three year plan stack. Nothing is wasted.
Right now, I keep it all, but I reserve the stuff with punk for the day's that are not so cold. Kept under top cover, it will dry out.
