I’ve been cutting and noodling a little bit of that load of pin oak I got the other day.those 40-36 inch rounds are ridiculously heavy.after rolling a few by myself where I can noodle them and clean up the noodles easier,I thought how much does this dang thing weigh?after a quick check on the green log chart I found out a one foot section of 36 inch diameter red oak weighs 448 lbs.(didn’t see a number for pin oak but I assume it is similar.i cut my rounds about 16 inches long so if you factor in the xtra 4 inches of length of the one foot number you’re looking at about 600 lbs per green round!that is crazy!
That's the big leagues right there. It's just about all one man can handle wrestling them alone. Biggest I've messed with was about 36" at the root flare, and no way I'd go out of my way looking for more that size. Still, you'll get some awesome wood from that behemoth.
I had to used the loader on my BX 2660 to move some red oak I had that size and a bit bigger. I only pushed them up to the splitter with the tractor, didn't try to pick them up with it. 5 years later it was great heat with very little ash. Hoard on brother!
You can imagine what it was like working in the woods and in sawmills with no hydraulics. I did that back in the 50's but probably did lots of damage to my body that I am paying for now. Back then we mostly moved logs with cant hooks, including rolling logs onto the carriage and then flipping them as they were sawed. Still, I enjoyed the work then as I was young and foolish; very foolish.
They sure are heavy. I was moving some seasoned splits today and there was some pin oak mixed in. Noticeably heavier than the rest even though split a little smaller and drying since April of 2023. The rest of the wood is just over a year. One of the biggest logs I've bucked was a three foot diameter pin oak. Not fun to process. 36" bar on the saw
Seems like a lot of effort to noodle a round that is generally easily splittable like red oak. I usually quarter the big rounds with the fiskars. If it’s a challenge, I’ll break out a wedge and hammer. Was there a bunch of metal in that tree? Or was something metal just resting against it? Those dark spots would make me worry about my chain…
Mine had a boatload of metal and I sectioned it up with the Isocore and/or X27. I normally wont noodle oak unless its a gnarly crotch section. Same holds true for most other woods. A few whacks and if it splits easily I continue. If not I noodle away.
Ain’t nothin’ but a thang… Still contemplating what to do with these monsters. I’m thinking about making tables out of them. But still valid…. They are pretty much maxing the machines lifting capacity. The bigger one won’t even fit the grapple.
My Husky’s don’t seem to have much trouble chewing through the behemoth’s like you are doing. And I ain’t afraid of a little hard work. Git er done!!
