I find stands on our property every year. Most are strapped latter access. I don't have it posted so I struggle with being a hard arz. This is my favorite stand though. I'm sure the tree is riddled with nails. The carpet could use some maintenance.
I honestly cannot remember. This spike was a stand alone, along with 20 or 30 large nails. The tree was also over 3 feet in diameter. I will keep the blue vein in mind.
I've found cable, chain and spikes in the trees I get from a tree service. I think many times the people from where the tree come from have tried to have them saved for shade. Whoever tried to save them used the fore mentioned items to keep the trees from splitting, extending their usefulness. Eventually the trees get to a point where the tree service has to remove them. I'm very careful around crotches and splits. I still catch an anchor or nail occasionally.
Unreal! I've cut Live Oak before. It's got some serious weight to it. I bet it's 20-30% heavier than red oak. That tree actually had some scrap value.
At this point would you even consider splitting it?? Id say it would just be a bear to haul around plus with those tensioners driven in that far in the wood, you'd wonder how the wood would even split in those areas. Long time ago when I was just a kid and where my parents garage sits now used to just be a space with trees and some swings. We had this giant chain that held up the swings that were i believe railroad spiked into the tree. When they were taken down and split, the metal pieces were really in there. Im not sure if my dad told me one of the guys ruined his saw on one side of the chain since it was hard to tell where the spike was facing, it had been overtaken by the tree growth. In fact I remember splitting one piece with the metal and the pressure release kinda helped tear apart the wood away from the spike to reveal it. The chainlink was at least an inch in diameter and spaced about 15 feet across so it required some heavy tension. I believe this was done when the house was being built at first long before me so there was a lot of chain all around the trees. Made me wonder what its function really was for.
Now that I think of it, When I was a kid there was 18" square metal plate nailed to an oak on the side of a local road with the word "slow" painted on it. Over the years, the tree enveloped the sign, slowly. Maybe that's what it meant. There is no sign of the sign any longer accept a wide spot in the tree.
There are 2 trees that I put tree stands into. It has been long enough now that I am sure the metal is buried in them. No way would I touch either of those trees without a metal detector.
