buzz-saw and i were talking about how to preserve the color when i showed him the cookies this afternoon. Im wondering if some clear coat polyurethane, but with sun exposure it wouldnt matter.
My first ever scrounge was a bunch of box elder which at the time I thought was ash. Pretty terrible wood, but it was years ago and I can't even remember if I let it season for over a year. It's one of those woods I was very excited for to just be GONE! If you need the wood then take it. As the years have gone by I've become so picky that I don't even scrounge stuff that's less BTU's than ash, if I can help it and know what I'm actually taking. However, this is also because here in NY we are surrounded by prime hardwoods and the scrounges are plentiful. if I was in an area where that wasn't the case, I'd be taking anything I could get.
Because most of my wood gets sold, im looking for the quality of split it will produce. Being the first time ive ever cut the stuff i thought it was cool. If i harvested just for my own use id be a lot pickier about wood species.
Brought the hydro over and split for a couple hours. Have to noodle those big red maple rounds. Bundle wood splits. The rest to be split.
These rounds are rather gnarly being a yard tree and the splitter grunted on the few big rounds i put through it. Noodling gives at least one clean edge rather than a bunch of uglies.
brought the hydro back and split for an hour and a half until the rain started. Nice splits came back here for bundle wood inventory. Other splits going to my friends supply. Wild color. More there to split. Ill be back this week.
Yes- sell it cheap and/or shoulder season it. I burn these early fall and spring to conserve my good stuff. If you sell it, just make sure they understand it’s not the good stuff. People buy way worse from what I have seen on market place.
Nice splits got stacked for bundle wood mix in. I was splitting mostly the box elder as i needed to stack that first in the current rotation. I have one elderly couple who likes lightweight splits so they get mostly SS in their half cords.
I emailed my lathe guy and he didnt want any. He had turned "flame" box elder as he called it. I save a couple small logs for the mill. There's another BE he says i can take. Practically on the ground already.
More hydro time this afternoon. Most of the splitting done. Some chunklies around to noodle for splitting. Limb wood to buck. Leaning box elder i can take too. Ground should freeze up so i can move splits to my friends shed this weekend.
Are you going to need to borrow a couple hundred feet of rope, a few pulleys and a spotter for that boxelder? They definitely don’t like growing vertically, save for a few. How did the last one split? IME that bright red flame color dulls to a faint orange relatively quickly.
I was gonna try and fell it toward the splitter. While taking a break when the splitter ran out of gas i was looking at that and chuckled. I can limb and buck without felling it. I was just doing some research about BE lumber/slabs and that one may be sectioned for milling. Wondering how nice the color is inside? I may have to fell it and find out. Split rather straight for the most part. Not my favorite SS to process. Yes the color fades fast. The cookies from cutting have faded a lot. Wonder if splits will fade in a sheltered stack? How much BE have you scrounged?
If you seal it right away I'm told the color will stay...not sure what to seal it with exactly though
Not much at all. I got 6 large rounds that somebody ditched behind the Dollar General a couple years ago: Elderly Manitobish Boxy Maply Ash scrounge The first time I scrounged some was the summer of 2020, but it was just about 20 feet of 6” diameter limb wood. I burned it that following winter and didn’t think it was bad at all. I’d probably take more if the opportunity came up.
