I have the opportunity to get several very large diameter old growth White Oak trees which were killed by a tornado that tore off all of their limbs. There are at least 5 or 6 such trees.

The size of these trees present a number of challenges, since I do not have the equipment to handle logs this big and there are no sawmills locally that can handle trees of this diameter.

Does anyone have any knowledge of how such trees would have been handled historically? When the settlers moved in, how did they work the big trees into usable sizes?

One solution is this:


which has been used in the past when loggers had to work trees larger than their equipment.

I am considering this, but would like to know of any other ways

I am also considering alternate ways of getting the trees themselves down, such as blowing apart their roots in a similar manner. Part of the reason for this is they have a lot of hazardous dead limbs, and cutting them down could be very dangerous.

Seem a little on the harsh side.

My band mill came out of Pennsylvania, the maker of the mill said the Amish used black power to reduce large logs into smaller size sticks which would fit on the mill. I can cut up to 30" wide. They had some big trees to deal with.

I have often wondered about the Lucas swing mill. It has a slabbing attachment to deal with big wood.

Here is some propaganda, they make it look easy with the music and all. The end even has a timber frame built at the Bailey's site. Siding doesn't have to be beveled.

http://www.baileysonline.com/itemdetail.asp?item=LM10+30K&catID=

It comes in under the price of a new pickup truck and will last longer and give additional income, no registration, inspection, insurance. And you can make your own siding.

So, is blowing up dead standing trees less dangerous?

My thought is, if I can set a long fuse and get far out of there that is safer than sawing down a 4 foot wide tree with dead broken limbs bigger than most of the trees around here.

My intention is to use these trees to supply material for hewing timbers, and so one way or another they are going to have to be split. I would have to make sure that the trees are fairly straight grained if I were to use this method.

In that explosive method, do they score the whole log with a chainsaw first? What kind of hole do they make for the black powder? Where does it go in, center, one end?

I believe that they normally just bore a hole near the center of the log, pack it full of gunpowder (use a hammer to tamp it down, like you would tamp the powder in a muzzle loader) insert wick, plug the hole very tight with dirt -this is important, as black powder works better the more compresses and confined it is. Then light the wick and run away.

Black powder does not respond well to an electrical fuse, it takes a live spark to ignite it. Flash powder does, but is not nearly as explosive and is more expensive. The safest bet may be to have a flash powder primer set of by a remote switch, but it would be easier to set up a 20 second fuse and take cover.

I suspect that in most cases the split will happen so fast -in a tiny fraction of a second- that it would be difficult to direct it very much.

With this method, the log is split by the intense pressure generated by the burning black powder (which as I understand it, is not technically an explosion), the gasses build up so fast that they have no where to go, and so they force the two parts of the log to fly in opposite directions, splitting it quite dramatically. For this to work, the charge needs to be as close to the center of the tree -both length and depth- as you can manage to get it.

I have heard that as little as 5 ounces of black powder is enough to split big logs, for logs this size thought I may want much more. The last thing I want to do is blow a charge that is too small, all that will do is cause shock to the wood which is bad.

We all out here are a bunch of hicks anyhow, so this kind of thing is like what we do for sport! Haha..

My black powder rifle manual says that powder may ignite if put under too much pressure. For instance, if one hammers the ramrod into the barrel to pack the powder.

ya you dont pound it, you tamp it! the idea is to get the powder settled.

Hello everyone tonight

Well I don't know if this will worlk for you or not but quite a few years ago we had a very large elm blow down on PARKS COMMISSION property, I believe it was about 4 feet in diameter

We wanted to cut it inro planks using the 1846 muley saw mill equipment at UCV. The saw frame would handle 36" max size logs so to this end I called on the forestry crew who had a chain saw with a 36" blade, and asked them to halve the log.

They were no time sawing full length and then with wedges we split it in half. it actually worked out very good for us

You might ask a tree trimming crew in your area to do the same thing

Good luck

NH

What I think you would need is some fixture to guide a chainsaw to cut a kerf through the middle. Then you can use the wedges as mentioned. I've seen an Alaskan mill, but they seem to hold the bar on the opposite side, which you can't as you need to make a blind cut 3/4 of the way through the log along it's length. I've never tried something like that by hand. I wonder if it would kickback?

Kick back, it will. It is doable with a chainsaw, file the cutters almost straight across to help in ripping. I just whittled down a 44" on the butt pine log 16' long with a chainsaw. I did this without adjusting my chain. Allowing my bandsaw with its 30" throat to pass down the log. I got six, 29"x 4" slabs and one 3" slab. I only had to trim the sides a little. They have more surface area than a sheet of plywood and are 4" thick, it is fun having a sawmill.

Snap some lines on it and rip them from each side, top and bottom.