Tractors and wood! Show your pics

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We had piss spruce here.

gg

Several urinary trees it seems.
Piss oak we have a lot of.

 

[Hoobie]

I copied this from a thread on shake in the Forestry Forum-

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Shake, wind shake and ring shake (and also ring failure, ring separation, and ring check) are the same thing...a separation of the wood parallel to the growth rings. The separation can occur within a growth ring or at the junction between adjacent rings. In 99.99% of the cases of shake, the basic cause is a weakening of the wood caused by anaerobic bacteria that come into the tree stem through the roots. These bacteria create an enzyme that dissolves part of the wood structure, making the attachment between the cells much weaker than normal. So, normal stresses in the life of the tree create the failures called shake. These bacteria also create very high MCs in the stem while the tree is growing. They also create basic fatty acids that turn rancid and give the wood a very foul odor. In dry lumber, these bacteria, although dead in dry lumber, are responsible for wet pockets--small high MC areas in a piece of lumber that is quite dry everywhere except in these few spots. The bacteria thrive in the soil when the soil is wet and warm. They enter the roots through injuries, often caused by cattle grazing or a previous logging operation. Usually, due to the slow spread of the bacteria, trees are 75 years old before the effects are seen in the main stem.

Because of the weakening of the the wood caused by the bacteria, it is common to see splits or checks running across the rings as well in the infected area. In bacterially weakened wood, end checks and splits and also surface checks and honeycomb are commonly seen. But radial cracks running across the rings (when viewed from the end grain) should not be called shake. For hardwoods, the definition of shake is correctly given in the Rules; likewise, when grading softwoods, shake is correctly defined. In texts that are over 50 years old, the failure parallel to the rings was called ring failure or shake. The Textbook of Wood Technology also correctly defines shake. The latest version of the US Forest Products Lab's WOOD HANDBOOK (2010) has shake defined as going parallel to the rings and synonymous with ring failure. A similar definition is in the DRY KILN OPERATOR'S MANUAL (1956). In 1926, they called shake "honeycombing along the rings." The term shake seems to have entered our wood vocabulary in the late 40s or early 50s.

It was only about 35 years ago that the cause of shake (bacterial) was firmly established, with most of the the early work being done with western hemlock by a microbiologist, James Ward. However, shake and its quality loss was well known at least 100 years ago in both softwoods and hardwoods. In fact, if you see some old logging pictures, once in a while you will see that they cut high stumps. Evidence points to the reason for such practice...the loggers knew that the lower portion of the stem had shake and was of poor quality, so a high stump left the defect in the woods and not at the mill.

Some species, such as hemlock (east and west), cottonwood, willow and aspen seem to be quite susceptible to this bacterial infection and shake.

With the high increase in MC when the bacteria are present, it is common to find that the log will not float in water very well. In fact, many of the logs on the bottom of rivers, lakes and ponds are actually bacterially infected and that is why they sunk. Although the bacteria are gone, the weak wood effect is still there. For this reason, sunken wood must be dried much more slowly than "normal" wood.

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gg

Good comprehensive piece. I have The Textbook of Wood Technology mentioned and so dug it out again. Forgot I had it.
Interesting and thanks.

 

[shooterdon]

Had a visit from Mr and Mrs Civilian yesterday. Nice to meet another TBNer face to face and they are only 20 miles away. We went over my journey into producing and storing firewood as painlessly as possible.

 

[fruitcakesa]

More fun in the hemlock bushings

 

[Gordon Gould]

More fun in the hemlock bushings

Looks like your doing a thinning maybe ?? Looks good !!

gg

 

[JPRambo]

Had a standing dead red oak near the property line. The neighboring property was logged early last year. Is slowly being cleared of stumps and will be a cow pasture. I felled the tree into that and dragged it over the line.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Last July while we were out in Oregon for a family visit we went to the Great American Steam Up held at Powerland Heritage Park. All kinds of antique running steam powered equipment. Here is a saw mill being driven by a Case tractor.

Here is a minute long clip from the parade.

What a fun day that was for me.

gg

 

[WinterDeere]

Last July while we were out in Oregon for a family visit we went to the Great American Steam Up held at Powerland Heritage Park. All kinds of antique running steam powered equipment. Here is a saw mill being driven by a Case tractor.

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I love the two stair treads up to the platform of missing limbs, with the spinning flywheel and open cylinder / exposed rod. "Guards... what guards?!?"

 

[BackRoad]

They're a huge amount of fun. There's one they call "Rough and Tumble" near Lancaster PA. Big turn out for the steam tractors, plus there are a number of running "hit and Miss" engines running pumps, log saws, corn shucker's, etc. Plus old vintage combustion engine tractors.

At Noon all the steam tractors blow their steam whistles...dozens of huge tractors with locomotive whistles...it's cover your ears deafening and lasts for 2 or 3 minutes!!

 

[arrow]

Had a standing dead red oak near the property line. The neighboring property was logged early last year. Is slowly being cleared of stumps and will be a cow pasture. I felled the tree into that and dragged it over the line.

Don’t know about your area but if a red oak is standing dead in the forest around New England, it’s mostly about carpenter ants.
When processing firewood from these trees, I always have a can of bug spray or even brake cleaner to kill the multitude of nests l find lurking in these stems.