# Worst wood to chainsaw??



## Cedrusdeodara (Dec 7, 2008)

I am a bit of a new comer as a burner, however I have had some experience working on our family's nursery with cutting some "Difficult" to deal with genus/species.  The absolute worst wood that I've had to chainsaw was a non-native tree, Parrotia persica (common name Persian Ironwood).  Parrotia is actually a highly prized ornamental tree that is related to the Witch Hazel family.  It is a nice deciduous tree that has a nice dense growth habit.  It is highly prized for its winter scarlet flowers, pealing bark, and wonderful fall color.  

Anyway, long story short, I had 5 big trees growing on my property.  They were stock plants from a Nursery that occupied my property before me.  I tried to save them, but they were damaged from a storm.  The One that I cut down had a 20" caliper at the base.  I fell the tree and 0destroyed the chain half way through my 2nd cut through the trunk.  I contacted my father in law, he showed up with a brandnew chain on his saw...... same deal, it was smoking and throwing powder by his third cut.  We wore a file out trying to get an edge back on his chain.

He actually saved a piece of log and says after 3 years of seasoning in his garage, it sounds like a piece of iron/steel when he drops it on concrete

Any other stories out there of nasty wood for cutting?  I've read that Ostrya virginiana (Eastern Hophornbeam, or Ironwood)  is a native with GREAT BTU capacity.  wonder if that is as bad as Parrotia on the saw.

Brian
Cedrusdeodara (a tree I love and would never burn)

Stihl MS361
SPee Co hydraulic splitter
Osburn 1800 insert, soon to be replaced by Napoleon 1402 insert


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## PA. Woodsman (Dec 7, 2008)

Very dry Black Locust is a killer to cut...


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## Cedrusdeodara (Dec 7, 2008)

Yeah, very dry anything is hard on a chain, we don't have alot of Locust near me to cut... Interesting.


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## FF184 (Dec 7, 2008)

PA. Woodsman said:
			
		

> Very dry Black Locust is a killer to cut...



I agree, the first time I cut some of it I thought there was something wrong with my saw.


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## bren582 (Dec 7, 2008)

I have 3 black locust in my back yard. I have trimmed back all 3 of them and I can tell you.. You have to go slow when cutting it.. It's amazing how such a hard tree grows so fast..


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## Jake (Dec 7, 2008)

Sometimes the pallets of lumber we get (exotic...cumaru, ipe, jatoba) are too long for us to use, We have to saw them in 1/2,  That wiill easilly kill a chain


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## awoodman (Dec 7, 2008)

A lot of Hedge wood here in Missouri they call it Osage Orange. The Indians would make bows out of it and White man made fence posts out of it.
That is real hard and the slowest I have ever seen to rot laying on the ground.


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## savageactor7 (Dec 7, 2008)

I had some real huge willows that were almost as tough as Locust.


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## JustWood (Dec 7, 2008)

Dry hickory is a real chain killer . FIL lives in Arizona and cuts Mesquite for his smoker and he says its like trying to cut granite.


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## Cedrusdeodara (Dec 7, 2008)

awoodman,

Osage Orange has one of if not the highest BTU values for burning.  Your lucky if you have some in your seasoned stack.  That tree does have a natural antibacterial/antifungus compound in it's wood.  An arboretum outside of Philadelphia has a large dead trunk lying on the ground from an Osage Orange tree.  A plackard next to the trunk states that the tree fell down in the 1960s during a storm.  It looks like it could have fallen last year because it shows little to no rot.  Apparently Osage Orange is premium wood for fence building due to it's natural resistance to rot.

Cedrusdeodara


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## Bigg_Redd (Dec 7, 2008)

Any wood that has been dragged around or rolled in mud.


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## LLigetfa (Dec 7, 2008)

Bigg_Redd said:
			
		

> Any wood that has been dragged around or rolled in mud.


and then frozen!


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## Superlite (Dec 8, 2008)

Old dead dry Mulberry, it throws sparks at night. Just kidding but it is like concrete, and explodes in the woodstove. Looks like its petrified when has been standing dead for a long time.


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## FatttFire (Dec 8, 2008)

IRONWOOD all the way!  NO DOUBT


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## jotul8e2 (Dec 8, 2008)

Bois D'arc, Osage Orange, Hedgeapple, Horse Apple - same tree, different names.

I really do not think there is anything native to North America any harder.  Once dry it WILL throw sparks off your chain.  The time it takes to cut through a dry 6" fence post is approximately - well, I never made it clear through one.

As for longevity, come down to the Ozarks and I will show you plenty of 50 - 75 year old hedgeapple fence posts still doing regular duty.  Some of them have gone through three or four sets of barbed wire.

Mark


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## smokinj (Dec 8, 2008)

Anything with rotten spots! (or hedge apple)


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## billb3 (Dec 8, 2008)

petrified oak.

don't know how it compares to any of the above.


When a puff of smoke comes out of the cut, it's time to withdraw the bar and let some cool air and oil at the bar and chain.


This would be oak that was standing so long it had anice fruitwood colored patina through and through.


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## Dill (Dec 8, 2008)

I've found apple to be really tough on saws. Last year I helped an orchard cut down a couple of hundred older trees so they could plant more dwarfs. That was some hard cutting.


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## Adios Pantalones (Dec 8, 2008)

Dry wood with loose bark can accumulate dirt etc under the bark- so not only is it super hard, but it's abrasive


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## Chief Ryan (Dec 8, 2008)

I cut about 2 cords of Black Locust and i had to sharpen the chain every 20 min. I went slow and wiped off any dirt on the bark. About 1 hour ago i cut some old Red Oak, very tough stuff.


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## beau5278 (Dec 10, 2008)

I've never had a problem with ironwood,locust can be difficult,some of the others,I've never seen.Anything dry or dirty is a pain but if your chain is sharp and more importantly,your oiler is working good,you should be able to cut anything as long as it's wood


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## Corey (Dec 10, 2008)

Interesting to see so much hedge and locust responses...when I go to cut my own wood (ie not scrounging or taking what ever is dropped off) , those are the two I go after and never really thought about them being too bad.

My first thought was elm...not because it's so hard on the chainsaw, but I know that most every piece sawed has to then be split...so I cringe at every saw cut!  Second worst was a toss-up of willow, cottonwood, cedar, etc, as I think I've expended more energy cutting, splitting, and stacking those woods as actually comes from burning them.


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## RAY_PA (Dec 10, 2008)

FatttFire said:
			
		

> IRONWOOD all the way!  NO DOUBT



Agreed!,  dry black locust is a distant second to this nasty stuff.


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## Burd (Dec 11, 2008)

What does this Iron wood look like


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## ansehnlich1 (Dec 11, 2008)

Dill said:
			
		

> I've found apple to be really tough on saws. Last year I helped an orchard cut down a couple of hundred older trees so they could plant more dwarfs. That was some hard cutting.



Yep, I never cut some of the stuff talked about here, like ironwood. I've cut locust, it's hard, but I think hickory is worse. And seasoned apple, that stuff's hard as rock. I cut some with my table saw and it smoked and carried on awful.

Worse wood to cut is stuff that has nails and barbed wire in it  :roll:


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## bigdog (Dec 13, 2008)

PA. Woodsman said:
			
		

> Very dry Black Locust is a killer to cut...


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Agreed.  I cut 2 truckloads of it today. Chain is gonna need some attention tommorrow.


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## jeffman3 (Dec 14, 2008)

I've never cut black locust but I have cut honey locust. That was tough stuff but my vote goes to old dry elm. It acts like the bark (if there is any left) almost always is loaded with sand, dirt, and grit, sometimes even gravel. You can't keep it out of your chain. and I am lucky to get a pickup load cut before I have to change to a sharp chain.


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## firefighterjake (Dec 15, 2008)

Wood with barbed wire fencing embedded in it . . .  

On a more serious note . . . on wood that I occasionally cut . . . apple.


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## boogieman (Dec 15, 2008)

Not that I use it for burning (O.K. I tried a few sticks but don't tell my wife) but my wife got a big pallet of mahogany scraps at a window manufacturers auction.  She is going to do woodworking with it, but anyways it cuts really hard!  It is almost like cutting metal with my chop saw.


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## BJ64 (Dec 16, 2008)

jotul8e2 said:
			
		

> Bois D'arc, Osage Orange, Hedgeapple, Horse Apple - same tree, different names.
> 
> I really do not think there is anything native to North America any harder.  Once dry it WILL throw sparks off your chain.  The time it takes to cut through a dry 6" fence post is approximately - well, I never made it clear through one.
> 
> ...



Where I live still has many of those old post still in place.  There is one run of fence that may still have the wire from 1894 - the year they set the roads in this Indian territory.  The old post are all but gone.  From what is left I suspect they are old hedgeapple.

There was a guy from Colorado who set up shop in the parking lot of a local business about 10 years ago.  Folks would bring him logs and he would carve bears, birds, and what ever.  He was one of those cocky guys that had a knack of irritating the heck out of us.  One day my buddy asked him if he could carve any kind of wood.  

"If you can get it here I can carve it - $100 bill."

"Big 10-4 dude - we will be back.  We want a horse head made."

There was a hedge tree we killed by spraying it a few years before.  The roots kept choking off the septic line.  It took a while but we managed to extract about 6 foot of trunk 18 inches across.  We used a tractor to load the thing.

When we rolled it off the truck for the guy it did not even bounce.  We could watch the progress on this project daily.  It took a week.  Needless to say that put a damper on the cockyness.


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## smokinj (Dec 16, 2008)

BJ64 said:
			
		

> jotul8e2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


hedge has away of doing that to people!


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## BJ64 (Dec 16, 2008)

smokinj said:
			
		

> hedge has away of doing that to people!



Aint that the truth.


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## GaryS (Dec 18, 2008)

I used to hate cutting black jack when I was a kid.  The trunk - which is more like black oak isn't so bad - it's just all those damned dead hard branches.  I don't think it's a very widespread tree though.  Folks around western missouri or oklahoma probably know more about it.

I've qot quite a bit of osage around the house.  Been trying to kill a bunch of the crap behind the house for over a year.  Makes a darn good thorn thicket if it gets out of control.


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## Cedrusdeodara (Dec 22, 2008)

Hey Garys,

By Black Jack, do you mean Blackjack Oak (Quercus marilandica)?  I've never cut that, in fact I rarely see decent stands of it near me in the pine barren area of southern NJ.  We are in the "native tract" for that species of oak, but it doesn't seem to take over like other species.  Just a sprinkle here and there.

Cool looking Oak though, very distinctive glossy, clover-like leaves.  Doesn't seem to be a big grower compared to others in the red-oak family.  Elementary school teachers near us love to put that as an extra credit on the leaf location/identification assignment becasue it is rather hard to find compared to the more common genus and species of trees.


Brian


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## GaryS (Dec 22, 2008)

Yes, I think so.  Very similar to red oak.  Doesn't get real big.  Inside rots out pretty fast.  Always easy to split by hand.


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## Outdoorsman (Dec 24, 2008)

Of the trees I've cut I'd rate Osage & Hickory as the hardest on chains.  

I've not cut some of the the others that seem to be getting named several times like Black Locust & Ironwood.  I've cut Honey Locust however & it's no way as hard as Hickory or Osage.

Just the name Ironwood would lead you to think it would raise heck with your gear.


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## ccwhite (Dec 25, 2008)

I have to agree with a bunch of the guys who've said good dry seasoned Black Locust (or as we call it around here "organic steel"). My saw is in the basement right now needing attention from my last go-round with some a couple days ago. I'll touch it up again and get out there and hit it again in the next couple days.


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