Metal in there?

[drgnrdr]

 

  

  I have been dragging logs out of my woods while waiting for my mill to be built.  Saw some blue stain in a couple of these poplar logs.  They are 8 footers so the second log would start about 10' high.  The tree was close to the property line so barbed wire is very possible.  But would this stain carry up into the second log, or would there likely be metal in it also?  The stain pattern in the butt seemed kind of scattered which made me wonder if it was a fungus instead.
Hope the pics work (my first post).

[beenthere]

dr
Welcome to the Forestry Forum.

You did great on your first post, pics and all.

Seems there should be some concern as to what is causing the color in the poplar (yellow poplar I assume).

Where abouts are you located?  Could let us know by adding that to your profile and will help.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

No metal. That Purple color is very common in Poplar.

[Peter Drouin]

Buy a metal detector that will take all the guess work out of it 

and well come to the FF  ;D

[thecfarm]

drgnrdr,I'm more concerned about that mill being built. What kind,model,hp???  And welcome to the forum. Been around a sawmill before?

[Magicman]

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, drgnrdr.   

[drgnrdr]

I am in wild, wonderful WV.  I have an LT40HDG29 on order that should be ready in a couple weeks. I want to practice cutting my own lumber for a while and then start custom sawing on site to supplement a future retirement or if I find myself unemployed sooner.  I initially was going to go the LT15 route to just cut for myself and park it right by my shop (maybe with the electric motor).  Then my wife insisted on hydraulics to save my back and it just kind of snowballed from there into a lot more money than I intended to shell out.  Hopefully I won't regret it.
I have pretty much no experience with a sawmill.  A friend down the road has been cutting my lumber for me for several years and he has done a great job.  I have been doing a lot of research though.  Been working my way through this forum one page at a time, 110 pages so far.  Watched pretty much every Youtube video I could find.  I am starting to have some questions that I am not finding the answers to so figured it was time to start posting.  I am very impressed with this forum!

[Ron Wenrich]

Yes and no.  Purple comes from the potassium in the soil, and is often in association with some sort of injury.  On your one picture, you can see the purple follow the growth ring.  It's associated with the shake that is there.  On another, it follows a crack.

The bottom one doesn't look to follow an injury.  That could be metal.  But, the purple doesn't travel as far in poplar as it does in oak.  Most metal is found in butt logs.  A bullet will give the same blue spot in poplar due to the injury.

[dboyt]

Welcome to the forum!  Any tree along a property line would be suspect for wire.  The only two ways to know for sure are 1) metal detector and 2) start making boards-- using your blade as a metal detector.  Hope you ordered extra blades.  I keep at least 20 ready to go.  Hate it when I get down to the last few cuts in a log and hit a nail with my last blade.  Good luck and keep us posted.

[jcbrotz]

Just do yourself a favor and put the log on the mill and saw some hardware first thing then you will have your first initiation complete then immediately afterwards try to saw off the clamp or dogs . :D and then throw on a nice log.

Oh welcome to the forum and your new addiction.

[Deese]

Welcome to the forum!