Most Unusual Object Found In a Saw Log

[prittgers]

What is the most unusual item you encountered in a saw log?  For me, it was a glass telephone line insulator.  Even a Woodmizer would not cut that one!

[hacknchop]

Hit a 4"stone in the crotch of an oak log bent the mandrel on a mobile dimension mill! !

[Tony]

      Milled 4,000bf of ERC a few years back, hit 1 marble



                                                 Tony    8)

[mesquite buckeye]

Bunch of bullets, nails and a complete pan trap with 4 foot of chain. :-\

[GAB]

My dad hit a ceramic electrical insulator in a log once.  Dulled every tooth of the chain.
In logs, with the sawmill, I have hit ant nests, nails, bullets, barb wire, and I did saw a 1/2" lagbolt in the third or fourth pass sawing 1" boards.
I have also hit the first log stop three times.
Ah-yup, I have scrapped a few blades.
Gerald

[Den Socling]

I used to be a consultant for a company that cut logs from the vicinity of strip mines. There were all kinds of glass insulators and tramp metal in them. They had this big old circle saw with a magnetic starter. When they hit something, carbide would fly. Everybody would duck and wait, wait for the blade to stop spinning. There were holes in the roof above the blade. Anyway, I put a electronic starter with a brake on it in short order. That crap can be dangerous.

[dutchman]

Nice piece of red oak from Clarion County.About 26" dia.
Tried to open 3 faces, first face hit metal about 1 ft in,
second face thinner slab, in about 18" hit metal,
third face about 1 ft in same problem.
Chainsawed 2 ft off the end found iron stain, Railroad spikes.
Someone must of had a tree stand in that tree and used sipke
for climbing up.

[mrector]

I did not hit this with the saw but found it while pressure washing a log. It was buried in a Doty place in the crotch of a 30" maple.. it was a hot wheels car.. late 60's model vette.
Mikey

[dboyt]

I was milling at a customer's site and struck a big piece of metal.  I rolled the log off the mill, changed the blade, and loaded the next log.  Out of curiosity, the customer cut the metal out with his chain saw, and produced an ax head, exclaiming, "I've always wondered where I left that!"

I've also milled into cement.  Seems years ago a lot of people thought it was a good idea to fill hollow trees with cement.  That will destroy a blade in no time.

[Banjo picker]

Bumper Jack.   Used to tighten a line for drying clothes. Some how. I cut it off.  Should have taken a pic.

[LittleJohn]

...I have also hit the first log stop three times...

How hasn't, hit one of those!!

Mostly bullets, a few barb wires, a shot gun slug. 
I once missed an actual metal fence post; someone must have leaned the post against the tree and it grew around it. Luckily I was sawing slabs 2.5" thick slabs and got some awful blue stain, put on heavily abused blade to remove slab from log (in case, I didn't cut deep enough), luckily missed dug out post later.

[Dave Shepard]

Found a 'possum living in a log on the log deck. But I am not sure it should ever really been called a saw log.

[Magicman]

I am sure that most of you have seen my T fence post that was ~45' up the tree.


 
The customer gave me the block as a souvenir.


  
The tree was felled across a fence which drove the post into the tree.  The post broke off below the bark when the tree length log was skidded out.

[samandothers]

Mikey
If that Hot Wheel was one manufactured in the late 60's with redlines on the tires and in good shape you could sell for good money!  Amazing what some of those old redline Hot Wheels will go for.

[Bogue Chitto]

Cutting a sinker cypress.  Out comes a snake.

[mesquite buckeye]

We get scorpions and lizards wintering inside our mesquite logs. Sometimes hundreds of them.

[Nomad]

We get scorpions and lizards wintering inside our mesquite logs. Sometimes hundreds of them.

     That's not unusual.  Around here, if there's a hole in a log there's gonna be some kind of livestock living in it. :D  It's usually something I'd rather not grab, too.

[reswire]

I cut down a large maple on my property that was planted in about 1910.  In the middle of the log was a 3 foot long piece of metal, about 3 inches across.   It was probably placed there to keep the tree growing straight, and the tree simply grew around the metal.  When we cut down the tree, it stopped a brand new 660 stihl dead in it's tracks.   Blew the cylinder head I was told.  we did get some really pretty boards out of the log, of course after cutting around the chunk of steel.  One old guy who lives by me, said the metal was a leaf spring off of an old ford.  Who knows??? ;D

[DR Buck]

I found half a mouse in a log once.  I went back and checked the previous board and found the other half.    :D   

[ohsoloco]

I've hit all sorts of tramp metal, ceramic insulators, etc.  The most unusual one was when I was cutting a backyard walnut and when I opened up a void in the log I saw something brightly colored.  At first I thought it was some funky mold or fungus, but it turned out to be a plastic Easter egg with the remains of a chocolate candy in it.  I went to school with this customer's kids, so I knew it was in there for quite a few years. 

[Dave Shepard]

I found half a mouse in a log once.  I went back and checked the previous board and found the other half.    :D   

Wasn't it you that found the 70 mph half-ants?

[Ron Scott]

• A piece of railroad iron
• An outdoor light fixture
• The head from a broad head axe

[Jeff]

Golf ball, horseshoe, woodduck eggs, skilsaw blade, crosscut saw blade hung from a nail grown in length wise, arrowheads, length of 3/8 welded chain, length of pipe, 6 inch rock grown in the base of a beech tree( that saw became a slasher blade),saw shank (they pull on one rev and you hit it on the next!) are a few of the things I can think of off hand I have hit. 

[Bert]

Black Snake

[hacknchop]

I was sawing big white pine yrs ago for a customer when i hit something he told me just lead from a bullet didnt hurt the stellite tipped teeth at all kept sawing more bullets than bang, hit the nail used to put the target up.

[luvmexfood]

Black Snake

I probably would have kept sawing hoping to find a roll of T paper to clean up with after that one.

[BEEMERS]

Found old fence line insulaltors. I know of an old weed whip weed, a steering wheel and part of an old stove sticking out of trees.Heard of guy who saw a metal eagle head sticking out of a tree,cut it out it was the end of the hilt { I know that's not the proper term} the entire rest of the Bowie style knife was completely in the tree.
Big knife too.like 10 inches as I recall.
here in my yard we have about 3 or 4  links of a chain sticking out of a tree about eyeball height. the crotch is a couple feet higher .when I was a kid there was several links sticking out and the crotch was a foot lower.When my dad was kid he slung the chain up over the crotch when told to pick up the yard.

Theres an axe head I stuck in a tree id remove it but its way too late. same tree I remember a potato planter grown into the crotch of a limb  8 feet up some of the handle sticking out.several years age you just saw a bit and for 20 or so years just a scar there on the tree..shaped like a potato planter..id hate to log the trees around an old farm...I can only imagine...

[kczbest]

My Father in Law and I bought some undeveloped land in town and cleaned it up for development. I got a lot of cedar and some cypress logs and started milling them. One of the cedar logs had a very odd shaped scar just below waist height, I checked it out with a metal detector and sure enough about a three foot long piece of metal. I slabbed deep and missed it, It took me a couple of weeks in my spare time to dig the object out. It was a Winchester 30-30, the stock and forearm were long gone and the metal was too rusty to get a serial # to check for age. If my Father in Law still has it I will get some pics. Also, the fact that the host tree was cut less than six feet from a road that had been there for over a hundred years I find it hard to believe it was lost. say_what

[Ron Scott]

Interesting!

[Woodhauler]

Freind of mine years ago had a party at the end of deer hunting season, guy had his rifle with him and took it out of his car and set it behind a tree so no one would steal it! Only thing was he was drunk and did not remember doing it! He thought someone stole it out of vhis car!!! Found it many years later leaning up behind a tree near where his car was parked! Guy never apoligized for calling everyone at the party theives!

[sandhills]

Nothing to do with sawing but my 1st cousin and uncle tore down an old shed on their place (my grandparents and dad lived there at one time,).  Anyway my grandpa had moved the shed in from some other place way back when, dad's in his 70's and barely remembers living there I think he was 4 when they moved, so it was a while ago but they found an old 1894 Winchester under the floor boards of the shed, he brought it over to show us, in the same shape of the one you found kczbest.

[trooperTdiesel]

had a log we decided not to mill up and made wood out of it.....it looked like it had metal in it lots of, blue stane.

it had 8 rail spikes in it for climbing, missed them all with the saw, some as little as 1/4 inch....
had it hit, it would have taken out a 32" or 36" chain each time as it was near 40"


other then that, the glass insulators on the mobile saw mill, really wreck havoc on the teeth....

[scully]

I have hit the usual stuff nails spikes bullets . But I recently milled 3 very large red oaks . I hit what I thought were copper bullets but further on I hit copper cable ?  and a bunch of spikes ! Yep lightning protection ! I was so glad to be done with that job ! >:(

[Baron]

-Barlow style pocket knife circa 1940
-horseshoe circa 1830 - 1925. No horses after that

Both included at a favorite lunching area in the shade of a cherry tree located out in the middle of open fields.

[Skidder Kev]

well splitting firewood found a battery terminal, cement, and bullets, clothes line, lag bolts,eye bolts.  some found with the chainsaw well blocking.

kev

[Carson-saws]

I found an old bow saw blade.  Or should I say "hit"?

[thecfarm]

Carson-saws,welcome to the forum. On the hit part,whatcha got for a mill?

[henry co.]

My buddy found a musket that had been there since the civil war in a big white oak

[Ron Scott]

Great find!

[Don P]

That's cool! I found the tip of a saber still in it's scabbard while tree planting one time. Sawing, mostly the usual, a couple of big landscape spikes in a thoroughly shotgun peppered pine last year. Found the first with the mill and the second with the chainsaw after I had thrown it off, that tree was a real deal. Found a middle buster plow in the base of a walnut, happily it showed itself before I hit it. Growing up I watched the mule hitching ring slowly disappear in the tree in my grandparents back yard. A friend found a bumper and a T post in the same tree one time.

I sawed some cherry and apple for a friend some years ago. I hit a nail in an apple, pulled the timber off, showed it to the owner but we both decided it was a nice piece, he just needed to remember the metal was there. Well, last year he moved and he gave me his lumber pile. As I threw that piece into the planer there was a faint recollection but when I heard the knives hit the steel my memory was crystal clear. They ain't never getting their tramp wood back again  :D

[TKehl]

Saw an article talking about cemetery preservation.  One tree had a headstone shaped scar that the caretaker said had a headstone inside.

[BEEMERS]

I cleared a lot on a lake a couple years ago..logs too mill  all firewood back to my place in twelve or so foot lengths. The next spring I was cutting some and came to a chunk of Aspen with a hole in it like a raccoon would be in..you could look into it,its empty.
cutting the log up to the hole and center was black like topsoil.This is below the hole cut another and the worst ungodly smell came out when the block came off..i thought a dead raccoon but it was worse than anything ever...next block came of and split the wood and the black stuff broke and a dozen or more white round eggs a little bigger than golf balls. broke a few and it was so bad we had to leave the area..I used to pump septic tanks...this was unbearable..and was for days!!!
My theory turtle eggs a raccoon tucked away and never came back...or wood duck eggs layed and Momma never came back.....ants working above the hole produced enough sawdust to completely cover them and protect them all the way to the point where the tree became firewood... sealing them in this ..dirt.
It was the worst smell I have ever experienced.

[Jeff]

Wood Duck.   I've mentioned in anther topic of this type about hitting them frozen in a tree. Took them in the break room in a cup, went back in at noon after they had thawed and it was filled with the odor you describe. The black dirt surrounding them was frozen too.  THis was way before cell phones and digital cameras, but it would have been a very cool picture because everything was frozen in place where I had cut through the center of it.   Flying squirrels, mice and frogs and snakes are the living things I have hit with the headsaw, you can add a racoon if we count running the slasher in the woods. That story is on here somewhere too.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I guess it should not be that unusual to find a walnut in a walnut tree but I was lucky to accidentally center this one when I sawed it exactly in two for a couple of benches.


 
Both sides have half a walnut imbedded in the wood like this. Pretty neat.

[newoodguy78]

That's a great picture. Don't know what the odds of that are but you might want to grab a lottery ticket next. :D

[Ron Scott]

A good one!

[petefrom bearswamp]

Arrowhead 20 feet up in a Red pine.
Must have been shooting at a squirrel.

[caveman]

Pete, when Jmoore and I were sawing some large bald cypress about a year ago, we sawed a 50 caliber musket ball in half which came from one from one of the top logs.  We surmised that someone must have been squirrel hunting also.  I don't know how much squirrel would have been left after a hit from that much lead though.

Another strange thing we found in a log was a crawdad.  We keep some logs in our pond and occasionally they become a habitat for critters.

 

[Al_Smith]

It wasn't saw log  but just yesterday while splitting a 3 foot diameter  round of red oak  about 6 inches in was a complete gate hinge .

[Southside]

Limestone head stone in a cedar tree, well into the tree, no sign of it from the outside.  It came from a church yard which was founded around the Revolution.  Given the size of the cedar we figure it has to be civil war ear.  Have never been able to figure out how to extract the headstone from the wood as nobody knows what the rest of it looks like.  I need to get someone with a portable x-ray to try and take a peek one day.  I will get a picture of it and post it. 

[hopm]

12" long piece of 2" flatbar....couldn't figure out what I had hit...couldn't dig it out...BUT I was smart enough that I turned the log so I could hit it 2 more times....ruined 3 blades.....whataidiot!!!! >:( >:( >:(