Finding Metal...

[BargeMonkey]

 I usually shy away from cutting line trees because of wire, nails, all that great stuff. Put a large soft maple into my processor last week, seemed ok, all of a sudden I hit metal, not fence or a bullet. Sharpen chain and cut a big block off, 2 cuts later hit it again. Pulled the whole log out, loaded with tree stand spikes from 20-30? Years ago that had grown in, talk about fun.  We hit bullets every once in a while on the band mill, hit a horse shoe years ago with our Frick circle mill, that was exciting.

[coxy]

found a 5ft bar in a tree once along an old skid road  there was a rot / hollow spot at the but that had grown together that does wonders to the saw chain  I have found leaf springs from the buggy seats in trees   and one time found a big rock in a clump of 6 cherry that had grown together  my dad told me that may have been the deer stand that he could never find that a friend of his made over 40 years ago that was 15years ago now     the other 5 trees are still there with lots of paint on them saying rock in side don't cut

[clww]

Rocks, hardware, concrete, machinery all seem to gravitate into old trees. :

[treechopper40]

when I was a kid my dad and I took down a big sugar maple for a wood customer of my dads we got it down and I was bucking it up with one of dads 056 magnums and cut an old metal sap spout rate in to that chain was done

[LittleJohn]

What even harder are trees next to dirt roads, all that tiny sand get trapped in the bark.  Even worse when you do not realize that this fine sand is "IN" the wood and throw it in the OWB, cause you can get gobs of glass form in the ashes!!! 

[goose63]

We cut down an old boxelder for my sister inlaw and split it up for the fire pit all the nails were 8 to 10 inches in the tree if I hade to buy that many nails to day ied have to take out a loan at the bank

[colincb183]

3rd tree I cut with a new chain last winter i managed to split a nail down the  middle while bucking. Always a bummer when that happens

[timberlinetree]

My brothers wife had a tree cut down on their property in va. Their was a gun in it. While climbing a tree along a train tracks in a heavy populated area I found a marble about 40 feet up in a croch.

[wheelinguy]

Someone "gave" me a maple to burn and as I was cutting it I found large eye hooks, part of a turnbuckle and some cable.  Apparently someone had used it as anchor point to try and pull a twisted old camp back up to straight and the tree had engulfed all of the hardware.  A friend of our family used to mill with his father, they had an old Chase circular mill, bu hey also had 6 foot two man Alaskan mill. I asked him what was the strangest things they had milled, he said they milled part way through a musket and ruined the chain one day on what they thought was a rock.  They did a little careful cutting to extract the "rock" and found the tree had grown around a headstone!

[mills]

My brothers wife had a tree cut down on their property in va. Their was a gun in it.

They did a little careful cutting to extract the "rock" and found the tree had grown around a headstone!

I cut into an old log chain in the "Y" of two big maples.

But, yall win!  :D

[Mark K]

The contract job I had last summer I found a pointed shovel in a tree. All that stuck out was the very tip of the point. Tree grew around the rest. Looks like someone years ago hung it in a crotch by the shovel end. I cut the block out and my forrester put it in the Baillie tent at the woodsmens field days.

[ffpup]

I was sawing a 16" red oak log a few years ago with my Vance mill. I was going for some heart to make a mantle. I hit some metal and it didn't cut thru. I  backed out and chiseled around it. It was square so I thought it was a tree step. Nope it was a carpenters nail set. It had been driven into to the tree when it was about 6" in diameter. For some reason it showed no blue until I was chiseling it out. It never blued but about 1/2" from metal. I always thought it was because it was hard and didn't rust much. Needless to say that messed up a bunch a bits. >:(

[clww]

We were working a clearing job in November around an old service station and garage. One of the oak trees we took out had grown through the center of a gas pump, which was embedded on all four sides in the tree.