So how big you want'em ?

Colton · April 15, 2008, 02:06:00 PM

Over last summer I was walking ours and our neighbours woodlots and there were some impressive sized white spruce and yellow birch, When I get home in a couple weeks i'll try and get some pictures and measurements of them.

SwampDonkey · April 15, 2008, 07:39:09 PM

Colton, are you aware of the cut in funding for private woodlot silviculture? Just noticed your from NB, thought I might suggest it. I have a thread under "Forestry and Logging" with regards to the cuts and a link to a petition.

Colton · April 17, 2008, 12:50:22 AM

Yeah, I've heard quite a bit about it, so much for the "10 year silviculture fund" promised eh?, I'll have to take a look at it.

Quebecnewf · April 20, 2008, 02:02:59 PM

Here is a pic of a spruce we sawed this morning 10' long 17" at the top. We had four other logs of this tree the butt log is bigger than this and 10' long the other 2 are 12' long and smaller.

This log gave 176 board ft of lumber . this is real size if I had sawed for selling 2x12 for example it would have given 200 ft

There are even larger spruce than this but they are too far and over too rough country for ski doo .

Quebecnewf

SwampDonkey · April 20, 2008, 03:00:47 PM

QuoteThere are even larger spruce than this but they are too far and over too rough country for ski doo .

That's always a problem, the bigger ones are always over the next hill. :D

Sparty · April 29, 2008, 08:57:55 PM

O.K., I'm going to steal a turn here. Over the next week or so I'll try to get a few pictures of my local giants. Ive got a monsterous cottonwood, an oak with a diameter of about 6.5 feet, and maybe a few others. I'll start with the biggest Walnuts that I have access to. They are not all that big, but the biggest that I can get to. The first is on family property, diameter in the mid forties:

The next walnut was cut down near my workplace. The lady thought it was too messy. I rescued it from a couple of fellows who thought that they were going to "cut that elm into firewood". Thier chainsaw bar was about 16" and the diameter is 42". I wish it was still standing, but at least I'll put it to good use.

scsmith42 · April 29, 2008, 10:38:54 PM

How big do I want them? I'd like them about this big... (note - 54" diameter on the small end)

Or this big (different log - but also a 54 incher):

There's 2,500 board feet of lumber in the second log, and 2,500 board feet of lumber in the two logs on the trailer in the first photo.

Sparty · April 30, 2008, 10:31:24 PM

Did not get a tape on her but this walnut has a 4' fence right behind it. That would be a heck of a butt log.

And nearby is this sycamore that is quite burled and twisted. We don't get a lot of sickymores up here, so this is a good one. Note the fence gate to the right. I would guess diameter in the 50+" range.

And my last one for today is a nice white oak, in excess of 5' diameter. I have measured another one in a woods where I buy logs occasionally. It measures close to 20 feet around the thinnest part I could reach. I'll try a picture of that next week.

WDH · April 30, 2008, 11:14:59 PM

Simply inspiring!

Dodgy Loner · April 30, 2008, 11:23:59 PM

Those are some nice looking twigs you got there, scsmith. How many popsicle sticks do you figure they'll make? ;)

Sparty, the bark on your white oak sure looks funny, our white oaks tend to have flaky bark up high and blocky bark closer to the ground. Are you sure that's what it is? Could just be regional differences, I know northern red oaks have very different bark up north, but I would have called that a cottonwood or poplar based on the bark.

Sparty · May 01, 2008, 06:23:50 AM

I will admit that I am not the best at identifying specific oaks, as I rarely use any oak lumber. This is an oak for sure, though. The leafs are just now coming out here and they are the rounded lobe oak leaf on this tree. I have noticed this tree in past years, as well. It can drop quite a few acorns.

Sparty · May 04, 2008, 08:19:07 PM

Now that you mentioned cottonwoods, I had to stop by this one today. I wasn't going to post it until I get a measurement. But I'll put it up and maybe somebody can guess the girth before I go back with a tape. This is in SE Michigan.

Tomorrow I'll try a big shagbark hickory, and this time I'll take a measurement.

SwampDonkey · May 05, 2008, 06:00:36 AM

I'd say handy to 8 feet or 96". Sure is a big'un. 8)

scsmith42 · May 06, 2008, 10:48:10 PM

Wow - they don't even have 'em that big in Texas...

WDH · May 06, 2008, 11:26:50 PM

I wouldn't be able to put that one on the LT15

.

SwampDonkey · May 07, 2008, 04:42:31 AM

I've seen one close to 6 feet in Bath on river bank soil, but others I see are 4-5 feet. Two fell in a wind storm once, and lucky for houses they fell the opposite direction, just a week after I warned the owner. Maybe I jinxed her trees. :-\ These were what we call Carolina Poplar.

Sparty · May 07, 2008, 05:12:48 PM

Quote from: WDH on May 06, 2008, 11:26:50 PM
I wouldn't be able to put that one on the LT15 .

You could surely put that on the LT15, there just wouldn't be much left of the mill afterwards.

Sparty · May 08, 2008, 08:48:04 PM

Dodgy loner may have got me on that last oak I put up. It is an oak but I looked at it again and it may be a red oak. I can't place it exactly until the leafs unfold more. Last week they looked rounded, but they are growing more pointed by the day. Here is a better oak that I took today...18'3" around near the ground (skinnyest point) and likely to be closer to 20' around at breast height.

And here is that cottonwood again, and the measurement...23'4" girth. Thats a little less than 8' diameter-close enough SwampDonkey 8) 8)

woodtroll · May 08, 2008, 09:56:04 PM

I should wait for Sparty to see the leaves, but could that be a bur oak?

Mooseherder · July 14, 2008, 09:30:59 PM

Here is a White Birch we have at camp. I threw the wheeler in for scale. ;D

Mooseherder · July 14, 2008, 09:43:58 PM

This Cedar Burl tree is about 50 feet away.
It was a nice surprise discovery I hadn't seen before. ;)

Dodgy Loner · July 14, 2008, 10:44:42 PM

Don't let Burlkraft see that picture

, he'll be out there with a chainsaw before ya know it ;D ;)

Mooseherder · July 15, 2008, 05:53:40 AM

I named the Cedar "Steve". ;D

SwampDonkey · July 15, 2008, 07:20:39 AM

Yes, it's hard to imagine the forest was full of those big white birch back 70 years ago before the big die off. Most people think of white birch as a small diameter tree these days. Grandfather said it was dangerous to be in the woods hunting near stands with those old dead white birch snags.

sparky · July 15, 2008, 09:07:44 PM

We had a sawmill on our farm in west central MN. My father often commented that he would have liked to spend a winter in the white pine forests of MN during the hayday of logging around 1900. I took him to northern MN deer hunting one year in a mature pine forest. I believe he spent more time studying the trees than he spent looking for deer. I had no problem with that!

Sparky