Motherlode of metal in a log?

[jon12345]

Has anyone ever found anything really interesting inside a tree they were sawing?  I've heard stories about old guns being encapsuled in wood after being left leaning against a tree, and found decades later, unfortunately, with a saw blade?

[JimBuis]

Hi there Jon!  This isn't exactly metal, but it is an interesting thing to find in wood.



You may not be able to make it out very well, but it is a tombstone.   I bet that was hard on the old chainsaw. ;D

Jim

[woodbowl]

I've sawed into snakes a couple of times, lizards ........ant beds. ;D sawed into some of those big purple  electrical insulators. That makes a racket! Barbed wire and electric fence insulators. A 3/4" rod with a brand new blade. first cut! :-\ Cut into a hunk of big lead, mushroomed in an old deadhead, no steel jacket. Somebody said it may be a musket ball.

[Radar67]

What kind of snakes Woodbowl?

[woodbowl]

One was a white oak, the other was some little ole' brown looking snake with a ring around his head. Nothing poisonous.

[Jeff]

If you do a search of tramp metal on the forum search, you will find a lot of the discussions of hitting things in logs. I still think I hold the record for one of the most unique things ever sawn and that was a golf ball.  ;D    Must have ben shagged into the woods, or put in a crotch when the tree was young by a squirrel or something, but it was grown solidly into the tree before I released ther rubberbands. 

[Ron Wenrich]

Railroad spikes that were used for a tree stand, a bicycle wheel used for a clothes line, a piece of 1/4" x 10" steel (almost made it through), and my personal favorite, a ball peen hammer.  I just hit a 3/4" threaded rod this week.

One year I pulled nails and trash from logs just to see how much I found.  I filled up half a coffee can with trash I recovered.  I don't even bother anymore.

The most was in a walnut tree.  I told the  boss it looked like a lot of trash, but it was for a friend.  I sawed on 3 sides and hit about 75 nails.  Friend or not, that's too many nails.   >:(

[woodmills1]

A screwdriver, a maple syrup tap and an electrical box, electric company guy wire anchors are the worst.

[thedeeredude]

Well, I didn't saw it but I see it, how bout a piece of rail from an old railroad at our iron furnace.  I'll have pictures sometime today.  It's stuck up in a sycamore.

[Tony_T]

Four horseshoes from a split rail fence gate inside a 45" red oak.  Stopped the 200 HP electric motor on the commercial circle mill I was working at dead, warped the blade and shut us down all afternoon.  Carridge would not back out of the log and the workers needed to hammer it back using a log like a battering ram.  The boss was not pleased the fellers brought in a "line tree" e.g. fence /proprety line trees, they are always full of metal, especially the bottom ca. 6 ft.

Workers were happy though, it was 95 oF that afternoon and very humid........... ;D

[mike_van]

I had an oak log once had so  many nails in it the wood was blue - the entire log!  24" x 12' -  The log splitter would pull out nails every pass.

[pigman]

Typical walnut with a porcelain insulator I found today. :( With a new .055 WM blade I was able to cut through the insulator and nail and make to the end of the log. 8) The customer asked if I thought it hurt the blade. :

[woodbowl]

Hey pigman, did it hurt the blade?  ;D ;D

[Furby]

Yeah, did it hurt that blade any?

[Tom]

Was the nail galvanized?   I'll bet the nail was galvanized. ;D

[pigman]

Yes, Yes , No

[Tom]

Well shucks.  That's what my customers always tell  me.  " Lookee here!  That nail's galvenized"

[dennisinmo]

My dad ran a sawmill for the Municipal Farm in Kansas City several years ago. He would cut wood from trees that came from the city streets. I remember one time he hit an axel of an old car. It stopped the saw for awhile. It was a circular saw with carbide teeth inserts.

[GF]

Pigman,
   Ask him to run it through his planer and then ask him if it hurt the knives.    :D :D