Hard gall on maple

[Mike Krueger]

I have never run across something like this, maybe you guys will know. This small maple was already on the ground for a couple of years, thanks to the local beaver clan. A couple of weeks ago I accidentally hit the gall with a brush cutter and got sparks off it and dinged the blade pretty good. It is definitely not a rock (everything in the area is shale) but it is hard like rock. I slice up spalted maple from the vicinity and I definitely would not want any tool in my shop anywhere near this thing. You can see the tree was partially growing around it, was about halfway up a 25-30 ft tree. Any ideas on what this is? Can something like this start developing internal to a tree such that you wouldn't know it's there? Thanks -- Mike

[Mark Norman]

I would just have to start cutting it to see whats inside, start by cutting a few inches away from it and see what ya get?

[curtis rosche]

if you gots sparks off of that and you say it was about 10ft in the air. then i would say its probably a gunshot wound. stick the whole peice on the lathe, you dont wanna waste it. bullets can be turned. they are alot softer that your turning tools.

that high up there is no way that it is a rock or a fence wire.

[Jeff Nicol]

If it is that hard and it looks like it does I think it may be some sort of calcification that started as the tree was growing. It may have been a piece of shale that got caught in the tree when small and as it grew up it would keep adding some of the mineral from the soil to it as it grew. No way to be sure as it is strange. Mother nature soes som weird things. Not a bullet though would be lead or copper no sparks there. Another thing when we cut down Hop Hornbeam sparks will fly from it because it is hard and has some silica in it I think. So I think some thing made it grow like a stalagtite!

Let us know what you find out,

Jeff

[Paul Gallian]

Ossified limb -- maybe left leg -- soon to be a fossil since the earth is only 4000 years old..

trying to be funny! :rolleyes:

[Wally Dickerman]

I've seen and even turned things like this, but I've never raised sparks from it. I've found them full of pitch sometimes. Andi Wolfe is a professor of botany with a specialty in trees. Email a pic to her. She'll give you the info on it. When she does, let us know what she said.

Wally

[Mike Krueger]

I have run this by Andi Wolfe and she will need to see the thing to know what it is. So I have sent it to her at Ohio State U. and we'll see what she has to say once she takes a look. Thanks for the pointer to her, maybe we'll all learn something on this one. -- Mike