Harvesting blanks from fallen trees

[Lawrence Tarnoff]

There are several fallen trees in the ravine behind my home. They were there when we bought the property in 2006, so I don't know how long they've been down. Pretty good girth on a couple of them; without measuring I'd say up to 30 inches in diameter. My new chain saw keeps telling me to spend an afternoon down in the ravine. Question: am I likely to harvest any lathe-worthy wood or is this just a firewood exercise? While I don't know for sure, I suspect one of the trees is maple.

Larry

[Fred Belknap]

You might find some great spalting on the maple. Hope you have some way of carrying them out. Good luck.

[Fred Perreault]

That is a question I ask myself every time that I see an available tree or trees with potential. And the answer always comes at the end of a chainsaw. Nothing ventured.... Nothing gained

Good luck, and be safe :)

[David Reed]

06?? Around here this would be pretty punky in eight years. But then you never know unless you put the saw to it. If large enough, it may be spalted and not yet rotten deep in the center. Do I smell two cycle oil?

[Reed Gray]

I generally won't mess with it if it has been down longer than a year. It looses color, can be full of bugs, lots of rot, and for some reason, when you cut a log that has been down a while, it cracks really fast. It wouldn't hurt do cut into it and see what it looks like. I don't know how familiar you are with a chainsaw, but down in a ravine is very high risk for rolling and binding. Professional level only.

robo hippy