Wood Collection Trip Report

[Mike Forsman]

Recently, Chip Sutherland posted a thread about a possible wood collection trip to East Texas (SMC Thread: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=29054). We eventually got both of our calendars to align and yesterday, we made the trip to east Texas. Since the land owner was not with us, we decided that we would look for trees that were down on the ground instead of cutting down a tree that was still standing. There were plenty to choose from! We were like two kids in a free candy store. In fact, I got so wrapped up that I didn't take very many pictures. Hopefully, Chip has some to add. We believe that we collected some sweet gum and some red oak on this trip.

While there, we looked at a massive hickory tree that was blown down by the wind. This hickory took out about five other trees when it came down and they are all a tangled mess. The hickory tree was at least 4 feet across at the base. We are still trying to determine if we can safely cut the hickory without anyone getting hurt.

The first picture is one of Chip carrying what we believe is a sweet gum log out of the woods (Chip, sorry about the shot with your mouth open).

The second picture is one of a sweet gum log.

The third is the truck loaded up after a day of cutting bowl blanks.

The fourth is some wood that we left behind. We stacked up the left over logs and cleaned up so that the land owner will allow us to come back again.

There is some birch and cypress in the low land areas. And there were thousands of pine trees and several nut trees. Hopefully, we will be invited back and we will have talked with the landowner about the what trees he does not want to keep.

It was a very fun day! :D

[Mike Forsman]

Two more photos. These of are my share of the wood.

[Bill Stevener]

Looks like a great hall Mike, thanks for posting the photos.

Bill.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>:)

[Bernie Weishapl]

Yep, that is a mighty fine haul of wood Mike. Congrats.

[Bob Noles]

Good going Mike..... not bad for a day's play.... err.... I mean work :D

[Ernie Nyvall]

Nice haul Mike.

It'd be nice to meet you guys there, but it's about 3.5 hrs from here. The thing is, I can identify most east Texas trees, have a 16' trailer, 2 chainsaws, and cut logs during the summer and holiday breaks of high school and college. Of course that's been a while, but you don't forget.

Maybe if you guys go again, let me know. I have a question though. From the pics, it looks like the place was logged maybe 10 yrs ago or so. The trees in the background are small. So I was just wondering of it is like that all over.

Ernie

[John Hart]

Way to go Mike...Quite a treasure.:)

[Chip Sutherland]

Here are some shots I took. Mike handled most all saw duties. Neither one of us really knew what we were doing but the adventure was the fun part. We didn't fell any trees on this trip. We picked at a number of trees but mostly of the 'too dead to fall down' variety. So we tackled 2 tree already down. Both trees had spalting in the out growth wood areas. The spalting on the sweet gum didn't penetrate very far and we will probably lose it in rough turning. The rings have good definition. The pithe on the sweet gum was way off center so the bowls are likely to be narrow and deep.

The red oak was good size tree as the pics show. The carpenter ants had eaten out about 5-6ft of the trunk which is why it fell. We found a small colony of them still in the tree. The red oak is spalted in the outer layer and looks like some of it carried through.

We spent about 1.5 hrs driving around the rest of the property. I intend to go back and cut of few of the cypress knees to see what what I can turn with them. John (landowner) plans on using the cypress trees for a cabin so hopefully I can pick up a few of the scraps. There is a huge hickory that was uprooted in a storm. It took out a bunch of other trees including 2 bois d'arks, 1 pin oak(?) a small cedar tree and another hardwood. It's a tangled mess which we both just sort of scratched our collective heads and walked away. That'll be a tricky effort. Very little is touching the ground. John uses it for firewood.

We hope to make another trip before the snakes come out...Sadly, we saw no burls but gladly no snakes, either. Here's the pics: 1) Mike sawing on the red oak 2) tanglewoods around the sweet gum 3) red oak end cut

[Mike Forsman]

Thanks all, Chip and I really had a good time. Hopefully, I will get a chance to do some turning in the next few weeks.

Ernie, I would be nice to have someone that could identify east Texas trees. I have a book, but that only goes so far when. The last time I had used a chainsaw was when I was in high school and that was a few years ago. I really don't know about if the area was logged in the past or not. There were some big trees on the property and we didn't get to look at all of the property.