A BIG Stump

[Dragon]

Well, I've been rather busy the last few weekends and evenings working on a stump that I cut a tree off last year. While cutting it I ran into some barbed wire that I didn't see beforehand so I left it be for a time.

You can see one of the wires hanging out in the above pic from earlier this year.

Once I made up my mind what I was going to do with it, I had to start getting rid of some real estate to get at it.:eusa_thin This is just the beginning work on getting to the "root" of the matter.

A little more digging and water hose work gets to this point.

After a whole lot of pondering,:dontknow: head scratching, :icon_scra and who knows how many thousand gallons of water, we have arrived at this point and I'm ready to start cutting out root sections.

Oh, and this one is from standing on top of the hill looking down at all those danged roots.

After a bunch of root cutting and swapping out chains because of rocks and embedded sandy clay, it's ready to come out of the ground.

Anchored the come-a-long to a tree across the creek, hooked up the chains and cable, pulled a little tension, cut the remaining roots determined to keep me from my prize, and VIOLA, it's out of the hole and on a pallet where I can start carving it up.

Many more cuts,:eusa_thin ruined saw chains, :evil3: new bar,:evil3: more chains, sharpening a few chains, :BangHead:
and lots of straining and grunting moving heavy wood chunks around and hauling them across the creek, and the stump is now gone. This is the hole left behind after three weeks work.

Oh yeah, lots of neato table bases and slabs have come out of all this but I'm not so sure I ever want to tackle this kind of job again. Yeah, got the pics of all the "parts" that came off that stump and here's some of them.
Couple of nice slabs.

Some of the table bases to be...

Another table base in the making...

Oh, last but not least, my little Gorilla Cart at work. Had to redneck engineer a bridge to get all that stuff across the creek and 75% of it weighed considerably more than I do, so carrying it was out of the question.

 

[Gotcha6]

Lots of nice figure in the grain on those pieces. Is that a cherry stump? Did I see some spalting in the cut you made? Oughta give you lots to work with. How long would something like that need to cure before you could finish it after a rough cut?

 

[Dragon]

Lots of nice figure in the grain on those pieces. Is that a cherry stump? Did I see some spalting in the cut you made? Oughta give you lots to work with. How long would something like that need to cure before you could finish it after a rough cut?

It's ambrosia maple. Yeah, there's some spalting, some center rot, and carpenter ant damage, not to mention I had to section off a pretty large chunk due to barbed wire embedded in it. As for drying, I'm thinking around 8 to 12 months. I'll bury everything in wooden crates and fiberboard barrels with chainsaw shavings after I'm through roughing out all the pieces. Not as good as kiln drying but those buggers cost more than I've got laying around.

Some of the larger diameter root sections will have to be hollowed out just to lighten them up so I can move them around. A couple of them outweigh me by over a 100 lbs. as they are. I'm anticipating if all goes well about 6 months worth of work finishing things out once they've dried. Oh, did I mention that I've currently got about a year's worth of work in process now? You get bored sitting around the house I've got plenty to keep you occupied. :gar-La;

 

[Gotcha6]

If I left the projects I have here to go there I'd find my clothes in the yard when I got back. :embaresse Got a Honeydo list that grows exponentially.
But I might sneak off some time.:wsmile:

 

[b4man]

I am overwhelmed just reading your account of that harvest. Great pix and ingenuity! I'll bet you never hear

" Get off your lazy butt and do something"!:wink_smil

Thanks for sharing this with us.


Barbara

 

[Dragon]

I am overwhelmed just reading your account of that harvest. Great pix and ingenuity! I'll bet you never hear

" Get off your lazy butt and do something"!:wink_smil

Thanks for sharing this with us.


Barbara

Actually, I hear "why don't you sit down and rest some?" Don't get anything done that way.

 

[Ray Martin]

David,

What are the plans for all the wood? Have you got any specific projects in mind, or do you have to see how this stuff turns out before you do any designing?

 

[Mark Stewart]

David,
Good work I told you Id help all you needed to do was holer. Caint wait to see tables when finished.
Mark

 

[richlife]

Whoa! What a task! On my one experience, I was surprised at how quickly a root stump can dry out -- 6 -8 months should hopefully do the trick. Lots of good looking stuf there, David. I hope it all works well for you! I had a smaller but similar task once that you may be interested in.

A couple of years ago, I cut out a black walnut root, but it was a small tree (only about 6 " thick) and had fallen into a creek, so the root was mostly out. It still weighed about 300 pounds and was a monster to remove. I had two major problems (no barbed wire) -- the root was totally waterlogged from sitting in the creek for a couple of months and I then had to get it (along with the tree segments -- about 40 feet total) a hundred yards down to the pond and then about a 1/4 mile across the pond to where my truck could get to it (either that up a 1/4 mile uphill -- you choose). I only had a 24" chain saw, so I cut the root into manageable chunks (if anyone else ever tries this, try to keep the core intact -- my mistake!). Loaded all in a small boat. End-over-ended the 10 foot log sections to the pond and floated them across tied to the back. All this with a small electric motor but no real problems (except my aching back!). Those on the crawl yesterday may have seen the logs still on end in my wood storage and many of the root chunks stowed away. The biggest problem I've encountered (let's not even talk about twisting grain) is that although the walnut figure looks amazing, it finishes so dark (endgrain,endgrain, and more endgrain) that it's almost impossible to see. I'm going to try some bleaching techniques before trying to do much else with it. The trunk sections however, are just waiting to be worked! Rich

 

[Glennbear]

Thanks for sharing the pictures David, it is obvious that you are not easily discouraged. :gar-La;

 

[Dragon]

Thanks for sharing the pictures David, it is obvious that you are not easily discouraged. :gar-La;

:rotflm:Yeah us Scotch/Irish folks have a rather stubborn streak that runs deep. :evil3: Once I got "into" it I wasn't about to let go until I won the fight. Amazingly, I bled very little considering all the opportunities I was given. Guess when it comes to finishing time I'd better be extra careful, huh?

 

[Dragon]

Whoa! What a task! On my one experience, I was surprised at how quickly a root stump can dry out -- 6 -8 months should hopefully do the trick. Lots of good looking stuf there, David. I hope it all works well for you! I had a smaller but similar task once that you may be interested in.

A couple of years ago, I cut out a black walnut root, but it was a small tree (only about 6 " thick) and had fallen into a creek, so the root was mostly out. It still weighed about 300 pounds and was a monster to remove. I had two major problems (no barbed wire) -- the root was totally waterlogged from sitting in the creek for a couple of months and I then had to get it (along with the tree segments -- about 40 feet total) a hundred yards down to the pond and then about a 1/4 mile across the pond to where my truck could get to it (either that up a 1/4 mile uphill -- you choose). I only had a 24" chain saw, so I cut the root into manageable chunks (if anyone else ever tries this, try to keep the core intact -- my mistake!). Loaded all in a small boat. End-over-ended the 10 foot log sections to the pond and floated them across tied to the back. All this with a small electric motor but no real problems (except my aching back!). Those on the crawl yesterday may have seen the logs still on end in my wood storage and many of the root chunks stowed away. The biggest problem I've encountered (let's not even talk about twisting grain) is that although the walnut figure looks amazing, it finishes so dark (endgrain,endgrain, and more endgrain) that it's almost impossible to see. I'm going to try some bleaching techniques before trying to do much else with it. The trunk sections however, are just waiting to be worked! Rich

And they call me stubborn and determined. Go figure.:dontknow: You put that much work into getting something home, you'll make something very nice out of it.:icon_thum

 

[Dragon]

David,

What are the plans for all the wood? Have you got any specific projects in mind, or do you have to see how this stuff turns out before you do any designing?

About the only specific "plans" if you can call it that, that I currently have are making tables. There's a few burl chunks that if they dry out like I'm hoping, I'll try my hand at some lathe work with them and see what happens. I do wait to see how things dry out and if there's much deforming going on before I settle on a definite idea. I put a bunch of stuff in the crates with the shaving to start drying today.

This crate has several small burls chunks buried in all those shavings and I've got to add more shavings before I close it up for a few months.

Here's some of the burls that will be going in there as well.

I also have another crate that I've put two of the larger slabs in and they will be drying for a few months. Keeping my fingers crossed they turn out good too.

They will be totally buried in chainsaw shavings as well and periodically I'll check on them to see how they're doing. Now, I've got to get on all those root sections and get them squared up for bases/pedestals and round up another crate or two to put them in.

 

[Ray Martin]

Definitely looking forward to photos in a couple of months. Keep us apprised of the results.