Here in France we get an allocation of wood from the communal forest, a few years back I started on a huge beech tree, I broke a chain on the first cut, then several more before it was finished, turned out a German bomber crashed right there after being shot down by the Canadian air force in 1943 and broke into thousands of pieces, 75 years later the young trees of the day were fully grown and ready to fell complete with the remains of a Junkers inside them, fortunately no live rounds.
I have a similar story I would build a desk for a friend and he had received from his father a very nice plank of ash. I bärjade saw it but I upptänkte soon there were black spots after a while it turned out that there were small pieces of metal, it turned out that the plank came from a military training feild, so it was full of shrapnel, my friend still has no desk.
Probably a whole lot of trees dans les Ardennes and other battlefields in east France are full of bullets and shrapnel, from both world wars, not to mention the 1983 Chernobyl radio active cloud that is said to have stagnated over Alsace. MAybe you can even find bits of the Airbus A320 that crashed on the mont Saint Odile forest.
As an arborist, I've found that the best metal detector in the world is a brand new chain. "In this world you'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
Ace the sound effects garbage. Nobody cares about bluegrass. Every TV show is drowned out by that shytte. Otherwise great video. Thank you. Wood is good.
Thing is, if the chain breaks on a chainsaw, it can whip out in any random direction at high speed, where it remains a thick metal chain with loads of chunky blades attached. You can lose limbs, or your life. I'd probably carry a metal detector if chainsawing trees was my job. You could make one yourself, or else buy one and modify it. It's just a box of electronics, and a coil on the bottom. The coil size affects range, sensitivity, and what size of objects it will pick up. But just keeping it standard would be a good start. Put the electronics on your belt, take the head, with the coil in it, and attach a handle. Then scan round anything you were going to cut into. Test it out on v.rious sized objects first. You could try winding your own coils, enamelled copper wire round a suitable object for a bobbin, and have them able to swap out with each other. An alternative would be one of those stud finders that builders use, very cheap. They detect metal as one of their modes. They also detect large pieces of wood, so obviously you'd need a way to discriminate the two. Assuming that's possible. It's something I'd investigate. There is armour you can buy for working with chainsaws, and I'd certainly invest in that, but preventing a metal strike in the first place is valuable. If anyone wasn't aware, chainsaws are dangerous as fuck. And that's even when they're used properly, which is unusual for a tool. Maybe now there are light and powerful electric tools, a reciprocating saw might be a better alternative. You'd have to make it tough, but that's no problem. Much less inherently dangerous than a chainsaw. Why are chainsaws used, particularly? Wouldn't an ordinary reciprocating wood saw, powered, be safer and just as much use? Or is it that chainsaws are versatile and have lots of uses?
Green ham, your reply was very informative. I don’t work with such tools but I have children who do. I am forwarding your comments to them as I’m sure they do not prepare for the possibility for coming across metal objects when they use chain saws, hedge trimmers, etc. Thank you for taking the time to write this.
@@janetmerrill5303 No problem. I expect a safety course would mention this, it would be worth taking a 1 or 2-day course, just to cover stuff that might not occur to someone. They have the experience of other people's mistakes to teach about. You have a lot to lose, potentially. I also think it's worth investing in the armour. I dunno if chainsawers use metal detectors or not, perhaps it's not possible. Striking metal is a known worry among those people though. Definitely worth getting all the information you can, fore-warned is fore-armed and all that! Glad to help!
I remember my father saying, in the 50's when working in the saw mill, they used to hate when a load of Norwegan spruce came in. They had been shipped over from Norway . He said that one of the old sawers would yell out swearing, my F~*-ing blade, he said ,inside the tree was fragments of WW2 bombs, that had imbedded themselves inside the tree, it then grew over the hole, came to the mills here and snap, they used to wreak the blades.
It's called a "screw nail". It is hardened steel and the design prevents 'backout' and seriously resists being removed with a claw hammer. If you're building a shed or a barn use these.
25 years ago or so buying nails for a deck project (not at my home) I purchased a box by accident, they were galvanized and size I wanted till I opened the box and saw the twist. The box was mixed in with other nails I went to buy, somebody put them in/on the wrong shelf area. What the hell, I did not want to waste more time going back to the H D so I used them without issue. I used that box last so I think I still have about a 1/4 box full out in the shed.
While sawing logs from deep in the woods recently, I found a lead slug, an arrow head, a bunch of regular nails and spikes (prob from an ancient tree stand) and a complete hunting arrow, which the tree had grown around for maybe 20 years. It's hard to know when to give up on a log.
@@VTKingdomsawing My dad just bought one. I'm ready to see how well it does. So many trees around here had barb wire nailed to them at one point or another.
@@falllineridge yeah in areas where hunting forbidden to use lead shotgun pellets steel shot can be an issue as I found out Greetings from the uk 🇬🇧👍🇮🇹🐾🦊
My friends are fallers ,On residentual property , Ive seen them hit , a chain grown into a tree , barbbed wire , and the worst one, an axe lett stuck in , and grown around . My dad had a sawmill with an over and under blade set-up . The teeth are pounded in on an arc , so they can be changed . Tending the cants taken off the log , was the most dangerous job in the mill . Theyd hit a rock or a piece of metal , and the teeth would come off like bullets .
@@GilmerJohn I was thinking about that. I know in the 60s nd 70s there were people that used to go into the woods and drive nails into trees in hopes of hurting loggers when the chains hit the nails.
@@GilmerJohn "We love trees" Proceeds to drive hard ceramic nail into it. I don't know about you but when I love something I don't stab it with a knife.
Perhaps investing in a decent metal detector for these logs would save you in time, frustration, and blades. The other option is use bimetal bandsaw blades. They tend to tolerate cutting metal without too much issue. They cost a lot more, but last much longer.
By metal detector you mean to get a handheld metal detector and check the logs beforehand or is there some kind of metal detecting accessory for those cutting machines?
Handheld metal detector is all u need. My father bought an old abandoned drug store here in Louisiana that was made of cypress to make tongue and groove flooring for his new home. We used a handheld metal detector to rid the wood of nails before plaining them and it worked well. Still missed a few but found hundreds.
There are almost certainly metal detectors that you can pass the log through. Probably kits for quite cheap. It's basically a coil of wire with alternating current. The metal acts as a core for the coil making the resistance to the alternating current change quite drastically when the metal goes through the loop. So you need an amplifier and either headphones or a loudspeaker. When the frequency changes you know there is metal. A hand-held metal detector such as you occasionally see people "treasure hunting" at the sea shore might do. I don't know how close you would need to be to detect a nail of this sort. People find wedding rings buried in sand using such things, so I suppose you could find a nail. Maybe you would need to run the sensor down the log on each side. Possibly you would need to experiment a bit to find out how much wood and how much metal. Say put a nail under 1 plank, then 2, then 3, etc., until you can't detect it any more. Hand-held detectors on Amazon for round-about $100. I'm guessing it would not take many avoided broken saw blades to pay for itself.
About 40 years ago, a friend and I were cutting down some old apple trees for an older gentleman. When we got to the very last tree we hit something hard inside. My friend commenced to using an axe to find the culprit. It was an old horse shoe that someone had, long ago, placed in the fork of the tree and the tree had fully encased it as it grew old. My friend kept that piece of wood with the horseshoe for years as a conversation piece.
In Seneca Falls NY there is or was and old scythe in a tree left from a man going off to the Civil War. It is or was listed in historical sites in the state. The tree could have fallen by now, but I remember seeing it as a kid.
Forty years ago I had screwed an very substantial eyebolt with a very substantial hook permanently attached to the eye into an oak tree for hanging a hammock. Over the years the tree grew and eventually covered the eyebolt so only the hook could be see. Eventually the tree overtook the hook too so only a very small glint could be seen. I eventually cut the tree down but saved the portion with the bolt & hook. I split the log so the whole screw & hook could be seen. Strangely enough no one was as impressed by it as I was. It stayed out in the weather until it was returned back to nature.
My grandpa had an old Frick 00 circle saw and he actually sawed through a horseshoe 😂 he said that log hopped around on the sled and sparked so bad it almost cought the sawdust pile on fire!
Same thing happend to me years ago. Horse shoe sharpened to work like a big staple to slide fencing pole in. An English oak had grown round it, till it was completely in side the tree. It took hours to grind a five foot circular saw back to shape. The saw was steam engine driven, in a moving bench, so took some stopping. We cut a lot of English oak, for boatbuilding and many a time came across shrapnel from bombs after the war.
I'm speculating here but that might be a hardened concrete nail, typically installed into concrete using explosive charged nail guns. It would explain why it killed your saw blade so effectively. To test if it is hardened steel, put it on a grinder and see what kind of sparks it produces. Shorter, redder sparks indicate a hardened steel. Long yellow sparks are more typical of the mild steels used in timber nails.
Another possibility might be that the spiral nail that stopped you last week was a pallet nail, normally shot from a nail gun. The mistreatment that pallets get during their lifetime would require a heavier duty, stickier (spiral) fastener in order to hold up well... Forgive me for putting it this way, but these pallet construction fasteners absolutely need to be as tough as....uh, nails. Gary
Thanks for taking the time to dig out and show us all what you hit in your last video. Keep on enjoying your mill and making videos we all do enjoy watching them! God bless
I’ve seen this type of nail. Used to be iron but may be steel. Thank you so much for taking the time to dig it out for us! It is still a beautiful and useful piece of wood.
In the 1950’s I was taught that a spiral twist square nail was used for pounding into concrete. Thanks for sharing this video and continuing the excavation of hardware from the log. Wishing you and your family a terrific spring season. Cheers.
Whatever other uses for spiral nails,they have been used for a long time assembling shipping pallets. Which a lot of them are white oak. Rejected wood not suitable for whiskey barrels gets turned into shipping pallets. The combination of white oak and spiral nails is pretty formidable. Pallet remanufacturers just cut the pallets apart,removing those nails is one tough proposition.
2x4x12 at the local store go for over $13 / ea., at 25 pieces that's over $325 worth of lumber. You could buy a box of 10 brand new blades and have change left over. I would almost say it's worth it.
@@dd-jm1md Y'know it's weird... I've been an artist most of my life. I went to school for it. I honestly don't remember "Artistic Board Cutting" in any of the available classes...
@@LeeHill66 screws are a low quality way to avoid learning wood carpentry joints. And yes american houses are ALL built in low quality standards. It's a sad reality. And forget about future generations being able to reuse wood we use with nail screws too.
The only nails I ever used with the twist like that were for putting t111 siding up. They are galvanized and not a finish nail but not a flat head either. They really held tight. To all you eco-terrorists out there. Do you have any idea what you're really doing? How did you get to that tree? Did you drive out there and maybe walk a little ways? Not very green to drive out there. Oh you say you have a hybrid or electric car! Not very green still. Either power plant or some gasoline was used to get there. Now let's talk about all the plastics and metal in that car or truck then add them nice tires. None of that is green. As for well you're saving trees no you're not. Commercial operation is going to go out there cut trees and if they can't cut them into boards they'll find a way to use them for something else. They're going to cut land that they have actually planted the trees. When you driving down the road and you notice all the trees are in a straight line guess what those trees were planted by lumber companies and paper mills. That's their property it would be no trees there. So if you really want to be green and save the planet you need to stop using anything with wood fibers in it. Yeah that includes your toilet paper. Napkins. Kleenex. Those new paper straws to save the sea turtle that had a straws yeah they got to go to. Paper cup got to go. Plastic cup got to go. Styrofoam cup yeah you guessed it has to go. Are your clothes cotton or they a mixture of man-made fibers and cotton? Yeah man made fibers aren't good for the environment they got to go. Bleaching cotton and then dying it yeah that's not good for the environment so that's got to go too. You can use cotton but it can't be treated in any way. So if you really want to save the world make it lean to out of natural products such as would you find delaying around not bought not cut. Leaves that kind of thing. No shoes nothing natural about shoes. All those nice soap products you use to get all cleaned up yeah they got to go too. Anything that has to be transported to the area you live got to stop by it. None of that is green.
When I owned 7 acres of Coastal Redwood after we bought the house there there were some logs (shorts) from several trees that were removed for the house. I contracted a saw man to plank them out in big lumber 4x4 4x6 and 3x6. I was going to build a heavy wood crib. He started and ran into a knife. It was old and eaten as these were Redwood. So That was it so I thought - then he ran into a pistol. It was a very old one and and he figured it was over 100 years old at that time. It was so melted and was in a crotch of the tree that was grown over.
@@ericastier1646 It was a solid block or rust. I suspect so but it was so bad without breaking it apart you could not tell what kind. I can only guess it was a six-gun.
My chainsaw found a 5 inch nail in a huge 34 inch diameter walnut tree that was 4 inches deep inside. That single tree made my entire set of kitchen cabinets.
Well done and a great effort! Really enjoy watching you tackle these unknown trees. The inside surprises you find cutting into a log can be awesome. I salute you and your attempts. Keep up the great work!
In my area, it was common during the 70s and 80s to nail timber battens on top of worn out metal roofs, then lay new pressed metal tiles. Those spiral nails are exactly what was used to fix the battens. Much harder to remove than normal nails. Thank you, from New Zealand.
“Already to invested” lol been there so many times. I totally get that comment sometimes you just have to finish at all cost even if you should just burn it and start over it’s the principal of the matter lol
You learned a lot from that log! I'd buy 20 of the 2x4's but it would need to come to NC. Believe me they are better than what you can get in the big box stores. Awesome video👍👍
Given the size of that tree trunk you'd have to wrap a lot of wire around it, abs then pump a lot of current through it. Problem is induction heating works best when the target is in the center of the coil, and the nail is near the trunk's outer layers.
I usually just dig a hole then clamp and pull straight up, the coil idea sounds like something I want to try. I have no idea what Vasil is yapping about but small hole, small coil and the heat should travel down, clamp and pull straight up.
that looks like a concrete nail !, and they are supposed to be made of considerably harder material ! (that's what it looks like to me). Y'LL have a good day.
We had a tree cutter come out and fell a dead walnut. He went through three chains before figuring out how to deal with the problem. He was pissed. Found out that previous owner had filled the cavity in walnut tree with concrete where a large limb had broken off.
Hello....Great video.....I am just merely asking....would it be possible to use a metal detector anytime and during the cutting of your log into boards? I know nothing about metal detectors, however it was the first thing I thought about. It might be worth a try......you can experiment by taking a short log or a slice in the middle of that log.....plant some screws or nails....maybe short piece of wires and also barbed wire piece....and then close it back up in the middle of the log....like "bookends" and then use your detector to see if it would pick up the metal. When planting your metals, I would put some in the middle of that slice...and also at diff depths going toward the bark or outside of the log. It would be interesting to see if the metal detector would pick anything up. It could save you HUNDREDS of Dollars before starting to cut the log into boards.........maybe worth a try. GOOD LUCK if you do. Thanks for sharing Ken Orlando, Fl
Of course it's a pain in the butt, but realize that in Northern America it stops there.🤷♂ Just for the sake of perspective: Imagine sawing Western Europe's lumber, and being surprised again and again by encapsulated grenade or artillery shrapnel.😱
Oddest thing we’ve ever hit was a ceramic insulator. That’ll stop a 54” circle mill in its tracks! Question- are you running that gas chainsaw without a chain break? Or did I view that wrong? As you were starting in after what you thought may be a lag bolt had me on edge. When those things kick back things can go really wrong really fast. We had a logger share his story about not running with a chain break and nearly losing arm. He had the battle scars and family members to support the story. We immediately got rid of any chainsaw without a chain break. I only share this to offer wisdom from someone else’s journey.
years ago I met a logger from Belgium who said that when they were about to price out a logging area from a forest they went to the local bars and had a few drinks. while there they struck up a conversation to find out where battles were waged. If there were battles in a certain area they wouldn't but the timber. Clever!!!
I perceive a useful need for a metal cutting blade once you learn that a particular tree has a nail, & shrapnel problem. Wrecking a slew of blades would be less desirable than cutting slower due to a metal cutting blade with smaller teeth. I've resorted the cutting wooden boards with a hacksaw that had 32 teeth per inch, or 32 PPI. I know.... they don't have those available, but you could weld a series of coarse (24 PPI) hacksaw blades to the leading edge of an old wood miser blade. It may take forever, but imagine the audience's pleasure and the entertainment value. Your ratings would skyrocket. Ark ark ark
Par for the course for a log that came from a backyard or park that people have been hanging their hammocks from or whatever, not usually a problem with an actual forest.
At least you cant get mad and throw the saw mill when you hit a nail...Youbhandled the situation very well. My dad had some anger issues. He would take it out on objects either in his hands or within reach. He never hit people though. He would get mad and throw his skill saw when he would hit a nail sawing used lumber trying to save a nickel. Instead it cost him for a saw blade and on more than one occasion, that I know of, a broken skill saw from slinging it across a slab of concrete. I guess thats what that hot 🔥 90 degree Florida heat will cause.. Whatever the reason, that anger will cost you in more ways than one...and the 😈 devil knows it too, and laughs at us. Words of wisdom... Proverbs 16:31-32 The silver-haired head is a crown of glory, If it is found in the way of righteousness. [32] He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.
Double helix nail. Used for bowling alleys. Hardened like Drywall screws. (Oil hardened. Dropped in oil after heating) modern nail, i used them building a bowling alley 1974 putting the lanes together. I imagine sold as flooring nails, since they don't back out. Was surprised to see what looked like a chisel point. Usually blunt so they don't split the flooring. The nail will never move up the trunk, as growth is out on a tree. So height from ground should give you an indication as to what they were used for. Signs for posting, target hanging, etc.
It would be a wise investment to buy a good metal detector to scan logs before putting it on the sawmill, to see what obstructions may be in the log before possibly getting hurt or worse.
What?! Rather than fool around with those cheap HSS blades would get hold of L A Cutting Products and order in some Bi-Metal blades for wood or metal. Not only would they stay sharp like five times longer hitting a nail does not dull them of any significance. Twice the price and five times the life. Makes sense to me in my shop!
If a “conservationist” were to think he is saving the planet that would be so wrong! He (she) would be contibuting to waste of both your and resources energy. How much $ cost, how much more co2 polution from burning the wood waste, etc, etc. Rather short sighted of them. I like to breath and enjoy nature as much as anyone but some times we just make things worse for everyone!
This is mesmerizing to watch, very cool. Crappy to see that happen to you with the nails. When you cut a 2x4 do you really cut it that dimension or smaller? Never seen a commercial 2x4 exactly that dimension, always smaller. Those are gorgeous boards, I can only do small stuff re-sawing with my little bandsaw. Edit: just watched your other video and see what you were doing with the true 2x4 boards. Also watched the bee video where you hive up the swarmed bees. Nice. We sponsor a bee hive in our garden and just had the keeper over on the weekend opening it up and we saw the queen and she had been a busy girl....good busy hive so far. Cheers👍🏻😎
My Grandpa built his house back in the early thirties and used that type of nails, he had so many of those in his basement and upstairs in his garage they all had square heads on them. Wow i was getting frustrated for you with all those nails.
Think it would be better to place your forks just below where your slab is and slide it onto your forks. What age years ago did were some of these nails embedded into the tree? Wonder if it was in those times of spiking trees so that that they wouldn't be cut down? I used to count tree rings when I was cutting logs as shorts
Here is a documentary on how it used to be done MANUALLY in Germany: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dH-Mq_LHTMs.html The commentary is german, but the technique is easy to see from the film.
I had a friend in Maine that had an old saw mill his grandfather built on the family farm and he would not take yard trees ever just because of nails and I owned some property that had roughly 30 huge old pines and called several people with mills and they wouldn't touch those pines being in and around the the yard so there you have it don't know what your blades cost but I don't imagine there cheap. Like the videos stay safe!
That's a long nail hammered into the tree when it was relatively young. This is a way, the tree huggers get back at the lumber industry by putting these nails into the wood, then destroy the mill's circular/chain saw. Looks like you're the vic they were targetting. This is still done even to this day. They use several short nails so it's not too conspicuous. I once saw a nail about eight or nine inches long in the tree trunk.
Ceramic works better. The mills can't find it with a metal detector. It's an old Earth First trick we used to do back in the 80s. Of course you mark it as spiked so no-one gets hurt.
Tree huggers are asswipes. Trees are crops just like corn or beans. Ifnot harvested when ripe, they're of no benefit to anyone. That's not to say trees can't be harvested with an eye to conservation of the environment and forest.
Yep, this is what I was going to mention, too. Apparently the "Earth First" type folks think spiking a tree is a good way to negotiate a solution to a problem, and they also apparently thought marking a tree as spiked sufficed to relieve them of responsibility for putting others in harm's way. But then activism isn't about pursuing an actual cause, it's about self-loathing, vengeance and power grabbing (with likely some pissing contests thrown in); they're cut from the same cloth as the (often imaginary, but not always) corrupt corporate interests.
This is a hardened steel nail for use in masonry, do a search for Maze Nails, CMH10-112 Hardened Steel Cut Masonry Nails. A lot harder than standard wood nails.
Makes you wonder what happened to the owner of the gun. Thats not something you just leave around. Maybe got tree'd by a bear or big cat and never made it down.
Someone probably nailed boards to climb up for a deer stand. The boards rot off leaving the nails. I have two big pine still standing full of nails because of this. Someday soon I need to put then down. Shame.
I assume this tree was spiked and not a leftover from a deer stand? You should ask the BLM nominee from Biden ,she and her husband have had experience installing tree spikes.
Aloha, For hidden troubles, the trees that gave me the most objects were trees that were also found in an ancient fence line. Fencing swallowing is a past time for these trees. The weirdest swallowed object: a cast iron park bench in New York Central Park!
i would say also hardened steel and it was not to bad one log i did had a hardened steel screw in it lost twelve Teeth on my blade that one was shout for just last week did a cedar log just about every cut i hit metal there was a type of wire all the way trough it but no hardened metal by what i saw on the outside of the log took two 8 inches nail and one tap con screw [ blue screw for concrete ] so i knew i was going to hit metal that blade was on it's last leg so i left it on the mill and was able to cut the whole log with it but that blade now is definitely dead no coming back for that one and i got 9 slab 1 and half inches thick 6 feet long and up to 20 inches wide with a lot of hardware in lol if you look in your email i will send you a picture of what i built with some of it
10 out of 10 for effort you’ve got there in the end and like you said it’s beautiful wood shouldn’t be wasted in the burn pile, would love to known where it grew to get all those nails in it rick
I’m guilty. 😪. I have an enormous beautiful big white birch tree in my back yard... when my husband and I divorced, I needed a clothesline so I just run a line from the back porch to that tree , using one of those huge eye hooks with the divider to tighten the line and used a clothes line pole after I hung the clothes out. I used that for YEARS and then the end on the tree was too high for me to reach so I just cut the line ! BIG MISTAKE- cause now I can only see where the line is sticking out of her. So the eye hook AND divider is INSIDE my beautiful Tree. I left the piece of line on the tree to indicate where- I won’t live forever and if anyone other than my family has my place- they’ll see where. They’ll know about it too as I made a footnote ON the deed of this MISTAKE.
You sound like an awesome person. Great story of how life moves on measuring our lives by nature's scale. My uncle has a massive pine tree in his front yard and I was complementing him on how nice it was and he said it was a Christmas tree they planted after they used it for Christmas in about 1974. I was blown away at how big it was since being planted..... amazing how life flys by.
on a bad loglike this if u have a p;ace in ur lawn where u need a lawn mower bridge six inch thick as wide as u can get slabs would workn fine for that bridge
We usually lay the floor boards and THEN put in the nails afterwards. Seems a good idea if the boards come with nails already included. I suppose now it's just a case of growing the trees so that the spacing between nails is right.
15 or 20 years ago I remember that there was a group of "save the forest" people that went in to logging areas and pounded those spiral nails in to trees to sabotage logging and mills. They seem to have disappeared now, but the nails are still around.
Fragments of bombs and mortar shells are a common problem for foresters in Poland. Especially in the forests of the north-east of the country where during World War II there were fights and the front was crossing. Before the shipment of wood to a sawmill, foresters often inspect the branches with a metal detector.
