Please educate your loved ones...

[Blackpowder Barbie]

Well last night my wonderfully loving husband brought home a huge truck load of firewood that he'd cut up for me.  As I was helping him unload it in the dark I noticed that it looked like it was curly... Daylight broke the bad news this morning.  I'm afraid I'm burning what could have been a nice little chunk of change if I'd have known before it became firewood!  So to everyone out there, please educate your family and friends on what curly wood looks like.  Even if all you do is train them to call you to check it out before they split it!  Uggg!!!!!

[P.W.Berkuta]

I feel your pain . My family was invited over a friends house for the holiday one year. The friend had the fireplace going and we were all talking having a great time. The fire was getting low and my buddy asked me to give him a hand bringing in some fire wood. As I was picking up the splits I noticed that all the splits had tight curl end to end - some of the best wood I had ever seen. I took some of the larger splits for knife handles - so sad !

[Acer Saccharum]

Unfortunately, most of the time the tree is already in firewood lengths by the time it's discovered.

It's simple to take some bark off with a hatchet for a quick look. If it looks promising, take some exploratory cuts on the upper limbs before you cut it into lengths for the stove.

I feel your HUSBAND's pain. He thought he was doing a great deed. Now he's in the doghouse.

Train him right, Barbie.

Acer

[Jerry V Lape]

Barbie, go back and find the stump quick! 

[C Wallingford]

The neighbors will wonder why you have curly smoke coming out of your chimney! Don't be too hard on him.

[Roger Fisher]

I do hope to keep a tranquill household your man can take you to the stump of that tree and show you that it was only say 7 or so inches across

[Beaverman]

Man I hate when that happens, Ive been eyeballing this maple in Chicago every time I go home to the old neighborhood and visit my dad, I remember when that tree was planted in the parkway a couple doors down, the things got to be 4 foot across and the first seven feet of it is all burled, man Im drooling, problem is .. its in the parkway and belongs to the city, would love to hatch a sheme to make it disappear without going to jail over it, Barbie, alls not lost, dig through that pile and pull out the figured stuff, cure it and cut it up to offer for either hawk handles or knife scales!

[rich pierce]

Maybe it's silver maple.  Often curly, always soft.

[northmn]

I burn a lot of firewood and see that a lot in a surprising variety of woods.  One wood I always thought might be worth trying is Aspen as that is often curly and it is aweed in my neck of the woods.  Birch can be very curly also and has a similar property to maple. White Oak always looked interesting. My las maple I split out was very uninspiring.   My problem is that were I to check all trees I would never get any wood cut.  I have to burn a lot of wood in MN.  I remember a method of splitting out stock blanks that was proposed by a bow builder.  You use wedges and drive the wedges until you pass out and when you come to you split some more.   I have split out stock blanks and it isn't as far from the truth as it sounds even with chainsaw assistance.  Green stockblanks are not all that light either.  As to knife handles and that sort of thing, you can save those from the pile.  Pistol blanks maybe.  Curl can be caused by wind action and trees exposed to a lot of wind can be better than deep woods trees.

DP

[Blackpowder Barbie]

Oh no worries, he's not in the dog house for sure!  He brought home fire wood and a pizza - can't beat a man like that!!     Unfortunately the stump is a goner too.  The tree was on a job site that he was clearing so the stump got pulled up by his track hoe and then promptly run through the shredder.  Sighhh.  To his defense he also mentioned something to Pop that he thought it might be curly.  Pop's been through the "I have a curly tree you got to see!" routine many times over that turned out to be not worth the drive to see them.  So he didn't jump on this one.  Guess we'll both jump the next time though!!  The hubby says he thinks there may be a log or two still left so I need to go peruse the pile!   

[t.caster]

Yeah, I see a lot of curl like that when I cut up the big fallen maples in my woods. Alas, they all turn out to be SOFT silver maples. I dried a beautiful pistol stock sized piece for a couple years, but it doesn't carve well (all fuzzy) and doesn't stain up well with any method I've tried.
It's always worth checking out though!

[Acer Saccharum]

Barbie, this does make a pretty funny story, I gotta say. It's what you might call the spice of life.

Speaking of spices, (this is a major subject change, fasten your seatbelt), I just looked through the latset issue of "Cook's Magazine".....lo, and behold! They have an article on pumpkin pie!  Cook's is the 'Popular Mechanics' of the culinary world. Fantastic.

Acer

[keweenaw]

Acer,

If only Cook's didn't make an all day job out of making pie crust, instead of the simple job it is.  I've long been of the opinion that New Englanders don't know squat about good pastry crusts.  My son in the Boston area is loved by his friends for his great pies with their flaky crusts.  Made in a few minutes.  Of course he cheats and uses lard for the shortening so his fruit pies aren't for vegetarians!  For awhile he was into pies that could incorporate bourbon - especially good in sweet potato pie.  So that eliminated the tea totalers as well!!

Tom

[t.caster]

Now you've gone too far!!!! This talk of food is more offensive than politics!!! I think I gained a pound just reading about lard crusts! OMG, Stop, STOP! 

[Dphariss]

A friend in the east told me a few years ago he was at a friends house and he was burning curly maple in the fire place...
Dan

[Jim Filipski]

Speaking of spices, (this is a major subject change, fasten your seatbelt), I just looked through the latset issue of "Cook's Magazine".....lo, and behold! They have an article on pumpkin pie!  Cook's is the 'Popular Mechanics' of the culinary world. Fantastic.

Acer

Curly Maple crust, no doubt

[Levy]

Last year woodsrunner cut up some ornamentals in his yard and we used most of it for campfire wood and the rest got thrown on the ground for quite a while.  While walking by it one day (in the sunlight) it appearred to be curly where the bark had peeled off.  I checked all of the pieces of it that were lying about.  It was all very curly and oddly enough, it was crate myrtle.  I took it to work and slabbed it up into knife handles (the only thing it was big enough for) and stained a piece with AF.  It turned out a beautiful warm color after one coat of AF and a couple of coats of linseed oil and turpentine.  I took it to the CLA Show and showed it around.  I gave some slabs to Wallingsford, Ridge and Ellerbe for knife handles.  It seemed to have about the same consistency and look as maple.  One never knows!

James Levy 

[Acer Saccharum]

The flames actually have stripes in them, too.

[Birddog6]

Man, I'll bet that smoke will just Curl out of that chimney so pretty...... 

It could have been worse........  I grew up in southesat Ohio. At the home where my mother still resides, there were three huge maple trees in the front yard. I'm talking big now (to me) the largest being over 3' thick & the other two about 3' thick and all of them ? 100' tall & huge round maples.   A storm came thru & blew one of them onto the house, thus Mom decides they all have to go.  So the tree guys come & get the one off the house & cut the other two down & I tell her to have them save the 3 base logs for me !  Man, did I ever have visions of curly maple gunstocks !  Hundreds of them  !     (well, I said it was a vision !  ) 
So I am in Alabama, and the logs are in Ohio & I am up to my neck in work & can't leave.....   
So I coax a good friend & his brother-in-law to haul a tractor up there & a trailer to load the logs & haul them to a mill & have them cut. Send him a fax on Exactly how I wanted them sawn & etc.
So they go up there, first problem is the tractor won't pick up one end of the big log, let along load it.  So they get a guy with a backhoe & they get it loaded.  Big long, not so big a trailer, can only haul one at a time.   Plus now the truck gets stuck in Moms yard & it takes the backhoe & the tractor to get the truck & trailer out.
 
So off they go to the mill in southern Ohio.  Now we are talking Hills folks...  LOTS of hills.....  Up & down the hils & grades with the trailer & of course this is a ol farm trailer with no brakes & one biga$$ log that is Heavy.....  Yep, totally smokes the brakes on the truck on the trip....  Get to the mill & the guy looks at it & says" Man, that is  S O M E   big maple log !!  "Wonder if it is any good ?"   
My friend says   "WHAT !!  What do you mean  Any GOOD?" 
The guy gets a metal detector out & that sucker was absolutely FULL of nails end to end & all over it, from 200 years of being right on state route #124,  in town,  & every election, yard sale, poster, you name it had been nailed to it for 200 years !

So, needless to say, I got a REAL  earfull when they left.  The lumber yard didn't want it, the guys hauling it didn't wanted it cause the nails would damage whatever you tried to cut it with, including a chainsaw to cut to firewood.  So they ended up hauling them to the woods & letting them rot .  I had to buy my friend new brakes for his truck & also pay a backhoe fee & have a good story to tell of my logging  investment.       

Now the guys are really *#)*^~, but I thought it was absolutely Hillarious !  I mean I was on the floor laughing as my friend in Ohio is on the phone just a giving me H about all the work they did & all the trouble & getting stuck & brakes & then have to toss them, and I am in hysterics over it all !!   

So, no matter how big, how curly, how pretty, how easy or hard it is to get.  CHECK it FIRST with a metal detector or you could end up wasting allot of your friends time !!     Ha ha ha !

[Dale Halterman]

Birdy, Wayne Dunlap used to talk about that in his presentation at Dixon's. Said he refused to cut up an "unknown" tree for a customer unless the customer agreed to be responsible for any potential damage to his mill. He said that a metal detector is only good for a few inches penetration and, in a really old tree there can still be metal or rocks undetected.

Wayne said he found an old bicycle frame in a log one time, although I have trouble imagining that.

Dale H

[Dale Campbell]

There's a (relatively) famous one around Geneva, NY.  A boy went off to the War Between the States (hope I got that right, don't land on me if I didn't).  He left his scythe in the crook of the tree for when he came back.  He didn't.  The tree grew around it and only the tip shows now.