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I wacked this locust tree on my property. This is a big locust, about 17 inch diameter.




My brother and I had to use the rope and the pulleys to haul the wood down to the driveway, had to move it 80 feet down the steep mountain side.




A lot of pretty blocks of the green colored wood.
The blight killed all the locust 20 years ago. I measured the wood with my meter and it is 19 percent.
That is really low for fresh cut wood, you need 17 percent to burn well in the wood stove.
Just a few weeks on the wood pile and this wood will be ready to go.




A beautiful thing. A truck load of locust. I have about given up on cutting my locust because most of it is half-rotten these days.
I don't use rotten wood. But this tree is pristine, no rot.
My brother also got a truck load.

Good looking wood!

Love burnin' locust.

Still about 3 ft of snow up where we cut. Likely early June before we can get at it. Envious.

I make a living cutting firewood fulltime. We still have lots of snow, but thats the best time to cut wood as its easy on the chain and the logs slide nice on the snow. I also use cables and a couple yarding blocks if I have too.

locust is harder than woodpecker lips! but burns hot like mesquite. at least the locust we have. most won't grown big enough to cut. hard on the chain too.

To my surprise, the badass Fiskars maul would hardly split this stuff. Usually locust is easy to split.
I had to use the Ochsenkopf aluminum wedge, and the ten-pound hammer. The Ochsenkopf doesn't play.

It got good to me. I went out this morning and got another truck load. This time I cut two dead standing locust, they were much smaller in diameter about 10 inches.
Once again, not a milligram of rot.

We cant get to our cutting area, to much snow! Supposed to get another foot or so in the high country tonight. Soon as we can access the area, we will cut another years worth! I try to stay two years ahead of usage. That looks like good wood. Here we cut lodgepole and red fir.

I got two large piles split but not stacked. Dropped to 150+ tall doug firs on our place this winter. Still working on the second one (bucked up but not all split)

Need to build a new wood shed.

I have probably 15 post oaks to cut up. 2 need to be cut down. One is going to fall on my rifle range where we shoot pistols and I had plans for that tree as a cable anchor for a moving target towards us for bear practice for the wife. Guess I"ll see how high I dare cut that big one.. I say big, its probably 30 inch diameter about chest high.

Good time to cut wood for us in TX, though I should have been back in AK by now. Actually its already way to hot for my tastes but better than cutting in July for sure.

Thankfully we have a vertical splitter that hooks to the tractor. That helps a lot.

Those funky diamond shapes wedges just bounce out of our oak. Have to use a couple of regular ones if doing it by hand. I dont' mind by hand, I enjoy it, but time... have less time than used to.

I like the wooden handle you have on the sledge and I have switched to wooden handles on my splitting maul and my sledgehammer. Its alot easier on the elbow and wrist joints than the modern day fiberglass handles that seem to send vibration straight to my elbows.
Its still not as easy as the woodsplitter.

I'm finding more and more of my 'standing dead' locusts full of rot.
Had hoped to keep cutting them for another 5 years or so but decided a couple of weeks back to just go ahead and start cutting them all.
Can't get a truck within 3-400 yards of most of mine so this is my method:

This is the Ochsenkopf twisted aluminum wedge. It looks like a regular wedge, but, it twists. So it is not hard to start, and as you drive it in it twists sideways.
Made by Krauts this thing is a real bad ass. This locust is harder than oak, especially since it is dry, but the Ochsenkopf {Ox Head} just eats it up.

I lived out in Washington state for a while and all they had to burn was various types of pine. They thought I was making it up when I told them about the oak and hickory we burned back home in Georgia, because they hold coals twice as long as pine.
And locust is better than hickory.

Washington has lots of madrone... no better firewood than madrone.

I was north of Spokane, near Newport. Nobody said any thing about madrone. They did, to be fair, have maple trees which are pretty good, although not as good as hickory.
However the Washington maple trees were weird spindly things about 3 inch diameter.
Same thing next door in British Columbia, I spent the summer up there near Manson Creek and Ft. Nelson, nothing but different kinds of pine to burn.

Yes to Maple, we have that and sometimes I cut it but you need to season it, I have one here in my yard which has probably 2 cords in it, its great hardwood.
We don't have hardwood like you guy's here in BC.

Is locust hard enough to make rifle stocks? Thinking about shaping and inletting, as well as finished weight.

Ted

I cut a lot of black walnut and, rest assured, locust is harder than black walnut. What size piece would you need to make a rifle stock? It is a very heavy and dense wood.
I could cut you a piece out next time I get firewood, probably next week.

we cut ash and beech I like the beech cause the coals stay together like oak. Also the only good use for beech other than pallets is firewood burns hot and long better than white and red oaks.