# Are these pin oaks worth milling?



## redram99 (Sep 13, 2016)

I was hoping to get some experienced opinions on a couple pin oaks I just had cut down on my acreage. I've done a bit of googling on this so I knew there's smell issues while drying, and they may be knotty, and yard trees are dicey due to hardware. But now that they're cut down, I have a couple issues. 

Here's the first tree. It's about 24" diameter. At the bottom end, there's a series of dark patches. I thought these were chainsaw marks but the tree guys said these were probably iron injections. Both trees have these at the base cuts - both trees were mostly dead, so these may have been attempts to get the trees back to health when they first started showing signs of disease? I'm assuming these would show up in the final lumber. They cut this tree into two 11' sections, and the other end of the lower section doesn't really show evidence of these dark patches, so I assume they disappear after awhile. Any idea how far up the tree these might go? 

























And then below is the second, larger tree. About 30-32" diameter. It's got the same dark spots. Moreover, most of the center has a dark pattern, as shown by the slice in the last photo. I read that pin oaks are prone to "ring shake"? I didn't think this really looked like that, based on google photos, but wanted to see if it's indicative of something else, or it's just how the central wood looks? This tree seemed to also have more borer damage than the smaller tree. They haven't sectioned this trunk yet so I don't know how it looks further up. I was thinking of a 16' long lower section, and 8' upper section.


















I was considering having these trees milled for lumber. The larger tree I could get some 16' 6x12ish beams from maybe, for the living room. But I wanted to get some opinions on the likelihood of at least getting some nice beams before I go to that expense, and also ask, for portable sawmills, do I have to have machinery to get a 16'x32" log onto the mill, or is the mill typically equipped to drag the log onto itself? Because I'm guessing that 16' log would weigh over 2 tons, and I don't have anything to move that. Thanks for reading!


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## djg (Dec 24, 2009)

I'm not an expert so I can't really answer your questions. But that is weird; I've never seen that before. At first I thought he might have used wedges to fell the tree and it resulted in oxidation, but that would be a weird way to use wedges. I never heard of iron injection, which doesn't mean anything either. As for the cut, how knotty do you what your beams to be? The lower section looks branch free and might make some good timbers. Let's see what everyone else thinks.


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## Tennessee Tim (Dec 15, 2010)

This tree HAS METAL!!!!! No doubt about it. It was also done all at the approx same time frame due to the blue marks are all in the same approx growth ring(s). It' definently in the bottom part from the marks...IF you could trace the mark straight up the tree an each one you'll find a piece of metal in that line....they normally stain inline according as most say is the flow of the sap....the color will NEVER come out, it may just turn black. I'm in the process of slicing up a cherry that had a tree stand for hunting nailed/spiked into it, ALL metal has to be removed, NO reptuble sawyer will think about sawing.....I myself own my mill and I can take that risk if I knowingly wiegh if the risk is profitable.

You an cut off 6" increments until your passed the metal BUT most mills won't saw yard tress due to the high risk of hidden objects.

Worth sawing??? The upper part could be BUT it's a long road to getting properly dried and treated for interior use.


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## redram99 (Sep 13, 2016)

Iron injections are apparently done to battle chlorosis. I'm not clear on the chemistry behind it but that's what quick google search turns up, and the remaining leaves are indeed mostly yellowish, with green veins - a primary sign of chlorosis. But from what I understand that symptom can be caused by several other things besides chlorosis. Both trees had these marks, and the symptoms. 
I kind of find it hard to imagine what they would have been nailing to the tree that would have needed so many nails spaced so regular around the trunk. I sent the sawyer pictures and he didn't seem fearful, so this will probably happen (after the upper sections are sawn). Since this doesn't seem to be something a lot of people have experienced, I'll try to maybe post some more pictures when I get some results and see just how far up this stain goes.


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