i was just wondering what kind of wierd stuff...

[woodsie]

you guys have come across inside trees while doing pruning or takedowns.  because yesterday i was up in an oak trimming something that was hanging over a house.  about halfway thru, BAM!  my chain on my 42 special broke in half fell totally out and landed on the ground.  my boss asked if i was alright, i said i was, cool?  turns out it was pulley from a laundry line, totally encapsulated in wood!

[Kevin]

The guys with the saw mills find that stuff quite often.
My logs for the most part originate away from built up areas so I don't see much of it.
Some of the things mentioned are nails,bullets, insultators, chain, horseshoes,and pulleys.

[Hunter]

I too have found some stuff in trees.
Not long ago I found a steel fence post. But it was not near the ground, like 10ft off the ground. Must have been attached when it was younger.
 The one thing that I was baffled for the longest was a Bit from a horses mouth. I did not know what it was for a long time, until one of the guys figured it out.
Guess some old timer put the horses lead in the tree and forgot about it.
Hunter

[Stan]

Did you find any trace of the rest of the horse?  ???

[davefrommd]

Recently one huge oak tree I had cut down had a 2x4 with nails in it wedged inside the tree on the side. The tree grew all around it but you could see part of the end of the 2x4. You had to look close and study it to figure out what it was. I didn't cut into it but I only discovered it after the whole tree had been cut  into log size pieces. Dave

[Preston]

I also found things in a tree!
I was in nothern California helicopters logging and was in an old growth patch of sugar pine! I was cutting down a sudar pine and release half way through my chain was dull! Well got the tree on the ground and looked at it! One old fart thought it was a barrel to a rifle I wasn't sure what it was but it was in an octigon shape! Very interesting what you can find! As far as the other stuff yeah I've sawed into it to many times especailly on private ground!

[rebocardo]

A complete glass (ale?) bottle from 1864-1865 inside the bottom of a 54 inch wide white oak that got hit by lightening. Burned out everything from around the bottom. Only reason I found it intact was my chain kept hitting what I thought was rock, so when I took a shovel to clean out the middle of the trunk before I cut anymore, I came across the bottle.

Bottom part of the tree must have had sand or whatever in the wood, because the lightening turned part of the tree into black glass. Wierd.

Sold the bottle on E-Bay for $5 plus S&H too!

[Rocky_J]

I hit a pressurized water line once. Stump cut on a big oak removal, I never saw the tip of the spigot sticking out of the wood until the water started spraying everywhere. The tree had grown completely around the spigot and copper supply line that someone attached to the tree many years ago.

[Danny_S]

I used to run moulder at a local wood products plant and I seen lots of nice steel stuff. Nails, bolts, barbed wire, but once the moulder was runnin nice and smooth and KA-BANG!  Knives flew, chip breakers flew, cast sawdust shrouds flew.... a nice chain hook, about 3" across, was in the middle of a rough sawn 2 x 4. hard to believe it made it through the mill first wihout gettin hit. That was the biggest thing i have run into.

[Tom]

That brings to mind a memory.  I had just plugged in my new 18" woodmaster planer and was chomping at the bit to use it.

I went and got a pretty, quarter-sawn, rough-cut, 1x4 from the drying stack in the barn and put it in the planer. About 12 inches into the stick I hit a 16 penny nail that had been doubled over at a 90 degree angle in the middle and was hidden perfectly in the middle of that 1x4.  It amazes me that I didn't hit it with the sawmill.  I guess the wood demons knew I was going to get a planer.  

It ruined the the blades at about the 14" mark.  I used them for awhile on the right side until they were dulled from the dust in the wood and discarded them.

Well, not really discarded them.  I'm too cheap for that.  They are wrapped in oil paper and stored in the workshop somewhere. I just don't know where. :D

[slowzuki]

A neighbour used to use discarded ball joints as steps in trees for hunting.  I'd be pretty mad if I found one of them >:(

No clue why he would do that either...

[burroak]

I've found plenty of fence, nails, that kind of stuff...but one that stumped me was finding about a .45 caliber lead ball in a red oak a few years ago. Growth rings suggested the tree was a sapling around 1915, and the ball might have have hit the tree around 1945 from where the entry wound healed over.

What I thought was a little odd was that at that time who would have been using an old blackpowder gun in MN? I know there were a few folks that still played with blackpowder a lot farther south during that time, but the old timers I talked to knew of nobody in this area that was still into that back then.

Some folks suggested that centerfire rifle and shotgun ammo was very hard to get during WWII, and maybe somebody took down a wall-hanger to shoot a deer, but nobody knew anyone that had done that.

[redpowerd]

down the road a ways theres a cast implement seat sticking out of an oak crotch about 15 foot in the air. the tree grew around it and theres only about 3"stickin out.

then theres that 100# rock (i think) sticking out of a maple log someone brought over for me to saw. the dude cut it out of his backyard and didnt even see it. i asked him how many blades he planned on putting into this log :-/
he wasnt the smartest :-/

[sawguy21]

Preston, I am guessing that may have been a rifle barrel. My buddy has an old Springfield cap and ball from 1906 made that way. The barrel was made in strips, much like a cane fly rod,  then welded and bored. Don't ask me why.  If you come across a complete one, don't even consider using modern powder in it.

[Ed]

I hit a 3/8 log chain in a huge boxelder crotch. It seems the tree started split so someone wraped the chain around it & put a bolt in it to hold it together. It was about 10" in on a 40" diameter.
I didn't hit it when I blocked the tree, but sure as heck found it when I was ripping the blocks. The chain got trashed so I went home & sharpened it, came back & went at it, cut that sucker right in half. Needless to say the bar & chain didn't look very good when I was done.
Kinda lucky if wasn't really good chain.

Still havent figured out if it was stupidity or persistence on my part......probably the first one.
It made a nice counter display at the local saw shop.

[Blake22]

With my stump grinder I've hit tennis shoes, coke bottles, bike sprockets, window weights, bricks & blocks, plow points, mule trace chains, water lines, hammer & axe heads, railroad spikes..........

[9shooter]

I was cutting deadwood out of a maple on the brother-in-laws place. About 30 ft. off the ground I see this 3/4 water pipe sticking right through the middle of the main stem at about a 45 degree angle. Turns out a tornado deystroyed a church a couple of doors down in 1960. We figure the pipe got driven through the tree then.

[Erick]

Had to add to this string after what happened Sunday. Was out cutting fire wood and was making good time so instead of stopping to sharpen the chain I just put a shiny new one on.  :  Well I think we all what happened next, three cuts later BAM six teeth mangled and the rest would'nt cut jello. could'nt tell what it was at the time ( looked like a railroad spike ) so I put the old chain back on and after a quick sharpening moved about 6 inchs down the log BAM @#$%@*&%$^%  another chain down.  >:( I got the other saw and moved down about a foot and managed to get through neddless to say I was done cutting for the day so I loaded up and headed home. I had to burn the log to see what it was turns out I hit an old cast iron flower pot hanger the L-bracket kind about 10" x 10" one inch wide and a 1/4" thick real pretty the saw hardly nocked the rust off. Not sure what I'm gonna do with it but it wont be hanging it on a tree. ;)