sawing green hickory

[pineywoods]

Customer brought me 4 big fresh cut hickory logs. Now I have cut a bit of hickory but this is my first experience with green hickory. Devil wood plus.. Yeah, its a bit tough but that's expected. 25 hp lt40, fresh resharp 10 deg blades, it gave me fits. Problem was SAP..stickiest gooest stuff I have ever seen. Buildup on everything, . Had to stop several times and use a knife to scrape the stuff off the blade, bandwheel belts, guide rollers and even the rail. Used lots of water and soap, diesel wouldn't touch the stuff. Got about 600 bd ft if 1X5 and a bunch of 2X2 tool handle stock...

[irvi00]

I won't even touch hickory. But it's odd that you had that kind of sap buildup. My experience with hickory was dry as a bone and hard as granite.

[Coltbodi]

Me too, I cut down a hickory tree a few weeks ago and put it on the mill as soon as it fell. It was hard, but dry. I was going to say maybe its the climate, but we are in the same state, and its a little one. . Maybe they where came out of the swamp so they stayed swelled up with water, making more sap. Other than that I don't have a clue.

[pineywoods]

Yeah, that's pretty much been my experience with hickory, just hard and dry. this stuff was literally oozing sap. Fresh sawn board actually felt wet...Finished 3 of them, one more to go....

[WV Sawmiller]

Piney,

   Try a 4 degree band if you have one. I have same hp you do and it saws good for me. Biggest problem I had with last one was splitting. 4/4 Boards would split the entire length at the pith like you'd stuck a knife in one end of a very ripe watermelon.

[francismilker]

I've tried on many occasions to cut hickory and air dry it in the barn loft. No matter how hard it is when I cut it, it gets 100 times harder after it's dried. I can't even plane it without scrapping out a set of blades.

It's of the devil in my opinion.

[pineywoods]

I messed around with this job for 2 days. My sharpener is a much modified old wm drag type sharpener, so I tried several different blade configurations. I am of the opinion that different rake angles is very much akin to the oil wars in the chainsaw forum. The rake angle don't make much difference, but the shape and depth of the gullet does. What finally got the job done was 10 degree rake angle with a deeper than normal gullet, and stopping after several cuts and cleaning the gunk off everything..That and a continuous stream of water and pinsol..Danny calls pecan the devil wood, but I think it's close cousin hickory is worse, the devil's wife ???

[Don P]

We better figure it out, don't know about the rest of you but we have quite a supply of red maple and hickory in the woods here.
I've worked with Beech and a few exotics that put it to shame so I don't mind it but would hate to try to make production sawing hickory. When time to use it I'm pretty merciless at the cutoff saw though, if it doesn't want to cooperate dimensional firewood heats good.

I've never had pitch buildup from it that I remember. I had to take the circle blade to the sawdoc when I was sawing ash and the buildup was so bad he asked if I was sawing yellow pine. Another wood I had never thought of as pitchy. For that he told me the other mills usually rotated a poplar log in every now and then to clean the blade but I suspect you were gumming up within a pass or two.

[WDH]

The only logs that I just could not saw have been hickory.  No way the blade would behave.  Trashed them.  Not worth it.   

I hates hickory. 

[GAB]

Are you folks talking about shag bark or bitter nut hickory?
Gerald

[Ga Mtn Man]

I've had three jobs recently that included sawing large (32" range) green hickory logs...I almost turned down the first one because of my past nightmare experiences with the stuff.  But, armed with a fresh box of Kasco 4° blades (thanks for the recommendation Cutting Edge) and two jugs of lube, I decided to have another go at it.  I had pretty good success cutting wide slabs so long as I kept the lube (water and detergent) flowing full blast and changed the blade frequently.  Every time I switched the Lube-Mizer from Cont to Pulse the blade tension would almost immediately begin to drop as the blade heated up.  Once the blade heats up the resin will begin to stick and then you're done for (with that blade anyway).  In one cut I forgot to switch the lube ON and wasn't watching the tension gauge...didn't get half way down the log before the blade became encrusted with resin and took a dive.  I believe keeping the blade cool is the key to successfully cutting the  .       

[Magicman]

I believe keeping the blade cool is the key to successfully cutting the  .

I would say that that (Tom) is a true statement when sawing any species.  When a blade heats up you have a problem and you had best find out why.

[YellowHammer]

I believe keeping the blade cool is the key to successfully cutting the  .

I would say that that (Tom) is a true statement when sawing any species.  When a blade heats up you have a problem and you had best find out why.

I have had distinctively heavy buildup of pitch on my bands with hickory and have burned bands in one pass.  However, I keep a stock of 4°  .055 bands just for it, and I believe the key, for me at least, is using water soluble oil in the lubemizer.  It makes the band so slick, the sap can't stick well.  I rely in my old favorite Cotton Picker Spindle Cleaner, and mix it heavy.  It's pretty much all I use now as an additive, except for pine, and it will make sawing hickory tolerable.   

[Ga Mtn Man]

I guess I should have said that keeping the blade cool when sawing hickory is more of a challenge than when sawing most any other species...in my admittedly limited experience.  If the blade stays cool, I don't have much of an issue with pitch build up. 

[YellowHammer]

I guess I should have said that keeping the blade cool when sawing hickory is more of a challenge than when sawing most any other species...in my admittedly limited experience.  If the blade stays cool, I don't have much of an issue with pitch build up.

DanG right.  Cool and clean 

[LeeB]

I'll see your hickory and raise you a live oak.  :D

[Ianab]

I'd give it a go with the swing blade. Got a couple of cube of Sheoak sawn, and that's up over Hickory in the hardness scale, closer to Lee's Live Oak.

Yes you know you are cutting something hard, but that just means you push / pull a bit slower.

[PA_Walnut]

Not to derail the topic, but this topic relates to some related problems/issues I'm having cutting really wide oak (white and red) on my LT40 wide, 35HP Diesel.

Using 9° turbos and when getting into really wide cuts, I can see tension start dropping and I have to slow down...REALLY slow down.

Can hear a low groaning, which I thought may be the main drive belt slipping, but I tensioned it the other day according to spec, and still does it.

Any words of wisdom ? Thx

p.s. I have a pile of recently cut hickory to get to also, which is why I need to straighten this out!

[drobertson]

Sawing hickory and the success in doing so really does depend on the species, IMO, as well as the size,  I too sawed some pretty wide stock, If memory serves 24" was probably the largest.. It was green and a pain, I had to grind the blade out with a 4" grinder. Then I sawed a pecan of the same size, it sawed great. Then big ole WO, hard knots,, hard,, wide cuts with a wave over the knots, regardless of what I tried. The last hickory I sawed before the mill left was a batch of 12" bitternut,  these sawed out fine as well, but the bark is rather pesky. fact is real PITA, but makes for good stuff for smoking pork.  Water with whatever additive that works is handy for keeping things cooled down.

[PA_Walnut]

but makes for good stuff for smoking pork.  Water with whatever additive that works is handy for keeping things cooled down.

Yes indeed! We saw the slab wood into chucks and even some of the really knotty stuff into 8/4 slabs and then into chunks for sale for hipster fire pit wood or for smoker enthusiasts. Local BBQ places are even known to trade ribs for it! 8)

[Magicman]

I also would never use plain water on anything.  It needs some type of soap as a surfactant to break the surface tension and also to help break down and dissolve the sap.  Soap makes water wetter.

[Kbeitz]

A lot of people don't know that you can buy a water wetter for in you'r car/truck engine.
It really makes it run cooler.

[PA_Walnut]

Have run WaterWetter in many cars. Not sure that it helps, but sure registers on the placebo meter well!  :D

I run a mix of water, Dawn liquid and Pinesol. Maybe I need something different or a stronger solution.