Here in France we get an allocation of wood from the communal forest, a few years back I started on a huge beech tree, I broke a chain on the first cut, then several more before it was finished, turned out a German bomber crashed right there after being shot down by the Canadian air force in 1943 and broke into thousands of pieces, 75 years later the young trees of the day were fully grown and ready to fell complete with the remains of a Junkers inside them, fortunately no live rounds.
I have a similar story I would build a desk for a friend and he had received from his father a very nice plank of ash. I bärjade saw it but I upptänkte soon there were black spots after a while it turned out that there were small pieces of metal, it turned out that the plank came from a military training feild, so it was full of shrapnel, my friend still has no desk.
Probably a whole lot of trees dans les Ardennes and other battlefields in east France are full of bullets and shrapnel, from both world wars, not to mention the 1983 Chernobyl radio active cloud that is said to have stagnated over Alsace. MAybe you can even find bits of the Airbus A320 that crashed on the mont Saint Odile forest.
In the 1950’s I was taught that a spiral twist square nail was used for pounding into concrete. Thanks for sharing this video and continuing the excavation of hardware from the log. Wishing you and your family a terrific spring season. Cheers.
Whatever other uses for spiral nails,they have been used for a long time assembling shipping pallets. Which a lot of them are white oak. Rejected wood not suitable for whiskey barrels gets turned into shipping pallets. The combination of white oak and spiral nails is pretty formidable. Pallet remanufacturers just cut the pallets apart,removing those nails is one tough proposition.
As an arborist, I've found that the best metal detector in the world is a brand new chain. "In this world you'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
Ace the sound effects garbage. Nobody cares about bluegrass. Every TV show is drowned out by that shytte. Otherwise great video. Thank you. Wood is good.
Thing is, if the chain breaks on a chainsaw, it can whip out in any random direction at high speed, where it remains a thick metal chain with loads of chunky blades attached. You can lose limbs, or your life. I'd probably carry a metal detector if chainsawing trees was my job. You could make one yourself, or else buy one and modify it. It's just a box of electronics, and a coil on the bottom. The coil size affects range, sensitivity, and what size of objects it will pick up. But just keeping it standard would be a good start. Put the electronics on your belt, take the head, with the coil in it, and attach a handle. Then scan round anything you were going to cut into. Test it out on v.rious sized objects first. You could try winding your own coils, enamelled copper wire round a suitable object for a bobbin, and have them able to swap out with each other. An alternative would be one of those stud finders that builders use, very cheap. They detect metal as one of their modes. They also detect large pieces of wood, so obviously you'd need a way to discriminate the two. Assuming that's possible. It's something I'd investigate. There is armour you can buy for working with chainsaws, and I'd certainly invest in that, but preventing a metal strike in the first place is valuable. If anyone wasn't aware, chainsaws are dangerous as fuck. And that's even when they're used properly, which is unusual for a tool. Maybe now there are light and powerful electric tools, a reciprocating saw might be a better alternative. You'd have to make it tough, but that's no problem. Much less inherently dangerous than a chainsaw. Why are chainsaws used, particularly? Wouldn't an ordinary reciprocating wood saw, powered, be safer and just as much use? Or is it that chainsaws are versatile and have lots of uses?
Green ham, your reply was very informative. I don’t work with such tools but I have children who do. I am forwarding your comments to them as I’m sure they do not prepare for the possibility for coming across metal objects when they use chain saws, hedge trimmers, etc. Thank you for taking the time to write this.
@@janetmerrill5303 No problem. I expect a safety course would mention this, it would be worth taking a 1 or 2-day course, just to cover stuff that might not occur to someone. They have the experience of other people's mistakes to teach about. You have a lot to lose, potentially. I also think it's worth investing in the armour. I dunno if chainsawers use metal detectors or not, perhaps it's not possible. Striking metal is a known worry among those people though. Definitely worth getting all the information you can, fore-warned is fore-armed and all that! Glad to help!
It's called a "screw nail". It is hardened steel and the design prevents 'backout' and seriously resists being removed with a claw hammer. If you're building a shed or a barn use these.
25 years ago or so buying nails for a deck project (not at my home) I purchased a box by accident, they were galvanized and size I wanted till I opened the box and saw the twist. The box was mixed in with other nails I went to buy, somebody put them in/on the wrong shelf area. What the hell, I did not want to waste more time going back to the H D so I used them without issue. I used that box last so I think I still have about a 1/4 box full out in the shed.
Thanks for taking the time to dig out and show us all what you hit in your last video. Keep on enjoying your mill and making videos we all do enjoy watching them! God bless
@@dd-jm1md Y'know it's weird... I've been an artist most of my life. I went to school for it. I honestly don't remember "Artistic Board Cutting" in any of the available classes...
In my area, it was common during the 70s and 80s to nail timber battens on top of worn out metal roofs, then lay new pressed metal tiles. Those spiral nails are exactly what was used to fix the battens. Much harder to remove than normal nails. Thank you, from New Zealand.
I remember my father saying, in the 50's when working in the saw mill, they used to hate when a load of Norwegan spruce came in. They had been shipped over from Norway . He said that one of the old sawers would yell out swearing, my F~*-ing blade, he said ,inside the tree was fragments of WW2 bombs, that had imbedded themselves inside the tree, it then grew over the hole, came to the mills here and snap, they used to wreak the blades.
I’ve seen this type of nail. Used to be iron but may be steel. Thank you so much for taking the time to dig it out for us! It is still a beautiful and useful piece of wood.
While sawing logs from deep in the woods recently, I found a lead slug, an arrow head, a bunch of regular nails and spikes (prob from an ancient tree stand) and a complete hunting arrow, which the tree had grown around for maybe 20 years. It's hard to know when to give up on a log.
@@VTKingdomsawing My dad just bought one. I'm ready to see how well it does. So many trees around here had barb wire nailed to them at one point or another.
@@falllineridge yeah in areas where hunting forbidden to use lead shotgun pellets steel shot can be an issue as I found out Greetings from the uk 🇬🇧👍🇮🇹🐾🦊
My friends are fallers ,On residentual property , Ive seen them hit , a chain grown into a tree , barbbed wire , and the worst one, an axe lett stuck in , and grown around . My dad had a sawmill with an over and under blade set-up . The teeth are pounded in on an arc , so they can be changed . Tending the cants taken off the log , was the most dangerous job in the mill . Theyd hit a rock or a piece of metal , and the teeth would come off like bullets .
Well done and a great effort! Really enjoy watching you tackle these unknown trees. The inside surprises you find cutting into a log can be awesome. I salute you and your attempts. Keep up the great work!
About 40 years ago, a friend and I were cutting down some old apple trees for an older gentleman. When we got to the very last tree we hit something hard inside. My friend commenced to using an axe to find the culprit. It was an old horse shoe that someone had, long ago, placed in the fork of the tree and the tree had fully encased it as it grew old. My friend kept that piece of wood with the horseshoe for years as a conversation piece.
In Seneca Falls NY there is or was and old scythe in a tree left from a man going off to the Civil War. It is or was listed in historical sites in the state. The tree could have fallen by now, but I remember seeing it as a kid.
Forty years ago I had screwed an very substantial eyebolt with a very substantial hook permanently attached to the eye into an oak tree for hanging a hammock. Over the years the tree grew and eventually covered the eyebolt so only the hook could be see. Eventually the tree overtook the hook too so only a very small glint could be seen. I eventually cut the tree down but saved the portion with the bolt & hook. I split the log so the whole screw & hook could be seen. Strangely enough no one was as impressed by it as I was. It stayed out in the weather until it was returned back to nature.
My grandpa had an old Frick 00 circle saw and he actually sawed through a horseshoe 😂 he said that log hopped around on the sled and sparked so bad it almost cought the sawdust pile on fire!
Same thing happend to me years ago. Horse shoe sharpened to work like a big staple to slide fencing pole in. An English oak had grown round it, till it was completely in side the tree. It took hours to grind a five foot circular saw back to shape. The saw was steam engine driven, in a moving bench, so took some stopping. We cut a lot of English oak, for boatbuilding and many a time came across shrapnel from bombs after the war.
I'm speculating here but that might be a hardened concrete nail, typically installed into concrete using explosive charged nail guns. It would explain why it killed your saw blade so effectively. To test if it is hardened steel, put it on a grinder and see what kind of sparks it produces. Shorter, redder sparks indicate a hardened steel. Long yellow sparks are more typical of the mild steels used in timber nails.
Another possibility might be that the spiral nail that stopped you last week was a pallet nail, normally shot from a nail gun. The mistreatment that pallets get during their lifetime would require a heavier duty, stickier (spiral) fastener in order to hold up well... Forgive me for putting it this way, but these pallet construction fasteners absolutely need to be as tough as....uh, nails. Gary
@@GilmerJohn I was thinking about that. I know in the 60s nd 70s there were people that used to go into the woods and drive nails into trees in hopes of hurting loggers when the chains hit the nails.
@@GilmerJohn "We love trees" Proceeds to drive hard ceramic nail into it. I don't know about you but when I love something I don't stab it with a knife.
My friend, bless you and your work. You take old world knowledge, and blend it with new world tech. You, and folks like you, keep America running. I'd love to work for you, as you know the trade, and you're a good dude. Keep on keepin' on, man.
Perhaps investing in a decent metal detector for these logs would save you in time, frustration, and blades. The other option is use bimetal bandsaw blades. They tend to tolerate cutting metal without too much issue. They cost a lot more, but last much longer.
By metal detector you mean to get a handheld metal detector and check the logs beforehand or is there some kind of metal detecting accessory for those cutting machines?
Handheld metal detector is all u need. My father bought an old abandoned drug store here in Louisiana that was made of cypress to make tongue and groove flooring for his new home. We used a handheld metal detector to rid the wood of nails before plaining them and it worked well. Still missed a few but found hundreds.
There are almost certainly metal detectors that you can pass the log through. Probably kits for quite cheap. It's basically a coil of wire with alternating current. The metal acts as a core for the coil making the resistance to the alternating current change quite drastically when the metal goes through the loop. So you need an amplifier and either headphones or a loudspeaker. When the frequency changes you know there is metal. A hand-held metal detector such as you occasionally see people "treasure hunting" at the sea shore might do. I don't know how close you would need to be to detect a nail of this sort. People find wedding rings buried in sand using such things, so I suppose you could find a nail. Maybe you would need to run the sensor down the log on each side. Possibly you would need to experiment a bit to find out how much wood and how much metal. Say put a nail under 1 plank, then 2, then 3, etc., until you can't detect it any more. Hand-held detectors on Amazon for round-about $100. I'm guessing it would not take many avoided broken saw blades to pay for itself.
@@LeeHill66 screws are a low quality way to avoid learning wood carpentry joints. And yes american houses are ALL built in low quality standards. It's a sad reality. And forget about future generations being able to reuse wood we use with nail screws too.
The only nails I ever used with the twist like that were for putting t111 siding up. They are galvanized and not a finish nail but not a flat head either. They really held tight. To all you eco-terrorists out there. Do you have any idea what you're really doing? How did you get to that tree? Did you drive out there and maybe walk a little ways? Not very green to drive out there. Oh you say you have a hybrid or electric car! Not very green still. Either power plant or some gasoline was used to get there. Now let's talk about all the plastics and metal in that car or truck then add them nice tires. None of that is green. As for well you're saving trees no you're not. Commercial operation is going to go out there cut trees and if they can't cut them into boards they'll find a way to use them for something else. They're going to cut land that they have actually planted the trees. When you driving down the road and you notice all the trees are in a straight line guess what those trees were planted by lumber companies and paper mills. That's their property it would be no trees there. So if you really want to be green and save the planet you need to stop using anything with wood fibers in it. Yeah that includes your toilet paper. Napkins. Kleenex. Those new paper straws to save the sea turtle that had a straws yeah they got to go to. Paper cup got to go. Plastic cup got to go. Styrofoam cup yeah you guessed it has to go. Are your clothes cotton or they a mixture of man-made fibers and cotton? Yeah man made fibers aren't good for the environment they got to go. Bleaching cotton and then dying it yeah that's not good for the environment so that's got to go too. You can use cotton but it can't be treated in any way. So if you really want to save the world make it lean to out of natural products such as would you find delaying around not bought not cut. Leaves that kind of thing. No shoes nothing natural about shoes. All those nice soap products you use to get all cleaned up yeah they got to go too. Anything that has to be transported to the area you live got to stop by it. None of that is green.
You learned a lot from that log! I'd buy 20 of the 2x4's but it would need to come to NC. Believe me they are better than what you can get in the big box stores. Awesome video👍👍
“Already to invested” lol been there so many times. I totally get that comment sometimes you just have to finish at all cost even if you should just burn it and start over it’s the principal of the matter lol
My son has an HFE-30 almost like yours he got himself a metal detector,... scans over the log several times ,.. Hadn't had a strike in years. The Metal detector he bought even picks up bullets shot into the logs. No more head aches.
10 out of 10 for effort you’ve got there in the end and like you said it’s beautiful wood shouldn’t be wasted in the burn pile, would love to known where it grew to get all those nails in it rick
MAY I ask lots of questions mate? 1. why were there so many nails in those logs? were they nailed in on purpose when the trees were young and why? 2. Why is this operation a one man operation, save labour cost or not necessary due to the machineries 3. what is the value of the wood, or planks or beams etc 4. Can that sawduct be recycled to make more compressed planks or turned to fertilisers etc?? 5. what are those tree species called??
I had a friend in Maine that had an old saw mill his grandfather built on the family farm and he would not take yard trees ever just because of nails and I owned some property that had roughly 30 huge old pines and called several people with mills and they wouldn't touch those pines being in and around the the yard so there you have it don't know what your blades cost but I don't imagine there cheap. Like the videos stay safe!
Aloha, For hidden troubles, the trees that gave me the most objects were trees that were also found in an ancient fence line. Fencing swallowing is a past time for these trees. The weirdest swallowed object: a cast iron park bench in New York Central Park!
When I owned 7 acres of Coastal Redwood after we bought the house there there were some logs (shorts) from several trees that were removed for the house. I contracted a saw man to plank them out in big lumber 4x4 4x6 and 3x6. I was going to build a heavy wood crib. He started and ran into a knife. It was old and eaten as these were Redwood. So That was it so I thought - then he ran into a pistol. It was a very old one and and he figured it was over 100 years old at that time. It was so melted and was in a crotch of the tree that was grown over.
@@ericastier1646 It was a solid block or rust. I suspect so but it was so bad without breaking it apart you could not tell what kind. I can only guess it was a six-gun.
2x4x12 at the local store go for over $13 / ea., at 25 pieces that's over $325 worth of lumber. You could buy a box of 10 brand new blades and have change left over. I would almost say it's worth it.
When you have as many friends as you do they can pressure you into almost anything,hahaha. I have noticed one thing and that is you don't seem to enjoy sawing as much as before. It would be nice to see you smile once in and while. I always look forward to your videos. God Bless.
Something extremely satisfying & relaxing about your video. I love you patience, calm background music and especially cool overhead video shots. Thank you.
I contacted a grand son of a blacksmith. I explained to him about the spiral in that one nail. He said someone made that nail on a forge. He guessed it was the 1830's to the 1870's that making nails in a spiral for strength were popular and so they do not back out of the wood. It was a short lived thing because it was too hard to remove them. The government used some about that time but the extra expense to spiral them was needed elsewhere. Like the civil war. Thanks for showing them. Whole and undamaged they could sell for over ten dollars or more a nail.
The nail looks like a hot-dipped galvanized spiral nail used for outdoor framing such as decks. Easy to drive in but not so easy to remove. Enjoy watching your videos. Come visit some time. Keep up the good work.
Glad to see that you are not one to easy give up, thanks for letting us watch you defeat the metal beast of logging that eats up chains and saw blades while trying to make a living.
This is a hardened steel nail for use in masonry, do a search for Maze Nails, CMH10-112 Hardened Steel Cut Masonry Nails. A lot harder than standard wood nails.
This is mesmerizing to watch, very cool. Crappy to see that happen to you with the nails. When you cut a 2x4 do you really cut it that dimension or smaller? Never seen a commercial 2x4 exactly that dimension, always smaller. Those are gorgeous boards, I can only do small stuff re-sawing with my little bandsaw. Edit: just watched your other video and see what you were doing with the true 2x4 boards. Also watched the bee video where you hive up the swarmed bees. Nice. We sponsor a bee hive in our garden and just had the keeper over on the weekend opening it up and we saw the queen and she had been a busy girl....good busy hive so far. Cheers👍🏻😎
After cutting these do you need to dry them or do anything else to them, or good to go into a wall? A built in metal detector just in front of the saw blade that stops the saw would be such a great attachment for the system though!
years ago I met a logger from Belgium who said that when they were about to price out a logging area from a forest they went to the local bars and had a few drinks. while there they struck up a conversation to find out where battles were waged. If there were battles in a certain area they wouldn't but the timber. Clever!!!
That is a really neat portable mill! When cutting large lumber, such as 8x8 or 6x6 timbers, are there ever deep nails or metal that the end consumer is going to run across when trying to shoot in a 16 penny nail?
We usually lay the floor boards and THEN put in the nails afterwards. Seems a good idea if the boards come with nails already included. I suppose now it's just a case of growing the trees so that the spacing between nails is right.
Par for the course for a log that came from a backyard or park that people have been hanging their hammocks from or whatever, not usually a problem with an actual forest.
As a Christian minister, who is semi- retired and now my wife and I are homesteading, it is so nice to see a channel like yours that is clean, God fearing and well versed. I do believe this is probably our favourite channel and we can only hope that one day our channel can touch as many people in a positive way, the way yours does. So thank you so very much. God bless and keep you always.
Between 1648 and 1700 the Dutch used their windmills to power heavy duty band saws which were cutting the local huge oak trees. Using wind power the Dutch outproduced the rest of the world and built themselves a fleet so huge that by comparison the US carrier fleet looks like a hobby. Today you use gasoline, but over here we defenitely would use electric power for this type of sawing. Greetings from the Netherlands
Double helix nail. Used for bowling alleys. Hardened like Drywall screws. (Oil hardened. Dropped in oil after heating) modern nail, i used them building a bowling alley 1974 putting the lanes together. I imagine sold as flooring nails, since they don't back out. Was surprised to see what looked like a chisel point. Usually blunt so they don't split the flooring. The nail will never move up the trunk, as growth is out on a tree. So height from ground should give you an indication as to what they were used for. Signs for posting, target hanging, etc.
Given the size of that tree trunk you'd have to wrap a lot of wire around it, abs then pump a lot of current through it. Problem is induction heating works best when the target is in the center of the coil, and the nail is near the trunk's outer layers.
I usually just dig a hole then clamp and pull straight up, the coil idea sounds like something I want to try. I have no idea what Vasil is yapping about but small hole, small coil and the heat should travel down, clamp and pull straight up.
Hello....Great video.....I am just merely asking....would it be possible to use a metal detector anytime and during the cutting of your log into boards? I know nothing about metal detectors, however it was the first thing I thought about. It might be worth a try......you can experiment by taking a short log or a slice in the middle of that log.....plant some screws or nails....maybe short piece of wires and also barbed wire piece....and then close it back up in the middle of the log....like "bookends" and then use your detector to see if it would pick up the metal. When planting your metals, I would put some in the middle of that slice...and also at diff depths going toward the bark or outside of the log. It would be interesting to see if the metal detector would pick anything up. It could save you HUNDREDS of Dollars before starting to cut the log into boards.........maybe worth a try. GOOD LUCK if you do. Thanks for sharing Ken Orlando, Fl
It would be a wise investment to buy a good metal detector to scan logs before putting it on the sawmill, to see what obstructions may be in the log before possibly getting hurt or worse.
I put 25 years in saw mills of N. California, and the office of one mill had on display items found in the logs over the years. Bullets, both lead and brass were found hourly, and did no harm to resaws or planer knives. Nails were always a problem, even seen railroad spikes and barbed wire. They also had an old muzzle loader inside a hollow spot in a log that the tree had partially grown around.
Makes you wonder what happened to the owner of the gun. Thats not something you just leave around. Maybe got tree'd by a bear or big cat and never made it down.
A 1910 house was just de-constructed in my neighborhood. Talk about finding nails, but lots of older-growth full-dim 2x4 were salvaged, along with some stunning quarter-sawn flooring.
that looks like a concrete nail !, and they are supposed to be made of considerably harder material ! (that's what it looks like to me). Y'LL have a good day.
15 or 20 years ago I remember that there was a group of "save the forest" people that went in to logging areas and pounded those spiral nails in to trees to sabotage logging and mills. They seem to have disappeared now, but the nails are still around.
I've both seen and used that nail. it is a 16 high carbon spiral steel nail , treated for rust resistance to be used in concrete to attach pressure treated wood to a concrete base. it's the next generation from the steel cut nail, much, much stronger and wear resistant. if you buffed it, it would shine like silver.
Good job. Good job lumber prices are way up - you can afford the new blades!,. Like the vid, a utuber who reads the comments and responds positively. Well done. You need to invent a Sawyers X-ray machine or get Superman cornea grafts!!.
Here in France we get an allocation of wood from the communal forest, a few years back I started on a huge beech tree, I broke a chain on the first cut, then several more before it was finished, turned out a German bomber crashed right there after being shot down by the Canadian air force in 1943 and broke into thousands of pieces, 75 years later the young trees of the day were fully grown and ready to fell complete with the remains of a Junkers inside them, fortunately no live rounds.
Great story! And history lesson!
wow amazing the young trees grew up with wounds and shrapnel
love to see my country shooting down Nazis in random TH-cam videos!
I have a similar story I would build a desk for a friend and he had received from his father a very nice plank of ash. I bärjade saw it but I upptänkte soon there were black spots after a while it turned out that there were small pieces of metal, it turned out that the plank came from a military training feild, so it was full of shrapnel, my friend still has no desk.
Probably a whole lot of trees dans les Ardennes and other battlefields in east France are full of bullets and shrapnel, from both world wars, not to mention the 1983 Chernobyl radio active cloud that is said to have stagnated over Alsace. MAybe you can even find bits of the Airbus A320 that crashed on the mont Saint Odile forest.
In the 1950’s I was taught that a spiral twist square nail was used for pounding into concrete. Thanks for sharing this video and continuing the excavation of hardware from the log. Wishing you and your family a terrific spring season. Cheers.
Concrete nails were hardened steel, used many in the early 60's
Whatever other uses for spiral nails,they have been used for a long time assembling shipping pallets. Which a lot of them are white oak. Rejected wood not suitable for whiskey barrels gets turned into shipping pallets.
The combination of white oak and spiral nails is pretty formidable. Pallet remanufacturers just cut the pallets apart,removing those nails is one tough proposition.
As an arborist, I've found that the best metal detector in the world is a brand new chain. "In this world you'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
Ace the sound effects garbage. Nobody cares about bluegrass. Every TV show is drowned out by that shytte. Otherwise great video. Thank you. Wood is good.
Babies Lives Matter!
Thing is, if the chain breaks on a chainsaw, it can whip out in any random direction at high speed, where it remains a thick metal chain with loads of chunky blades attached. You can lose limbs, or your life. I'd probably carry a metal detector if chainsawing trees was my job. You could make one yourself, or else buy one and modify it. It's just a box of electronics, and a coil on the bottom. The coil size affects range, sensitivity, and what size of objects it will pick up. But just keeping it standard would be a good start. Put the electronics on your belt, take the head, with the coil in it, and attach a handle. Then scan round anything you were going to cut into. Test it out on v.rious sized objects first. You could try winding your own coils, enamelled copper wire round a suitable object for a bobbin, and have them able to swap out with each other.
An alternative would be one of those stud finders that builders use, very cheap. They detect metal as one of their modes. They also detect large pieces of wood, so obviously you'd need a way to discriminate the two. Assuming that's possible. It's something I'd investigate. There is armour you can buy for working with chainsaws, and I'd certainly invest in that, but preventing a metal strike in the first place is valuable. If anyone wasn't aware, chainsaws are dangerous as fuck. And that's even when they're used properly, which is unusual for a tool.
Maybe now there are light and powerful electric tools, a reciprocating saw might be a better alternative. You'd have to make it tough, but that's no problem. Much less inherently dangerous than a chainsaw. Why are chainsaws used, particularly? Wouldn't an ordinary reciprocating wood saw, powered, be safer and just as much use? Or is it that chainsaws are versatile and have lots of uses?
Green ham, your reply was very informative. I don’t work with such tools but I have children who do. I am forwarding your comments to them as I’m sure they do not prepare for the possibility for coming across metal objects when they use chain saws, hedge trimmers, etc. Thank you for taking the time to write this.
@@janetmerrill5303 No problem. I expect a safety course would mention this, it would be worth taking a 1 or 2-day course, just to cover stuff that might not occur to someone. They have the experience of other people's mistakes to teach about. You have a lot to lose, potentially.
I also think it's worth investing in the armour.
I dunno if chainsawers use metal detectors or not, perhaps it's not possible. Striking metal is a known worry among those people though. Definitely worth getting all the information you can, fore-warned is fore-armed and all that! Glad to help!
You think we wouldn't ask? 🤔 The removal of the nails, blade change, sawing the log. Allllll captivating. I could watch for hours. 💪
As an owner/operator of a 15 wide, I feel your pain. Heard every nail as the mill hit it. Thanks for plowing through.
It's called a "screw nail". It is hardened steel and the design prevents 'backout' and seriously resists being removed with a claw hammer. If you're building a shed or a barn use these.
25 years ago or so buying nails for a deck project (not at my home) I purchased a box by accident, they were galvanized and size I wanted till I opened the box and saw the twist. The box was mixed in with other nails I went to buy, somebody put them in/on the wrong shelf area. What the hell, I did not want to waste more time going back to the H D so I used them without issue. I used that box last so I think I still have about a 1/4 box full out in the shed.
@G Forbes...Finally! Someone with common sense!!! THANK YOU!!! Anyone with half a brain could look at it and tell it was a screw nail!!! 👍🙄🤦🏻♀
Thanks for taking the time to dig out and show us all what you hit in your last video. Keep on enjoying your mill and making videos we all do enjoy watching them! God bless
You sacrificed for your art, and for your audience, and for those reasons WE LOVE YOU!
This isn't art...
@@Anomaly.Filmworks It art art: surely it’s performance…
@@dd-jm1md Y'know it's weird... I've been an artist most of my life. I went to school for it. I honestly don't remember "Artistic Board Cutting" in any of the available classes...
@@Anomaly.Filmworks are you suggesting nothing was created here? You are perhaps a snob?
@@dd-jm1md just because something is created doesn't automatically mean it's art.
In my area, it was common during the 70s and 80s to nail timber battens on top of worn out metal roofs, then lay new pressed metal tiles. Those spiral nails are exactly what was used to fix the battens. Much harder to remove than normal nails. Thank you, from New Zealand.
I remember my father saying, in the 50's when working in the saw mill, they used to hate when a load of Norwegan spruce came in. They had been shipped over from Norway . He said that one of the old sawers would yell out swearing, my F~*-ing blade, he said ,inside the tree was fragments of WW2 bombs, that had imbedded themselves inside the tree, it then grew over the hole, came to the mills here and snap, they used to wreak the blades.
"Nobody ever puts just one nail in a tree."
That's a pretty good quote! I'll try to use it myself sometime.
I believe you just did.
I’ve seen this type of nail. Used to be iron but may be steel. Thank you so much for taking the time to dig it out for us! It is still a beautiful and useful piece of wood.
Metal detectors ftw.?
While sawing logs from deep in the woods recently, I found a lead slug, an arrow head, a bunch of regular nails and spikes (prob from an ancient tree stand) and a complete hunting arrow, which the tree had grown around for maybe 20 years.
It's hard to know when to give up on a log.
Really amazing the stuff that makes it into trees.
I really need to invest in a blade sharpener
@@VTKingdomsawing My dad just bought one. I'm ready to see how well it does. So many trees around here had barb wire nailed to them at one point or another.
@@falllineridge yeah in areas where hunting forbidden to use lead shotgun pellets steel shot can be an issue as I found out Greetings from the uk 🇬🇧👍🇮🇹🐾🦊
My friends are fallers ,On residentual property , Ive seen them hit , a chain grown into a tree , barbbed wire , and the worst one, an axe lett stuck in , and grown around . My dad had a sawmill with an over and under blade set-up . The teeth are pounded in on an arc , so they can be changed . Tending the cants taken off the log , was the most dangerous job in the mill . Theyd hit a rock or a piece of metal , and the teeth would come off like bullets .
Well done and a great effort! Really enjoy watching you tackle these unknown trees. The inside surprises you find cutting into a log can be awesome. I salute you and your attempts. Keep up the great work!
About 40 years ago, a friend and I were cutting down some old apple trees for an older gentleman. When we got to the very last tree we hit something hard inside. My friend commenced to using an axe to find the culprit. It was an old horse shoe that someone had, long ago, placed in the fork of the tree and the tree had fully encased it as it grew old. My friend kept that piece of wood with the horseshoe for years as a conversation piece.
In Seneca Falls NY there is or was and old scythe in a tree left from a man going off to the Civil War. It is or was listed in historical sites in the state. The tree could have fallen by now, but I remember seeing it as a kid.
Forty years ago I had screwed an very substantial eyebolt with a very substantial hook permanently attached to the eye into an oak tree for hanging a hammock. Over the years the tree grew and eventually covered the eyebolt so only the hook could be see. Eventually the tree overtook the hook too so only a very small glint could be seen. I eventually cut the tree down but saved the portion with the bolt & hook. I split the log so the whole screw & hook could be seen. Strangely enough no one was as impressed by it as I was. It stayed out in the weather until it was returned back to nature.
My grandpa had an old Frick 00 circle saw and he actually sawed through a horseshoe 😂 he said that log hopped around on the sled and sparked so bad it almost cought the sawdust pile on fire!
Same thing happend to me years ago. Horse shoe sharpened to work like a big staple to slide fencing pole in.
An English oak had grown round it, till it was completely in side the tree. It took hours to grind a five foot circular saw back to shape. The saw was steam engine driven, in a moving bench, so took some stopping. We cut a lot of English oak, for boatbuilding and many a time came across shrapnel from bombs after the war.
I'm speculating here but that might be a hardened concrete nail, typically installed into concrete using explosive charged nail guns. It would explain why it killed your saw blade so effectively. To test if it is hardened steel, put it on a grinder and see what kind of sparks it produces. Shorter, redder sparks indicate a hardened steel. Long yellow sparks are more typical of the mild steels used in timber nails.
Another possibility might be that the spiral nail that stopped you last week was a pallet nail, normally shot from a nail gun. The mistreatment that pallets get during their lifetime would require a heavier duty, stickier (spiral) fastener in order to hold up well... Forgive me for putting it this way, but these pallet construction fasteners absolutely need to be as tough as....uh, nails. Gary
I agree it’s a nail for concrete
Oh wow! Thanks for doing that. I’m sure you have much better things to do but we really appreciate you indulging us. 😁👍
No worries, Stan. Glad it's over!
@@falllineridge I’m so sorry another nail. I bet you are glad that’s done.
I must admit that I was one of the people that was dying to know how many nails were in that log. Thanks for ruining your blades for us lol
those drone shots are beautiful!
Get yourself a metal detector, and locate any metal in the logs. My logger friend who works in a mill said that's what they do. Saves $ in blades.
For a bit of time the "Eco-Terrorists" were putting ceramic rods into tree just to damage saws used to eventually harvest the wood.
Damn Clickbait
@@GilmerJohn I was thinking about that. I know in the 60s nd 70s there were people that used to go into the woods and drive nails into trees in hopes of hurting loggers when the chains hit the nails.
@@GilmerJohn ceramic? Oof. That's not fun
@@GilmerJohn "We love trees" Proceeds to drive hard ceramic nail into it. I don't know about you but when I love something I don't stab it with a knife.
My friend, bless you and your work. You take old world knowledge, and blend it with new world tech. You, and folks like you, keep America running. I'd love to work for you, as you know the trade, and you're a good dude. Keep on keepin' on, man.
Perhaps investing in a decent metal detector for these logs would save you in time, frustration, and blades. The other option is use bimetal bandsaw blades. They tend to tolerate cutting metal without too much issue. They cost a lot more, but last much longer.
By metal detector you mean to get a handheld metal detector and check the logs beforehand or is there some kind of metal detecting accessory for those cutting machines?
Handheld metal detector is all u need. My father bought an old abandoned drug store here in Louisiana that was made of cypress to make tongue and groove flooring for his new home. We used a handheld metal detector to rid the wood of nails before plaining them and it worked well. Still missed a few but found hundreds.
There are almost certainly metal detectors that you can pass the log through. Probably kits for quite cheap. It's basically a coil of wire with alternating current. The metal acts as a core for the coil making the resistance to the alternating current change quite drastically when the metal goes through the loop. So you need an amplifier and either headphones or a loudspeaker. When the frequency changes you know there is metal.
A hand-held metal detector such as you occasionally see people "treasure hunting" at the sea shore might do. I don't know how close you would need to be to detect a nail of this sort. People find wedding rings buried in sand using such things, so I suppose you could find a nail. Maybe you would need to run the sensor down the log on each side. Possibly you would need to experiment a bit to find out how much wood and how much metal. Say put a nail under 1 plank, then 2, then 3, etc., until you can't detect it any more. Hand-held detectors on Amazon for round-about $100. I'm guessing it would not take many avoided broken saw blades to pay for itself.
@@jimbo62 how many time you see nails in trees?
I have see lead bullets before and fence wire, fence staples not nails.
I do admire your patience,they have this problem in London with some trees containing shrapnel from ww2, greetings from the UK
I believe I remember my dad using nails like that 60 years ago. He called it “an anchor nail” or words to that effect. Great job.
They are pretty hard steel alloy. Usually hot dipped. They are a bear to remove too. Used for joist hangars and other brackets.
It's a spiral cut nail. Commonly used for deck boards before screws were widely used for that purpose.
@@LeeHill66 screws are a low quality way to avoid learning wood carpentry joints. And yes american houses are ALL built in low quality standards. It's a sad reality. And forget about future generations being able to reuse wood we use with nail screws too.
The only nails I ever used with the twist like that were for putting t111 siding up. They are galvanized and not a finish nail but not a flat head either. They really held tight.
To all you eco-terrorists out there. Do you have any idea what you're really doing? How did you get to that tree? Did you drive out there and maybe walk a little ways? Not very green to drive out there. Oh you say you have a hybrid or electric car! Not very green still. Either power plant or some gasoline was used to get there. Now let's talk about all the plastics and metal in that car or truck then add them nice tires. None of that is green. As for well you're saving trees no you're not. Commercial operation is going to go out there cut trees and if they can't cut them into boards they'll find a way to use them for something else. They're going to cut land that they have actually planted the trees. When you driving down the road and you notice all the trees are in a straight line guess what those trees were planted by lumber companies and paper mills. That's their property it would be no trees there. So if you really want to be green and save the planet you need to stop using anything with wood fibers in it. Yeah that includes your toilet paper. Napkins. Kleenex. Those new paper straws to save the sea turtle that had a straws yeah they got to go to. Paper cup got to go. Plastic cup got to go. Styrofoam cup yeah you guessed it has to go. Are your clothes cotton or they a mixture of man-made fibers and cotton? Yeah man made fibers aren't good for the environment they got to go. Bleaching cotton and then dying it yeah that's not good for the environment so that's got to go too. You can use cotton but it can't be treated in any way. So if you really want to save the world make it lean to out of natural products such as would you find delaying around not bought not cut. Leaves that kind of thing. No shoes nothing natural about shoes. All those nice soap products you use to get all cleaned up yeah they got to go too. Anything that has to be transported to the area you live got to stop by it. None of that is green.
Siding nails, I still use them.
Spiral shank with a smaller ish head.
One thing: you get really good at changing out blades!
You learned a lot from that log! I'd buy 20 of the 2x4's but it would need to come to NC. Believe me they are better than what you can get in the big box stores. Awesome video👍👍
“Already to invested” lol been there so many times. I totally get that comment sometimes you just have to finish at all cost even if you should just burn it and start over it’s the principal of the matter lol
apparently that log wasn't grown, it was nailed together.
My son has an HFE-30 almost like yours he got himself a metal detector,... scans over the log several times ,.. Hadn't had a strike in years. The Metal detector he bought even picks up bullets shot into the logs. No more head aches.
10 out of 10 for effort you’ve got there in the end and like you said it’s beautiful wood shouldn’t be wasted in the burn pile, would love to known where it grew to get all those nails in it rick
A farmers fence line I would gusse
2:30 Lazy bums. Pick up the pieces and toss them. Nice drone video! Thanks for solving the mystery.
I am curious. Why do you not use a metal detector on the logs before you start milling them?
MAY I ask lots of questions mate?
1. why were there so many nails in those logs? were they nailed in on purpose when the trees were young and why?
2. Why is this operation a one man operation, save labour cost or not necessary due to the machineries
3. what is the value of the wood, or planks or beams etc
4. Can that sawduct be recycled to make more compressed planks or turned to fertilisers etc??
5. what are those tree species called??
love that machine. with it you can go back in time and have your "two by fours" actually be 2" x 4" :D
I had a friend in Maine that had an old saw mill his grandfather built on the family farm and he would not take yard trees ever just because of nails and I owned some property that had roughly 30 huge old pines and called several people with mills and they wouldn't touch those pines being in and around the the yard so there you have it don't know what your blades cost but I don't imagine there cheap. Like the videos stay safe!
Aloha,
For hidden troubles, the trees that gave me the most objects were trees that were also found in an ancient fence line. Fencing swallowing is a past time for these trees. The weirdest swallowed object: a cast iron park bench in New York Central Park!
Interesting video .I enjoyed it. Nicely done. Keep up the good work. Thank You.
We all need to hit the LIKE button for the extra effort FLR went through for us, his viewers!! Mystery Solved!!
Enjoyed your video very much and thank you for sharing it with us.
When I owned 7 acres of Coastal Redwood after we bought the house there there were some logs (shorts) from several trees that were removed for the house. I contracted a saw man to plank them out in big lumber 4x4 4x6 and 3x6. I was going to build a heavy wood crib. He started and ran into a knife. It was old and eaten as these were Redwood. So That was it so I thought - then he ran into a pistol. It was a very old one and and he figured it was over 100 years old at that time. It was so melted and was in a crotch of the tree that was grown over.
was the pistol loaded ?
@@ericastier1646 It was a solid block or rust. I suspect so but it was so bad without breaking it apart you could not tell what kind. I can only guess it was a six-gun.
@@martineastburn3679 thanks for the additional details. I can only imagine why someone would have hidden it there. Probably not with good intent.
The square nail with the mild spiral, resembles a nail used to drive into concrete.
2x4x12 at the local store go for over $13 / ea., at 25 pieces that's over $325 worth of lumber. You could buy a box of 10 brand new blades and have change left over. I would almost say it's worth it.
Plus the money from selling all the nails!
When you have as many friends as you do they can pressure you into almost anything,hahaha. I have noticed one thing and that is you don't seem to enjoy sawing as much as before. It would be nice to see you smile once in and while. I always look forward to your videos. God Bless.
I feel your pain ... 4 nail hits is my record. But on a positive note - look at that wood.
Something extremely satisfying & relaxing about your video.
I love you patience, calm background music and especially cool overhead video shots.
Thank you.
Best line this year, "Ima get a chainsaw that's less important."
*Angry AdMech Noises*
I agree with the fact that a Husqvarna 65 is more important. Mine is 45 yo and still going well!
I contacted a grand son of a blacksmith. I explained to him about the spiral in that one nail. He said someone made that nail on a forge. He guessed it was the 1830's to the 1870's that making nails in a spiral for strength were popular and so they do not back out of the wood. It was a short lived thing because it was too hard to remove them. The government used some about that time but the extra expense to spiral them was needed elsewhere. Like the civil war. Thanks for showing them. Whole and undamaged they could sell for over ten dollars or more a nail.
Your burn pile was an 1870's "Go West Young Man" cabin.
The nail looks like a hot-dipped galvanized spiral nail used for outdoor framing such as decks. Easy to drive in but not so easy to remove.
Enjoy watching your videos.
Come visit some time.
Keep up the good work.
I'm glad you know about sharpening blades. Makin 2X4's can be a learning experience.
Worth watching just for the music. I love your videos, sorry for the disapointment with the log.
Glad to see that you are not one to easy give up, thanks for letting us watch you defeat the metal beast of logging that eats up chains and saw blades while trying to make a living.
This is a hardened steel nail for use in masonry, do a search for Maze Nails, CMH10-112 Hardened Steel Cut Masonry Nails. A lot harder than standard wood nails.
He gave into the chorus in the back saying "Do It. Do It."
I am switching over to my paint-drying video, which is more exciting!
This is mesmerizing to watch, very cool. Crappy to see that happen to you with the nails. When you cut a 2x4 do you really cut it that dimension or smaller? Never seen a commercial 2x4 exactly that dimension, always smaller. Those are gorgeous boards, I can only do small stuff re-sawing with my little bandsaw.
Edit: just watched your other video and see what you were doing with the true 2x4 boards. Also watched the bee video where you hive up the swarmed bees. Nice. We sponsor a bee hive in our garden and just had the keeper over on the weekend opening it up and we saw the queen and she had been a busy girl....good busy hive so far.
Cheers👍🏻😎
I'm not an expert but in my days of handling 2x4s those look massive in comparison
Might be a stupid question, but why burn all that wood in the burn pile? Can none of it be used for anything?
That wood you call a burn pile.... Man - I could build myself a nice something with those.
After cutting these do you need to dry them or do anything else to them, or good to go into a wall?
A built in metal detector just in front of the saw blade that stops the saw would be such a great attachment for the system though!
Have you thought about a metal detector ?? Just messing with you. That log would have made me want to cuss 😂 😂
You can buy small metal scanners to chk wood cheaper than new blades.
Nice job on cutting true 2x4s there and ace is a great name for that pine tree
‘Goring Kerr’ built a Metal detector to put the Trees through when the Battle of the Bulge forest was to be harvested, heard this in the 1970’s
years ago I met a logger from Belgium who said that when they were about to price out a logging area from a forest they went to the local bars and had a few drinks. while there they struck up a conversation to find out where battles were waged. If there were battles in a certain area they wouldn't but the timber.
Clever!!!
You are a calm and patient man. Hat off to you.
Nailed it Again
How much does a new blade cost? Can the damaged blades be repaired or are they trash?
June 2021: look at all that timber....this guy must be a millionaire !
That is a really neat portable mill!
When cutting large lumber, such as 8x8 or 6x6 timbers, are there ever deep nails or metal that the end consumer is going to run across when trying to shoot in a 16 penny nail?
Spiral nails were usually hardened steel and used for flooring back in the old days.
We usually lay the floor boards and THEN put in the nails afterwards. Seems a good idea if the boards come with nails already included. I suppose now it's just a case of growing the trees so that the spacing between nails is right.
Also used in concrete forms or concrete
Thanks for video showing!
Par for the course for a log that came from a backyard or park that people have been hanging their hammocks from or whatever, not usually a problem with an actual forest.
It's a " ARDOX " nail , normaly with phosphate resin , for nailing green Wood or " no dry wood " , sorry i'm french .
As a Christian minister, who is semi- retired and now my wife and I are homesteading, it is so nice to see a channel like yours that is clean, God fearing and well versed. I do believe this is probably our favourite channel and we can only hope that one day our channel can touch as many people in a positive way, the way yours does. So thank you so very much. God bless and keep you always.
Thank you for the encouraging comment!
@@falllineridge My privilege. Thanks again.
Between 1648 and 1700 the Dutch used their windmills to power heavy duty band saws which were cutting the local huge oak trees. Using wind power the Dutch outproduced the rest of the world and built themselves a fleet so huge that by comparison the US carrier fleet looks like a hobby.
Today you use gasoline, but over here we defenitely would use electric power for this type of sawing.
Greetings from the Netherlands
Like you said, at least you got some good 2x4 out of it. God Bless.
Double helix nail. Used for bowling alleys. Hardened like Drywall screws. (Oil hardened. Dropped in oil after heating) modern nail, i used them building a bowling alley 1974 putting the lanes together. I imagine sold as flooring nails, since they don't back out. Was surprised to see what looked like a chisel point. Usually blunt so they don't split the flooring. The nail will never move up the trunk, as growth is out on a tree. So height from ground should give you an indication as to what they were used for. Signs for posting, target hanging, etc.
With the price of lumber at Home Depot and Lowes, it is probably more worth it now than at any other time.
Sounds like some of the neighbors may have been mad at the sawmills..
Maybe you need to invest in a metal detector. Saves a lot of headaches. Love the videos, keep up the great work.
Burn pile!?!? For us frugal wood workers seems like a lot of usable material. Ever thought about a cut off/waste "grab bag" sale?
Hypothetically, could you use an induction coil to heat the nail, char the wood around it, and hopefully pull out the nail?
Given the size of that tree trunk you'd have to wrap a lot of wire around it, abs then pump a lot of current through it. Problem is induction heating works best when the target is in the center of the coil, and the nail is near the trunk's outer layers.
I usually just dig a hole then clamp and pull straight up, the coil idea sounds like something I want to try.
I have no idea what Vasil is yapping about but small hole, small coil and the heat should travel down, clamp and pull straight up.
Hello....Great video.....I am just merely asking....would it be possible to use a metal detector anytime and during the cutting of your log into boards? I know nothing about metal detectors, however it was the first thing I thought about. It might be worth a try......you can experiment by taking a short log or a slice in the middle of that log.....plant some screws or nails....maybe short piece of wires and also barbed wire piece....and then close it back up in the middle of the log....like "bookends" and then use your detector to see if it would pick up the metal. When planting your metals, I would put some in the middle of that slice...and also at diff depths going toward the bark or outside of the log. It would be interesting to see if the metal detector would pick anything up. It could save you HUNDREDS of Dollars before starting to cut the log into boards.........maybe worth a try.
GOOD LUCK if you do.
Thanks for sharing
Ken
Orlando, Fl
It would be a wise investment to buy a good metal detector to scan logs before putting it on the sawmill, to see what obstructions may be in the log before possibly getting hurt or worse.
For a beehive builder like me, I could make use of much of your trash pile! :)
Idea: mount one or more metal detectors to the saw assembly and scan for nails on every pass.
Yes !!!!!!!- but won't work for stones, stone arrowheads, Buick parts that have turned to rust, Charlton Heston cigars from Planet of the Apes........
Your suggestion is to attach a metal detector... to a metal saw ??
@@derekchauvinisahero2010 the sensors are directional... right? The affordable detectors e.g. security are limited range i.e.millimeters... right?
is there a metal detector that you recommend?
That was the tree they nailed up and skinned catfish!
In Scandinavia they use saw-blades that cut wood and metal without blunting. The only thing that makes them blunt, is stones.
fall line ridge lumber sawing and metal fab.
Pretty much. Appreciate you stopping by.
That spiral nail is probably a hardened nail, is why it ruined the teeth on the blade ? Those nails seem to be really deep in the wood !, 😃😃😃Thanks
When you cut down in the 3 places place the sharp part of the hatchet in and twist or bend over. Nicer on the wood next to it if needed.
I put 25 years in saw mills of N. California, and the office of one mill had on display items found in the logs over the years. Bullets, both lead and brass were found hourly, and did no harm to resaws or planer knives. Nails were always a problem, even seen railroad spikes and barbed wire. They also had an old muzzle loader inside a hollow spot in a log that the tree had partially grown around.
A guy I know has a sawmill he bought a load of logs one of them took all the teeth off the blade. They dug a flintlock rifle out of the log
Damn.
Makes you wonder what happened to the owner of the gun. Thats not something you just leave around. Maybe got tree'd by a bear or big cat and never made it down.
A 1910 house was just de-constructed in my neighborhood. Talk about finding nails, but lots of older-growth full-dim 2x4 were salvaged, along with some stunning quarter-sawn flooring.
that looks like a concrete nail !, and they are supposed to be made of considerably harder material ! (that's what it looks like to me). Y'LL have a good day.
It's a spiral shank flooring nail.
I know that was time consuming (and expensive). Thank you for all you do and keep up the good work.
15 or 20 years ago I remember that there was a group of "save the forest" people that went in to logging areas and pounded those spiral nails in to trees to sabotage logging and mills. They seem to have disappeared now, but the nails are still around.
It was old growth cedar, 1000 year old trees. They are pretty well all gone now. They also cut the heads off so you couldn’t pull them out.
Biden is trying to nominate one to head up the BLM. She was part of group that was spiking trees with 10" spikes
I've both seen and used that nail. it is a 16 high carbon spiral steel nail , treated for rust resistance to be used in concrete to attach pressure treated wood to a concrete base. it's the next generation from the steel cut nail, much, much stronger and wear resistant. if you buffed it, it would shine like silver.
I know how it is once you get so far into something your like screw it I am going to finish it, but dang man, those 2x4's cost you a LOT in blades...
He sharpens his own blades...
Man, everyone that asked you... "what did you hit" should add a like and comment to every single one of your videos.
In retrospect - that log should have stayed in the burn pile.
I don't think you can burn that much iron/steel easily.
I think it should have been sold for its scrap iron content. :)
@@pulaski1 😂good one!
@@pulaski1 good one. almost more metal than wood
Good job. Good job lumber prices are way up - you can afford the new blades!,. Like the vid, a utuber who reads the comments and responds positively. Well done. You need to invent a Sawyers X-ray machine or get Superman cornea grafts!!.