White Oak-Updated

Dave Hoskins

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5,252
Location
Parker County, Texas
I was cutting and hauling a fairly decent sized white oak tree today. I would estimate the total haul will weigh in at about 3 tons. It's still fairly green and wet. Ran into an unusual problem. When I scooped a log up in the tractor bucket I could go nowhere. The ground is covered with about 4" thick leaf cover and then under that black mud. The tractor just spun it's tires even in 4 wheel drive. Ended up having to rip the trunk logs in half to lessen the weight in the bucket so I could go somewhere. Doing that helped, but still could only get at the wood from one direction. Oh, well. Moved all the big logs today and will get the smaller stuff tomorrow morning. That should be a bit easier. Sure wasn't counting on having to do that log ripping. That danged near wore me out. I'll take photos of the haul either tomorrow or the day after and post them. Not a bad haul but not like those hauls I did last year of red oak, elm and pecan. But, white oak is a nice wood and look forward to working with it.
 
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Dave, if you were working after the sun had been up a while, that could have burnt the frost off of the top. Go back at dawn when the ground,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,:huh:,, I just checked your area, :eek:, up here working at dawn the ground will hold a tractor while at 10 am, you can't travel to the wood let alone haul it out. So, disregard my post. Hope all went well and the wood is home.
 
Ted, I'm not sure the skidding would have helped as the ground was all the same all over the property. Still have to get some kind of traction. I'm not gonna say my solution was by any means the best, but it got it done with the equipment on hand. We got the smaller stuff out of there today and I was a happy camper especially after having tamales for lunch! Hit the spot and alleviated any aggravations or frustrations. I'll take a couple of photos of the pile tomorrow and add them here. Not the neatest stacking job I have ever done but will do until I get some more landscape timbers to stack them on. Thought I had some more but don't. :eek:
 
A close friend had a Champion oak which I think is the same as a white oak that died in her front yard. FLEC (Ft Loudin Electric Coop) came along and cut it down for her as it was close to a power line and if it fell could take the line with it.... she offered me the wood, so I grabbed my Crapsman chainsaw and went to get it... the base of the trunk was 52" diameter, so I knew I wouldn't get that as it wouldn't fit in my little Ranger, but the bigger limbs would have worked fine.... naturally the chainsaw broke about the third cut, so went and got another, an electric this time since we were just outside her house and it was cheaper than another gas saw... about 4 cuts later, it started smoking, so took it back to the big box and exchanged for a new one... same results... her husband brought out his little 12" brush cutter and we started another limb before we realized it was so dull it probably wouldn't cut hot butter.... I took what we had managed to cut and loaded the Ranger and let her keep the trunk... she sold it to another neighbor who had a crane and flatbed.
 
White Oak Updated

Chuck, Champion Oak is a nickname for Northern Red Oak. Here are 3 photos of the white oak I brought in. Not great but should give an idea of it. The trunk diameter was about 30". I should have put the 40hp Kubota next to the pile for perspective. The pile is almost as big as it is if that helps some. Lots of good wood here and should be fun working with it. The grain pattern looks good so should be really nice looking wood.

 
Good looking chunks of wood there... will make some great bowls... one of the websites I consulted about the wood mentioned that it was sometimes called champion oak, but just looked on wikipedia and you are correct... it referred to champion oak as northern red oak.... what I had was definitely white oak, not red oak...I got some really nice pieces out of it.
 
Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting started on some of it. Should get a fair amount of bowls, boxes, etc. out of it. Lots of it there. I do like red oak as well. Nice looking wood, too.
 
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