Whats the hardest wood you ever cut?

[MCW]

Cottonwood.

Which on itself is not hard at all, but this particular tree came from the German/ French border and had been around 100 years old. During WW2, the tree took in a lot of shell splinters, ruined a brand new Stihl chain in less than 10 minutes... :soldier:

I've heard of people hitting bullets etc but hitting shell fragments is something special - few countries can boast of having that sort of metal in trees

 

[BloodOnTheIce]

Rebar and barbed wire are the two hardest i've cut.

 

[Warped5]

Black Locust and for day in and day out hardness, a good hillside, shag bark hickory is hard on a saw.
Sam

Totally agree! Did you ever notice how when you first go through the bark on a shagbark Hickory it sounds like cutting sheet metal?

Osage Orange isn't too bad of a cut, but it's he** to split!

 

[Gologit]

Dry Madrone.

 

[NORMZILLA44]

Yeah Madrone is harder than alot of people think. I have cut some in excess of four feet, and it will give a saw a workout, and some of that was dry, and semi dry from being half dead. For me the hardest I have cut is black walnut, and Euacalyptus.

 

[s219]

I've heard of people hitting bullets etc but hitting shell fragments is something special - few countries can boast of having that sort of metal in trees

I have heard of trees in this area along the James River shoreline that have Civil War cannonballs embedded in them, which the tree has grown around. I imagine that would be pretty exciting to cut into by accident.

 

[GASoline71]

Dry Madrone.

Sir, yes sir... like concrete.

Gary

 

[forestryworks]

We got some Madrone here in TX. Wonder if it is just as hard as its west coast cousin?

 

[Sagetown]

There would be a toss-up in my area between Osage Orange, ( in that the sticky milky sap can pull down the saws rpm, and heats up the chain. ), and the Blackjack Oak that is so hard it throws sparks while eating up the chain.

 

[MCW]

I have heard of trees in this area along the James River shoreline that have Civil War cannonballs embedded in them, which the tree has grown around. I imagine that would be pretty exciting to cut into by accident.

Yup. A cannon ball would be just as cool ...

...and probably even harder on chains...

 

[blsnelling]

A large lag bolt will do wonders to a new 36" full comp 3/8 chain

 

[MCW]

A large lag bolt will do wonders to a new 36" full comp 3/8 chain

Use square filed Brad

 

[DarialFlask]

Cut up some sycamore seemed to dull the chain faster than locust, I always thought of it as a softwood but this was not but it was real dry may have contributed to the difficulty and it is almost impossible to split with a axe.

Australian Buloke is the hardest wood in the world

 

[pioneerguy600]

How about a horse shoe fully embedded in a tree, fast cutter removal is what I remember so I burned the full block outdoor fire just to recover and keep the shoe for display.