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The pleasures of wood splitting

  

THE PLEASURES OF  WOOD SPLITTING by Robert P. Borsody

This is  dedicated to those happy few who split wood for pleasure . It will be a chronicle of my own pleasures, and few pains, mostly minor, of 30 years or so of wood splitting.

          Now, splitting wood for centuries , the world over, has been  a task grudgingly undertaken by many, young and old, as a matter of survival, to feed the fire. It's been done with axes, with sledges and wedges, mauls and, probably at one time, with  stone axes. It's only in recent times when it was not necessary for survival, and by those who didn't need to do it, that it has been done for pleasure.

          I have always maintained that is one of the few exercises that has the  three characteristics of, first good cardiovascular exercise, one could work up a good sweat; and second, not boring, every log is different and one can see the progress from a pile of logs to a nice pile of firewood; and, third, useful. The only exercise I know comparable to that is shoveling snow in my driveway. Again, cardiovascular, not boring to see the gradual progress of change from snow-covered driveway to clean driveway and, finally, of course, useful.

          I have always tried to work out in  various ways, generally in a gym, and that is only cardiovascular. For me at least, it is certainly boring and, of course, not useful to anybody except, myself, for  keeping in shape, and possibly the gym owner who gets a fee for the use of the gym. Splitting wood, by contrast, is not only free, but often  people try to give me something for it, such as a bottle of wine. I explain to them that the only thing that I want from them  is for them to keep their eye out  for more wood because wood splitting, like snow shoveling ,also has one major drawback. For the  one you have to have wood to split and when you have split it you need more; for the other, you have to have snow to shovel which is, course, particularly seasonal. At least a gym is always there to use.

          I have, through the years, developed a network of several score people, for whom I have split wood in Westchester and Connecticut ,who do call me occasionally to tell me that someone has had a tree down and would like some wood split. I also sometimes drive  by houses and see a tree down or a pile of logs left from a downed tree. I carry little typewritten notes in my car that I sometimes leave in the mailbox saying something to the effect that I like to split wood for exercise and will do it for free and giving my address and telephone number. Occasionally people bite, but most probably think is some kind of a crank or, come on. I would never go to the door and knock since they would probably set the dogs on me. Most people cannot fathom why somebody would do something for free and for pleasure that they would otherwise have to pay for.

          I have met many, many nice people this way (and a  few grouches, but I don't care so long as they have wood) and I tell them they are all part of my " wood watchers group." When they try to give me something I always tell him no, they're not getting off that easy, they have to find more wood for me.

What I tell them is that, if they know someone who has to have a tree taken down on their property, get a quote from the tree people and then ask how much it will be if they leave the wood. They often will find out that it might be a little less because the gardeners, or wherever is taking down the tree, have to pay dumping fee to get rid of the logs, unless they  are one of the few guys who make and sell firewood themselves. I then instruct the putative member of my wood watchers group to tell their friend or neighbor that I will come by, split up the wood and pile it anywhere they want or, if they don't want it, leave it on the curb for others to take. It will usually be gone in a day or two especially, I jokingly tell them, if they put a sign on it saying "do not take wood." Then it will be taken furtively, at night.

If I have the time (and the wood) I will split a cord a weekend; half a cord on Saturday and half a cord on Sunday. A cord measures, as everyone knows, 4 x 4 by 8 feet ,closely stacked. It is a great feeling to walk up to a new pile of logs at a new splitting place size them up as a three weekend, five weekend or ten weekend job. Usually, by now I can come pretty close to guessing how long it will take. The variables are, in addition to my time availability, how tough the wood is and how the owner of the property wants the wood split, if they care at all.

 My "default" splitting mode is ordinary fireplace size, that is, a piece of firewood about 4 to 7 inches in diameter and, of course, 18 inches to 2 feet long. That is a normal size of a piece of firewood that is convenient to be burned in most fireplaces and in an iron Franklin stove. I have found, however, that some people who heat  their house using a cast-iron stove, prefer larger chunks, since the smaller chunks burn too quickly. Obviously it takes less time to split for those people.

Some wood is easier to split than other wood. Counterintuitively, soft wood, such as pine or weeping willow, is harder to split, since the blade just sinks into it. Harder wood, such as oak, splits more easily. Also, the colder the weather, the easier the wood splits. It's more brittle. There is some wood that is tough and fibrous and seems to just cling together, so each log takes a long time to split. Of course you would think that, since I am just doing it for the exercise, I wouldn't care whether it takes 15 min. to split one or 1 min. However, part of the fun is the immediate satisfaction and reward of seeing the log split into pieces.

          Then there are the logs with branches in them. As one can imagine, when a huge tree has a huge branch growing off it, there must be some unusual situation that exists where branch joins the trunk. There is. There is a gnarly, twisted, dense configuration that nature has evolved and designed to keep that heavy branch from falling off the tree. That can really be a challenge. Say there is a tree three or 4 feet diameter and, about 40 feet up there are three or four branches all coming out from the same part of the tree trunk. When that tree is cut down, this section of the trunk where those branches are coming out, can take me an hour or so to work over and 10 or 15 wedges. A wedge  may be pounded into part of the wood right up to the end, and with no effect. So it takes another wedge and then another, and one more and then another. I have 20 wedges of various sizes and shapes (all of them pretty much wedge-shaped) and sometimes, in a huge log with several branches, I will get almost all of them in there before it yields to my entreaties, and pounding. It is, of course, a great satisfaction to "conquer" a log like that. There is an art and a science to it. Knowing where to place the wedges, which kind of wedge  to use (there are some variations among wedges, thin ones and fatter ones, for example) and finding the fault lines and natural splitting directions of a complicated log.

 

Tools

          The tools one uses are not particularly sophisticated. Mostly, sledges and wedges. I have a selection of sledgehammers; a 12 pound one;a 16 pound one;and 20 pound beauty. I looked long and hard for the latter and I think it's the largest one that is made. I use it selectively for particularly recalcitrant logs. It works wonders. I also have two mauls. One is a standard maul, about 12 pounds. (I should not have to explain what a maul is  to anyone at this point. Anyone who has read this far must be an experienced wood splitter and knows.) The other is a "monster maul." That was the trade name under which it was sold, when I bought it. I can't remember where or when.  It is a sizable wedge of steel, about 6 x 6" that used to be  attached to an iron pipe, until I broke off the pipe. I took it to a machine shop and had them drill, tap and screw in (and weld it for good measure) a piece of 2 steel inch bar stock about a yard long. The whole thing weighs 22 pounds and is remarkable effective when needed .

ROTATOR CUFF PROBLEMS

I don't use the monster maul or the 20 pound sledge regularly, but I used to several years ago and messed up my shoulder. For some reason, lost in the dim mists of history. I had gotten into the habit of splitting for three or four hours at a time and using mostly the monster maul; whaling away at logs until it got too dark to see and I would go home. Then I started noticing an ache in my right shoulder which developed into a pain every time I lifted my shoulder up. It was, of course the dreaded  rotator cuff, a familiar affliction to certain type of athlete.The classic symptom is an inability to raise the arm more than 30° or 45° out from the body without a sharp stabbing pain in the shoulder.

The rotator cuff, as a quick Google look will tell you, is a little space in your shoulder between the clavicle and the top of the humerus  where the  supraspinatus tendon comes out and attaches to your arm to  lift it up. Although it can be torn by accident, for example lifting a heavy thing over your head and having it go backwards, it commonly is injured by repetitive overhead arm movements, such as a squash player, a swimmer, a pitcher, or wood splitter. Sure enough I had offended the supraspinatus tendon by overindulging in wood splitting and with too heavy an implement, the monster maul.

 So I duly  visited a succession of orthopedic surgeons, each one of whom, as expected, willingly offered to make a hole in my shoulder for arthroscopic surgery. It took five different surgeons before I finally found one who said what I wanted to hear , that there might be an alternative, and that was a course of physical therapy. I went to a physical therapist; religiously followed the instructions and regularly performed a series of about a dozen exercises three or four times a week and refrained from wood splitting for a couple of months. The pain decreased and then vanished and I went back to wood splitting,  but no more three or  four hours with the monster maul.

THE FEW DANGERS

There are not many other dangers or injuries that result from wood splitting. When people see me doing it or ask me about it they think  that it sounds dangerous. I tell him that, unlike skiing or golf, I don't think anyone ever got killed wood splitting. (I did actually read about somebody getting hit in the head with a golf ball and dying from it, or at least they died afterwards and maybe that was the cause of it.) Lumberjacking and chain sawing  is something else, but more about that later.

I wear steel toed boots in case I drop a log on my foot and, of course, safety glasses when hitting the wedges with the sledges, but that's about it for safety concerns. Of course I wear gloves but still do have some calluses on my hands but I'm not exactly horny handed. I buy inexpensive gloves from one of my tool company catalogs that cost about a buck  and a half each when bought by the dozen. I wear them out in a couple of months, probably mostly by handling the split wood and stacking it. Safety glasses are a must when hitting the wedges because, after a while, the ends of the wedges that get hit by the sledges become deformed and pieces fly off them. If one of them hits you in the eye, that's it for the eye. I have had tiny pieces hit me but they don't do much damage, but  it is rather startling.

One-time I was whacking away at a wedge and felt the sting in the shin of my right leg; pulled up my pants leg and saw a tiny piece of steel sticking out of my skin. I pulled it out  and threw it away, marveling  at the fact that, out of a 360° circle, that little piece of steel could fly off  the wedge  and hit my leg.  It was not  much of a wound, like a big mosquito bite, so I kept on and hit the wedge another mighty blow and felt another sting in my left leg. Yes, you guessed it, same thing. What are the chances of that happening, but it did. Again, if that's the worst thing that happens to you after 30 years or so of wood splitting, it's not a very dangerous activity.

SLEDGELESS SPLITTING

Before talking about chain sawing and lumberjacking, let me say one more thing about the much safer exercise of wood splitting and that is, "sledgeless splitting." Well, what is that, one might ask? It's something that, while I probably didn't invent it, nobody else seems to have ever seen it, but then, who makes a study of these things. This can be done with any log that can be lifted more than a couple of feet in the air. The weight of the log itself is used split it. Here is how it is done. I grab a log, say 75 pounds, maybe 18 inches in diameter and the usual 18 inches to 2 feet long. I throw a wedge into the center of it so it sticks. Then I turn it upside down so the wedge is on the bottom  and lift it into the air and throw it down on the wedge so that the weight of the log is forced down onto the wedge. A small log of the right kind of wood, say Cedar, will split the first or second time; very satisfying. A tough log may take 10 or 15 thumps.

 I do it because it's a little variation and it is very satisfying when the log finally splits. Also, it uses different muscles than swinging a sledgehammer or a maul. Interestingly, and when you think about it, logically, the heavier logs split quicker. If I can muscle up a 125 pound log just a foot or so into the air, maybe two or three times, the great weight of the log, smashing down on the wedge will split it. So, that is sledgeless  splitting. Now let's talk about really dangerous stuff, lumberjacking.

Lumberjacking and Chainsawing

Lumberjacks and miners are in the most dangerous occupations. Maybe those King crab fishing boats in the sea  off Alaska are pretty dangerous too, but I don't really know the figures on the mortality rates. I, of course am just a city bred lawyer from New York and now a businessman, and I am probably considered by most of the people of the world rather effete. I certainly am not a lumberjack and would certainly not want to be one but I have cut down a lot of trees and done a lot of chainsawing.

This was a logical, or maybe illogical , as my wife would say, extension of my wood splitting activities. After going up to wooded areas, mostly in Connecticut at the invitation of an increasing circle of the "wood watchers" and doing a lot of wood splitting, I began to get some opportunities to take down some old dead trees. This was not so much because the owners needed tree work done, but because I was running out of wood to split; saw the dead trees on the property and asked if I could take them down.

 This also another little bit of a back story. At our family place in the Adirondacks, going back a number of years, my then brother-in-law Brian owned a few chainsaws and I used to use them to take down trees; split them up; stack them, and then the wood was burned to the heat the place.

           I then got a hankering to buy my own and, you know how these kind of things go, I wound up with five of them; each one bigger than the last one. The biggest was a 28 inch Stihl. Which  ultimately was my undoing. One of the reasons I had so many is because I have such a hard time starting them; usually flooded them out. If I brought along two or three of them into the woods, I usually I could get one started. One old guy I knew, can't remember who, said that a two cycle engine, in a chainsaw, is like some women. Very temperamental and hard to get started, but once it starts going, watch out. Funny, but not exactly accurate.

      Although I certainly am not an experienced woodsman I saw first hand some of the dangers of taking down trees. There is an old saying that, anyone can take down a tree, but the skill consists of making it fall where you want it to. This is why I never tried taking down any trees except if they were out in the forest away from any buildings or anything else expensive. Several tons of wood will go where it wants to go, once it gets started and there is not much you can do to prevent it.

Felling a tree

           I remember putting a quarter-inch steel cable around a  dead tree  that I was planning to take down and fastening it to another nearby tree to  keep the tree that I was cutting down from falling on a playset on the grounds of one of the estates where I was doing my stuff. The cable snapped like a string and the playset was history. The family didn't care, they got a huge woodhouse instead.

          A skilled  woodsman can tell, from which way the branches are growing, where the weight  is and, hence, which direction the tree will fall. It is very difficult to make it fall in any other direction unless, of course there is real tree work to be done and someone goes up with ropes or a cherry picker and lops off those branches. There is a little pamphlet  that comes with chainsaws  and has some directions on how to cut down trees.  It shows where to make the wedge shaped cut, pointing toward the direction you want the tree to fall, and then to cut, parallel to the ground or slightly on a downward angle, just a little bit above the bottom of the wedge shaped cut, on the other side of the tree. The best practice is to stop with just a little bit left to cut (which is called the "hinge") and then insert a splitting wedge into that same cut  and pound it  with a sledgehammer so it will  spread the cut; lift  the tree; and tumble it over. It's a little more exciting to keep cutting until you hear that kind of crack or groaning sound and  the tree starts to tip over. Then you should move.

          A tree starts to fall over very slowly for about the first 30° from vertical. At about 45°, or about halfway down, it is falling very swiftlyand  at about 60° and 70° it is really slicing through the air. That gives you plenty of time to get out of the way. I always found the best thing to do was to locate an escape route before starting which was close by and usually behind another fairly sturdy tree. This would be either perpendicular to the expected, and hoped for, line of fall or maybe about 45° in back of the expected line of fall. The reason one doesn't get directly in back of the tree, which might initially seem the safest place is that, first of all the "barber chair"effect and also because sometimes, as I said before, a tree may not fall just where you want it to fall. It could fall backwards and you wouldn't want to be there. Best to be behind a nearby thick tree.

 I don't know why it's called the" barber chair", effect. Maybe because a barber chair can be made to lean way back. The effect is as follows: the tree is cut and, instead of just falling over, the lower part of the trunk slides backwards on the stump in the opposite direction that the  rest of the trunk falls, so that the tree ends up with maybe 10 or 20 feet of the trunk on one side of the stump  and the rest of it on the other side of the stump. This is a big problem if you are on either side of the stump the tree trunk is on. Best to be off to one side.

It is very exciting, at least to an amateur like me, to cut down a big tree. Now, don't get me wrong, while I wouldn't call myself a "tree hugger", I love trees and would certainly never cut down a tree just for the hell of it. The trees I cut down are dead trees or, for some reason or other, if the owner of the land wanted a tree cut down I used to do it for them. That was before the accident, but more about that later.

          Bucking

          Once a tree is cut down it has to be "bucked". Bucking is, as I understand it, cutting any wood when it is on the ground. Generally, I start by cutting the smaller branches since they are still connected to the tree and sticking up and easy to cut. For a good sized tree a huge tangle quickly results and it becomes pretty dangerous to be stepping around among the branches cutting with a chainsaw. This is when one of the most important safety items comes in  handy and that is Kevlar chaps. These are, as the name implies, chaps that strap onto the front of your legs and are supposed to stop the saw from slicing into the leg. They generally do just that, except for the time it didn't  for me.

After cutting off the branches and getting down to the trunk, the next step is to slice up the trunk into fireplace length logs, as mentioned above, about 18 inches to 2 feet long. One thing to watch out for here  is, as the saw cuts almost through the trunk and gets down to the ground one has to be careful not to let the chain hit dirt  or rock. One touch against a good sized rock or even a couple of seconds in the sand and the chain is dulled and has to be sharpened. It is great to cut with a freshly sharpened chain and feel the saw just slice through the wood and no fun to cut with a dull chain, and not good for the bar or the saw.. Of course the kind of wood determines that as well. Naturally harder wood goes a little more slowly. And  a long dead tree with seasoned wood will go very slowly and will dull the chain very quickly.

Dealing with a pinch

Another thing to watch out for while cutting apart  the trunk of a tree or cutting any time, is getting the chain saw stuck in the wood. If the trunk of a tree or, even a large branch, is under stress, specifically if it is supported at both ends and sagging in the middle and you are cutting from the top then, as you reach the bottom, the wood will pinch. There are two ways of dealing with this. If the trunk or branch is large enough, then, after the bar of the chainsaw has passed through the wood deep enough to leave a couple of inches of the cut free on the top, you hammer a splitting wedge into  the cut to keep it apart. Actually, if one is cutting a horizontal cut in a large tree (after already having opened up the felling wedge shaped cut on the other side) it's usually a good idea to put a splitting wedge into the horizontal cut in back of the chainsaw blade because sometimes, even though you want the tree to fall in the direction of the wedge shaped cut, it will lean back the other way. Once that happens or, or for that matter, once the bar of the chainsaw is pinched in a tree, it  is very difficult to do anything about it. If you have a second chainsaw you can try cutting from the other side, of course being careful not to cut all the way through to the first chainsaw and have the chains cut into each other.

In a situation where one is cutting a log, as mentioned, supported at both ends or a leaner (more about that later) instead of using  a splitting wedge to keep the top of the cut open, one takes at  out the bar of the chainsaw  and starts cutting from the bottom. Two problems with this are, because, of course, it's a lot easier to cut from the top with gravity on your side, it's tempting to keep cutting from the top too long until the blade is pinched. The second problem, of course, is  that when cutting from the bottom, one does not have gravity on your side and you have to hold the chainsaw and pull it up against the log. When cutting a log in this position, particularly a leaner, great care must be used, because the log will give way very suddenly.

          Leaners

A "leaner" occurs when you are cutting a tree down and, as often happens in the forest where the area around the tree is not clear, instead of just nicely falling flat on the ground it falls over and leans on a nearby tree. This is a challenge and where lumberjacking can really get dangerous. One way to deal with this is to throw a line over the tree as far up the tree as one can reach, and then pull it with a couple of guys or  a powerful ratchet off the supporting tree, taking care not to be under the tree when it falls, of course, which is always preferable. That's often not an option and so the other way to handle it is to do as follows. Say the tree has fallen over and is leaning, at a 45° angle, supported by a nearby tree. You find a place six or eight feet up the trunk to cut it, as far as you can comfortably reach. Since, you will ultimately be cutting the trunk into fireplace lengths, it should be some multiple of two foot lengths, ideally. Okay, now you start cutting, from the top and, as mentioned above you try to stop before the bar is pinched in the log, say about two thirds of the way through for good sized two  foot thick trunk. Now the fun begins. You start cutting from the bottom of the log, of course lining  up as close as possible with the cut that is coming from the top. Here is the "exciting" part, if danger happens to be your excitement. When you cut far enough up from the bottom towards the cut coming down from the top, the log will break. Now, here's the problem. That log, being under stress, will snap suddenly. Unlike taking a standing tree down which, as I mentioned, starts very, very slowly and doesn't fall swiftly until it's well on its way down, the log under stress will not only snap quickly but can go in a number of different directions none of which you want to be in.

          If you are standing beside a 40 foot long trunk of a tree, 2 feet in diameter, and you have cut two thirds of the way from the top, and now you are cutting up from the bottom towards that first top cut, you have to be on your toes and ready to jump. You don't hear a long cracking and groaning sound like you do from a tree when it's starting to fall over, it's just a sudden pop and the log is in  motion. It's not so much the bottom part about 8 feet long and maybe 1000 pounds, it is the top part of the log, about 30 feet long, and a couple of tons, which might decide to swing out towards you and give you a little kiss. As I said I don't do this stuff anymore.

          But, just one more illustration of an interesting phenomenon that I experienced. As I said, when a tree falls it starts very slowly and there is plenty of time to get out of the way etc.   However, when cutting the log under stress, such as a leaner, as discussed above, it snaps quickly. There is another interesting situation where cutting can result in an almost instantaneous motion.  This occurs when a tree falls over naturally, i.e., not cut down by a chainsaw, and the roots remain partly in the ground. This often happens after a rainy spell followed by high wind when the ground is soft and the roots are loosened in the ground. Also, trees that grow in damp or wet ground usually don't put down deep roots and are prone to fall over once they reach a certain size. This is also true for trees, such as those around my house that only have two or three feet of soil.

           So,  you have a situation where there is a tree, in an instance that I will describe, about 100 feet high and 5 feet in diameter  which happened to be growing by stream and which it fallen over in high wind storm. Well, I started cutting from the top and got down to some pretty large, two or three foot diameter branches, and had almost reached the trunk when I noticed an interesting phenomenon. The trunk of the tree rose slightly off the ground. Then I cut off another several feet and a trunk rose up further, until it was three or 4 feet off the ground suspended in the air. You see, the stump and the roots were still embedded in the ground on the side of the tree where it had fallen over. On the other side, on the top of the trunk, roots had been ripped out of the ground. What was happening was that, as the top branches of the tree, several tons of wood, were cut away,the trunk was being pulled up by the elastic, resilient strain of the huge remaining roots in the ground.

          I jumped up on the massive log of the trunk and strolled around, taking in the situation. With my "fly like" weight it did not even stir. I saw that, if I kept on cutting the trunk then,  when there was about 20 or so feet left on it, it would rise up to about a 45° angle in the air and I would not be able to reach the end of the trunk to cut off any more. So, what I decided to do was just cut off the trunk as far down near the stump as I could, thinking that if I did that, the 30 foot length of the trunk would just drop  down on the ground and I would just finish slicing it up. What I didn't realize was that when the stump, with its remaining roots embedded in the ground, was relieved of the several tons of weight of the 30 foot long 5 feet in diameter trunk, it would instantly spring back almost flat on the ground at the same time that the huge trunk thundered to the ground. It took an instant and did not fling me or the chainsaw into the air. The first time it happened, with a slightly smaller tree only about 3 feet in diameter, I foolishly didn't realize it would happen and was amazed when it did. The next (and last) time that it happened , with the huge tree, I was careful and prepared and ready to jump away as the saw approached the bottom of the cut. I didn't have time to move; it happened in an instant.

Widowmakers

          Here is another way that lumberjacks get killed,  by "widow makers." Here's how it happens. After a day of lumberjacking  and taking down several dozen trees, in the natural course of things, as some of these trees topple over, some of their upper branches snap off  as a tree falls over, on the way down, and get caught in the upper branches of other standing trees. Then, later, say the next day, as a lumberjack is walking along through the woods underneath a tree containing one of these 200 or 300 pound branches, 30 or 40 feet in the air, it slips out and falls down on him and, if he is married, makes his wife a widow. Hence the name "widow maker."

          One more observation about the ancient and honorable occupation of lumberjacking. While there will always be a need for trees to be cut down, for lumber, wood pulp (although the Kindle and its ilk are saving a lot of trees) etc. the way trees are cut down and the job of a lumberjack has changed considerably over the years. For example there is a gigantic machine mostly used for taking down smaller trees , maybe 2 feet or so in diameter,which are probably used for lumber or pulp. The machine drives up to the tree and grasps it with enormous grabbers. Then  a circular saw comes out from machine and slices off the tree right at ground level. The machine carries off the tree and drops it down somewhere and there well might be another machine to strip off the branches, but maybe that's still done by a human wielding a chainsaw.

          There is a series on television called "Axemen", which, as we all know, has nothing to do with axes, but in order to capture the attention of the public who think that all lumberjacks use axes, that's the way it had to be named.  It could not be called "chainsaw men" , too long. I have watched it, of course, but really felt sorry for those guys working with that equipment. Most of them must have been missing various parts of their anatomy and I'm sure a goodly portion of them get killed.

          But enough of the dismal and dangerous possibilities of being a lumberjack and dancing with chainsaws. Those days are over for me. But, before we return to the pleasures of wood splitting and making  the wood pile, a few words about chainsaws.

CHAINSAWS

While there are electric chainsaws that have to be plugged in (although there are some small battery-powered ones, mostly for nibbling away at upper limbs of trees that can be easily carried) gasoline powered  chainsaws  are by far the most prevalent, the most powerful and, by the way, the most noisy. They are old-fashioned two cycle gasoline engines, with carburetors like the old cars used to have before fuel injection.. They are very fickle and temperamental and hard to start. That's one of the reasons I had so many and used to carry two or three of them with me into the woods, since I could usually only start one. Some, to me,seemed easier to start. The Husqvarnas that I owned always seemed to behave well, as did the Stihls. I always had trouble with the Poulans. Of course, not being a really experienced and skilled woodsman or, for that matter someone very familiar with two cycle engines, I am probably not the best judge of this.

          I would usually be spending a fair amount of time adjusting and fixing the chainsaws out in the woods. I suppose this is par for the course. One thing that often happened to me is that the chain would fly off the bar. This is because it loosens up as it heats up and expands. One cannot tighten it too much to start out since it will  not go easily or, perhaps even won't start. On the other hand, starting too loose, and then after cutting for a while, will result in a chain flying off. But  this doesn't result in injuries usually, especially if one has the elemental safety equipment: heavy gloves, the above-mentioned chaps, and a hard hat with a face protector.

           No, that's not the way one usually is injured with a chainsaw. Usually one runs it into a leg, as happened to me. Except when cutting down a tree, when the chainsaw is horizontal to the ground and cutting into the trunk of the tree, one is usually cutting downward," bucking" a tree, in other words, cutting up the tree and cutting off the branches. As one is cutting downward, say, cutting branches off a felled tree, the chainsaw is cutting in a downward direction and if it slips and continues going downward,  it is going to encounter some part of the lower body. That is what the chaps are for and, also, I forgot to mention, steel toed boots.

In my case, I'm still not 100% sure what happened, but as I was cutting at an awkward angle, underneath a fallen tree, trying to sever one of the branches the chainsaw slipped and cut into my leg, just on the inside of my right knee. Without going into the gory details and, as you can imagine it was somewhat gory, my wife demanded that I get rid of all my chainsaws which I did, selling them on eBay. By the way, I had on a pair of Kevlar chaps that the 28 Inch Stihl chainsaw simply disregarded on its way into my leg. Fortunately there was no serious or lasting damage done although the hole  in my leg was big enough to put your fist into. It healed up and I am  walking around but not using a chainsaw. Before we leave chainsaws, one more interesting phenomena, and that is the gyroscope effect.      

The gyroscope effect, is a rather complex phenomenon having to do with vector forces but you can feel it anytime you have a heavy spinning object and try to rotate it at right angles to it's spin. You can feel the spinning object forcing its way back against the way you're trying to rotate it. That's what keeps the gyroscope upright. The heavier the object and the faster the spin, then the more pronounced  the effect. You can feel it most strongly in a large chainsaw, let's say a 28 inch one, when you rev up  the engine and then turn the whole chainsaw sharply to one side or the other, rotating it around an axis that extends along the line of the bar. The more sharply you turn the   chainsaw, the more strongly you feel the chainsaw resisting your turn. That's the gyroscope effect in chainsaws. Now back to more peaceful projects.

WOOD PILES AND LOG HOUSES

As I mentioned, one of the pleasures of wood splitting is seeing a nice woodpile after you finish. It's evidence of the work done and exercise you have had. A well-built woodpile is a thing of beauty to certain people, such as the readers of this. Usually, unless the wood can be stacked between two trees, there has to be a "block" at the end of the pile or the wood will be just be   heaped in an ungraceful mound. The real woodsman starts with a "block" which is: pieces of firewood, usually three or four, stacked alternately crossways; for example parallel to the direction of the wood pile on the bottom layer, the second layer perpendicular to that, the third layer perpendicular to the second layer and parallel to the first layer, and so on. This can create a square stacked about 2 feet on a side that can go four or five feet high, which is about as high as woodpile ought to go. Of course the rest of the firewood will simply be stacked between the blocks. A normal woodpile can be as long as one wants and if there's not enough length available, then several wood piles can be  put side by side. Now, I said a "normal" woodpile. Then, however, there are wood "houses".

          If I have at least three or four cords of wood ( remember, each cord is 4 x 4 by and there are children from, say  six Years Old to the low teens, then I offer to build a wood house, instead of simply a normal woodpile.

 A wood house  starts with a block, and then the firewood is stacked, about 4 feet high in a single row, ending in a second block may be 10 feet away. Here is where it gets different.The firewood is then stacked perpendicular to the first row for, say, another 10 feet to a third block for an L-shaped structure. Then the third wall is built perpendicular to the second one for a U-shaped structure, completed by a fourth block. Closing the square, the fourth wall is built but, leaving a doorway. That is, instead of completely closing the square, a fifth block is built about 2 feet from the first block at the end of the fourth wall . At that point, the walls are up for the wood house and you could leave it that way and the kids would have a wood "Fort."

However, to complete a basic wood house structure one must put on a roof. One builds a triangle of firewood pieces on top of  the two walls opposite each other, preferably one of the walls not being one with the door, that makes it harder. Then at the peak of the two triangles you lay down a 2 x 4 or some kind of a long pole and drape a tarp over the whole thing. (I like to use a camo tarp or at least a dark brown tarp since it blends in with the landscape . I hate those bright blue tarps. They are offensive to the eye, especially on top of a woodhouse.) That is your basic woodhouse.

However there are variations. If you have more wood, you can make a bigger house. Then you have walls inside with one or more blocks and, perhaps a triangle peak parallel to the two outside triangle peaks to help hold up the ridgepole and the tarp. The reason, of course, that one needs the peaked roof is so the rain and snow will run off it. Without the peaks, if you simply drape a tarp over the flat woodpile walls then, after the first heavy rain, a pool of water will form  in the middle and, when when it gets big enough, split the tarp. I think my biggest woodhouse took about 10 cords and had six rooms and a porch.

Again, I'm doing all this for exercise but also for fun. While it's fun to build a woodpile and satisfying to see it after I'm finished. It's a lot more fun to build a woodhouse and somewhat of a challenge, not just the architectural aspects, but also estimating how big to make it, based on how many logs I have and how much firewood will result from those logs. I don't stick around to see what happens when, and if, the people start burning the wood and have to take down parts of the woodhouse. I imagine there may be protests from the children.

 

By Robert P. Borsody-  April 4,2011

 

About the Author

Wood Floor Terminology. Madera Floors, Fairfax Va

• Adhesive: A substance capable of holding materials together by surface attachment. It is a general term and includes cements, mucilage, and paste, as well as glue.
• Anisotropic: Exhibiting different properties when measured along different axes. In general, fibrous materials such as wood are anisotropic.
• Balanced Construction: A construction such that the forces induced by uniformly distributed changes in moisture content will not cause warping. Symmetrical construction of plywood in which the grain direction of each ply is perpendicular to that of adjacent plies is balanced construction.
• Bark Pocket: An opening between annual growth rings that contains bark. Bark pockets appear as dark streaks on radial surfaces and as rounded areas on tangential surfaces.
• Beam: A structural member supporting a load applied transversely to it.
• Birdseye: Small localized areas in wood with the fibers indented and otherwise contorted to form few to many small circular or elliptical figures remotely resembling birds' eyes on the tangential surface. Sometimes found in sugar maple and used for decorative purposes; rare in other hardwood species.
• Blister: An elevation of the surface of an adherend, somewhat resembling in shape a blister on human skin; its boundaries may be indefinitely outlined, and it may have burst and become flattened. (A blister may be caused by insufficient adhesive; inadequate curing time, temperature, or pressure; or trapped water, or solvent vapor.)
• Board Foot: A unit of measurement of lumber represented by a board 12 in. long, 12 in. wide, and 1 in. thick, or its cubic equivalent. In practice, the board foot calculation for lumber 1 in. or more in thickness is based on its nominal thickness and width and the actual length. Lumber with a nominal thickness of less than 1 in. is calculated as 1 in.
• Bond: (1) The union of materials by adhesive. (2) To unite materials by means of an adhesive.
• Bond Strength: The unit load applied in tension, compression, flexure, peel impact, cleavage, or shear required to break an adhesive assembly, with failure occurring in or near the plane of the bond.
• Bow: The distortion of lumber in which there is a deviation, in a direction perpendicular to the flat face, from a straight line from end-to-end of the piece.
• Box Beam: A built-up beam with solid wood flanges and plywood or wood-based panel product webs.
• Boxed Heart: The term used when the pith falls entirely within the four faces of a piece of wood anywhere in its length. Also called boxed pith.
• Burl: (1) A hard, woody outgrowth on a tree, more or less rounded in form, usually resulting from the entwined growth of a cluster of adventitious buds. Such burls are the source of the highly figured burl veneers used for purely ornamental purposes. (2) In lumber or veneer, a localized severe distortion of the grain generally rounded in outline, usually resulting from overgrowth of dead branch stubs, varying from one to several centimeters (one-half to several inches) in diameter; frequently includes one or more clusters of several small contiguous conical protuberances, each usually having a core or a pith but no appreciable amount of end grain _in tangential view) surrounding it.
• Cambium: A thin layer of tissue between the bark and wood that repeatedly subdivides to form new wood and bark cells.
• Cant: A log that has been slabbed on one or more sides. Ordinarily, cants are intended for resawing at right angles to their widest sawn face. The term is loosely used. (See Flitch)
• Casehardening: A condition of stress and set in dry lumber characterized by compressive stress in the outer layers and tensile stress in the center or core.
• Cell: A general term for the anatomical units of plant tissue, including wood fibers, vessel members, and other elements of diverse structure and function.
• Cellulose: The carbohydrate that is the principle constituent of wood and forms the framework of the wood cells.
• Check: A lengthwise separation of the wood that usually extends across the rings of annual growth and commonly results from stresses set up in wood during seasoning.
• Cohesion: The state in which the constituents of a mass of material are held together by chemical and physical forces.
• Compression Failure: Deformation of the wood fibers resulting from excessive compression along the grain either in direct end compression or in bending. It may develop in standing trees due to bending by wind or snow or to internal longitudinal stresses developed in growth, or it may result from stresses imposed after the tree is cut. In surfaced lumber, compression failures may appear as fine wrinkles across the face of the piece.
• Corbel: A projection from the face of a wall or column supporting a weight.
• Crook: The distortion of lumber in which there is a deviation, in a direction perpendicular to the edge, from a straight line from end-to-end of the piece.
• Decay: The decomposition of wood substance by fungi.
  Advanced (Typical) Decay: The older stage of decay in which the destruction is readily recognized because the wood has become punky, soft and spongy, stringy, ringshaked, pitted, or crumbly. Decided discoloration or bleaching of the rotted wood is often apparent.
• Brown Rot: In wood, any decay in which the attack concentrates on the cellulose and associated carbohydrates rather than the lignin, producing a light to dark brown friable residue – hence loosely termed "dry rot." An advanced stage where the wood splits along rectangular planes, in shrinking, is termed "cubical rot."
• Dry Rot: A term loosely applied to any dry, crumbly rot but especially to that which, when in an advanced stage, permits the wood to be crushed easily to a dry powder. The term is actually a misnomer for any decay, since all fungi require considerable moisture for growth.
• Incipient Decay: The early stage of decay that has not proceeded far enough to soften or otherwise perceptibly impair the hardness of the wood. It is usually accompanied by a slight discoloration or bleaching.
• Heart Rot: Any rot characteristically confined to the heartwood. It generally originates in the living tree.
• Pocket Rot: Advanced decay that appears in the form of a hole or pocket, usually surrounded by apparently sound wood.
• Soft Rot: A special type of decay developing under very wet conditions (as in cooling towers and boat timbers) in the outer wood layers, caused by cellulose-destroying microfungi that attack the secondary cell walls and not the intercellular layer.
• White Rot: In wood, any decay or rot attacking both the cellulose and the lignin, producing a generally whitish residue that may be spongy or stringy rot, or occur as pocket rot.
• Delamination: The separation of layers in laminated wood or plywood because of failure of the adhesive, either within the adhesive itself or at the interface between the adhesive and the adherend.
• Density: As usually applied to wood of normal cellular form, density is the mass per unit volume of wood substance enclosed within the boundary surfaces of a wood-plus-voids complex. It is variously expressed as pounds per cubic foot, kilograms per cubic meter, or grams per cubic centimeter at a specified moisture content.
• Dew Point: The temperature at which a vapor begins to deposit as a liquid. Applies especially to water in the atmosphere.
• Early Wood: The portion of the growth ring that is formed during the early part of the growing season. It is usually less dense and weaker mechanically than latewood. Also known as Springwood.
• Equilibrium Moisture Content: The moisture content at which wood neither gains nor loses moisture when surrounded by air at a given relative humidity and temperature.
• Fiber Saturation Point: The stage in the drying or wetting of wood at which the cell walls are saturated and the cell cavities free from water. It applies to an individual cell or group of cells, not to whole boards. It is usually taken as approximately 30% moisture content, based on oven-dry weight.
• Figure: The pattern produced in a wood surface by annual growth rings, rays, knots, deviations from regular grain such as interlocked and wavy grain, and irregular coloration.
• Filler: In woodworking, any substance used to fill the holes and irregularities in planed or sanded surfaces to decrease the porosity of the surface before applying finish coatings. As applied to adhesives, a relatively non-adhesive substance added to an adhesive to improve its working properties, strength, or other qualities.
• Finish (Finishing): (1) Wood products such as doors, stairs, and other fine work required to complete a building, especially the interior. (2) Coatings of paint, varnish, lacquer, wax, or other similar materials applied to wood surfaces to protect and enhance their durability or appearance.
• Glue: Originally, a hard gelatin obtained from hides, tendons, cartilage, bones, etc., of animals. Also, an adhesive prepared from this substance by heating with water. Through general use the term is now synonymous with the term "adhesive."
• Grade: The designation of the quality of a manufactured piece of wood or of logs.
• Grain: The direction, size, arrangement, appearance, or quality of the fibers in wood or lumber. To have a specific meaning the term must be qualified.
• Close-Grained (Fine-Grained) Wood: Wood with narrow, inconspicuous annual rings. The term is sometimes used to designate wood having small and closely spaced pores, but in this sense the term "fine textured" is more often used.
• Coarse-Grained Wood: Wood with wide conspicuous annual rings in which there is considerable difference between early wood and latewood. The term is sometimes used to designate wood with large pores, such as oak, keruing, meranti, and walnut, but in this sense, the term "open-grained" is more often used.
• Cross-Grained Wood: Wood in which the fibers deviate from a line parallel to the sides of the piece. Cross grain may be either diagonal or spiral grain or a combination of the two.
• Curly-Grained Wood: Wood in which the fibers are distorted so that they have a curled appearance, as in "birdseye" wood. The areas showing curly grain may vary up to several inches in diameter.
• Diagonal-Grained Wood: Wood in which the annual rings are at an angle with the axis of a piece as a result of sawing at an angle with the bark of the tree or log. A form of cross-grain.
• Edge-Grained Lumber: Lumber that has been sawed so that the wide surfaces extend approximately at right angles to the annual growth rings. Lumber is considered edge grained when the rings form an angle of 45° to 90° with the wide surface of the piece.
• End-Grained Wood: The grain as seen on a cut made at a right angle to the direction of the fibers (such as on a cross section of a tree).
• Fiddleback-Grained Wood: Figure produced by a type of fine wavy grain found, for example, in species such as maple; such wood being traditionally used for the backs of violins.
• Flat-Grained (Flat-Sawn) Lumber: Lumber that has been sawn parallel to the pith and approximately tangent to the growth rings. Lumber is considered flat grained when the annual growth rings make an angle of less than 45° with the surface of the piece.
• Interlocked-Grained Wood: Grain in which the fibers put on for several years may slope in a right-handed direction, and then for a number of years the slope reverses to a left-handed direction, and later changes back to a right-handed pitch, and so on. Such wood is exceedingly difficult to split radially, though tangentially it may split fairly easily.
• Open-Grained Wood: Common classification for woods with large pores such as oak, keruing, meranti, and walnut. Also known as "coarse textured."
• Plainsawn Lumber: Another term for flat-grained lumber.
• Quartersawn Lumber: Another term for edge-grained lumber.
• Side-Grained Wood: Another term for flat-grained lumber.
• Slash-Grained Wood: Another term for flat-grained limber.
• Spiral-Grained Wood: Wood in which the fibers take a spiral course about the trunk of a tree instead of the normal vertical course. The spiral may extend in a right-handed or left-handed direction around the tree trunk. Spiral grain is a form of cross grain.
• Straight-Grained Wood: Wood in which the fibers run parallel to the axis of a piece.
• Vertical-Grained Lumber: Another term for edge-grained lumber.
• Wavy-Grained Wood: Wood in which the fibers collectively take the form of waves or undulations.
• Green: Freshly sawn or undried wood. Wood that has become completely wet after immersion in water would not be considered green but may be said to be in the "green condition."
• Growth Ring: The layer of wood growth put on a tree during a single growth season. In the temperate zone, the annual growth rings of many species (for example, oaks and pines) are readily distinguished because of differences in the cells formed during the early and late parts of the season. In some temperate zone species (black gum and sweet gum) and many tropical species, annual growth rings are not easily recognized.
• Hardness: A property of wood that enables it to resist indentation.
• Hardwoods: Generally one of the botanical groups of trees that have vessels or pores and broad leaves, in contrast to the conifers or softwoods. The term has no reference to the actual hardness of the wood.
• Heartwood: The wood extending from the pith to the sapwood, the cells of which no longer participate in the life processes of the tree. Heartwood may contain phenolic compounds, gums, resins, and other materials that usually make it darker and more decay resistant than sapwood.
• Isotropic: Exhibiting the same properties in all directions.
• Joint: The junction of two pieces of wood or veneer.
• Adhesive Joint: The location at which two adherends are held together with a layer of adhesive.
• Butt Joint: An end joint formed by abutting the squared ends of two pieces.
• Edge Joint: A joint made by bonding two pieces of wood together edge-to-edge, commonly by gluing. The joints may be made by gluing two squared edges as in a plain edge joint or by using machined joints of various kinds, such as tongued-and-grooved joints.
• End Joint: A joint made by bonding two pieces of wood together end-to-end, commonly by end matching.
• Finger Joint: An end joint made up of several meshing wedges or fingers of wood bonded together with an adhesive. Fingers are sloped and may be cut parallel to either the wide or narrow face of the piece.
• Joist: One of a series of parallel beams used to support floor and ceiling loads and supported in turn by larger beams, girders, or bearing walls.
• Kiln: A chamber having controlled air-flow, temperature, and relative humidity for drying lumber. The temperature is increased as drying progresses, and the relative humidity is decreased.
• Knot: That portion of a branch or limb that has been surrounded by subsequent growth of the stem. The shape of the knot as it appears on a cut surface depends on the angle of the cut relative to the long axis of the knot.
• Encased Knot: A knot whose rings of annual growth are not inter-grown with those of the surrounding wood.
• Inter-grown Knot: A knot whose rings of annual growth are completely inter-grown with those of the surrounding wood.
• Loose Knot: A knot that is not held firmly in place by growth or position and that cannot be relied upon to remain in place.
• Pin Knot: A knot that is not more than 12mm (1/2 in.) in diameter.
• Sound Knot: A knot that is solid across its face, at least as hard as the surrounding wood, and shows no indication of decay.
• Spike Knot: A knot cut approximately parallel to its long axis so that the exposed section is definitely elongated.
• Laminate: A product made by bonding together two or more layers (laminations) of material or materials.
  Laminated Timbers: An assembly made by bonding layers of veneer or lumber with an adhesive so that the grain of all laminations is essentially parallel.
• Latewood: The portion of the growth ring that is formed after the early wood formation has ceased. It is usually denser and stronger than early wood. (Also known as summer wood.)
• Lumber: The product of the saw and planning mill for which manufacturing is limited to sawing, resawing, passing lengthwise through a standard planning machine, crosscutting to length, and matching. Lumber may be made from either softwood or hardwood. (See also Lumber: Dimension.)
• Board: Lumber that is less than 38 mm standard (2 in. nominal) thickness and greater than 38 mm standard (2 in. nominal) width. Boards less than 140 mm standard (6 in. nominal) width are sometimes called strips.
• Dimension: Lumber with a thickness from 38 mm standard (2 in. nominal) up to but not including 114 mm standard (2 in. nominal).
• Dressed Size: The dimensions of lumber after being surfaced with a planning machine. The dressed size is usually ½ to ¾ in. less than the nominal or rough size. A 2-by-4 in. stud, for example, actually measures about 1 ½ by 3 ½ in. (standard 38-by-89 mm).
• Factory and Shop Lumber: Lumber intended to be cut up for use in further manufacture. It is graded on the percentage of the area that will produce a limited number of cuttings of a specified minimum size and quality.
• Matched Lumber: Lumber that is edge dressed and shaped to make a close tongued-and-grooved joint at the edges or ends when laid edge-to-edge or end-to-end.
• Nominal Size: As applied to timber or lumber, the size by which it is known and sold in the market (often differs from the actual size).
• Patterned Lumber: Lumber that is shaped to a pattern or to a molded form in addition to being dressed, matched, or shiplapped, or any combination of these workings.
• Rough Lumber: Lumber that has not been dressed (surfaced) but has been sawed, edged, and trimmed.
• Surfaced Lumber: Lumber that is dressed by running it through a planer.
• Timbers: Lumber that is standard 114 mm (nominal 5 in.) or more in at least dimension. Timbers may be used as beams, stringers, posts, caps, sills, girders, or purlins.
• Mastic: A material with adhesive properties, usually used in relatively thick sections that can be readily applied by extrusion, trowel, or spatula. (See Adhesive.)
• Millwork: Planed and patterned lumber for finish work in building, including items such as sash, doors, cornices, panelwork, and other items of interior or exterior trim. Does not include flooring, ceiling, or siding.
• Mineral Streak: An olive to greenish-black or brown discoloration of undetermined cause in hardwoods.
• Moisture Content: The amount of water contained in the wood, usually expressed as a percentage of the weight of the ovendry wood.
• Molding: A wood strip having a curved or projecting surface, used for decorative purposes.
• Mortise: A slot cut into a board, plank, or timber to form a joint.
• Naval Stores: A term applied to the oils, resins, tars, and pitches derived from oleoresin contained in, exuded by, or extracted from trees, chiefly species of pines ( genus Pinus). Historically, these were important items in the stores of wood sailing vessels.
• Old Growth: Timber in or from a mature, naturally established forest. When the trees have grown during most if not all of their individual lives in active competition with their companions for sunlight and moisture, this timber is usually straight and relatively free of knots.
• Ovendry Wood: Wood dried to a relatively constant weight in a ventilated oven at 102°C to 105°C (215°F to 220°F).
• Parenchyma: Short cells having simple pits and functioning primarily in the metabolism and storage of plant food materials. They remain alive longer than tracheids, fibers, and vessel elements, sometimes for many years. Two kinds of parenchyma cells are recognized – those in vertical strands, known more specifically as axial parenchyma, and those in horizontal series in the rays, and known as ray parenchyma.
• Pile: A long, heavy timber, round or square, that is driven deep into the ground to provide a secure foundation for structures built on soft, wet, or submerged sites (for example, landing stages, or bridge abutments).
• Pitch Pocket: An opening extending parallel to the annual growth rings and containing, or that has contained, pitch, either solid or liquid.
• Pitch Streaks: A well-defined accumulation of pitch in a more or less regular streak in the wood of certain conifers.
• Pith: The small, soft core occurring near the center of a tree trunk, branch, twig, or log.
• Plank: A broad, thick board laid with its wide dimension horizontal and used as a bearing surface.
• Plywood: A glued wood panel made up of relatively thin layers of veneer with the grain of adjacent layers at right angles, or of veneer in combination with a core of lumber, or of reconstituted wood. The usual constructions have an odd number of layers.
• Psychrometer: An instrument for measuring the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. It has both a dry-bulb and a wet-bulb thermometer. The bulb of the wet-bulb thermometer is kept moistened and is, therefore, cooled by evaporation to a temperature lower than that shown by the dry-bulb thermometer. Because evaporation is greater in dry air, the difference between the two thermometer readings will be greater when the air is dry than when it is moist.
• Radial: Coincident with a radius from the axis of the tree or log to the circumference. A radial section is a lengthwise section in a plane that passes through the centerline of the tree trunk.
• Raised Grain: A roughened condition of the surface of dressed lumber in which the hard latewood is raised above the softer early wood but not torn loose from it.
• Rays, Wood: Strips of cells extending radially within a tree and varying in height from a few cells in some species to 4 or more inches in oak. The rays serve primarily to store food and transport it horizontally in the tree. On quartersawn oak, the rays form a conspicuous figure, sometimes referred to as flecks.
• Relative Humidity: Ratio of the amount of water vapor present in the air to that which the air would hold at saturation at the same temperature. It is usually considered on the basis of the weight of the vapor but, for accuracy, should be considered on the basis of vapor pressures.
• Resin: (1) Solid, semisolid, or pseudo solid resin – An organic material that has a tendency to flow when subjected to stress, usually has a softening or melting range, and usually fractures Concho dally. (2) Liquid resin – An organic polymeric liquid that, when converted to its final state for use, becomes a resin.
• Resin Ducts: Intercellular passages that contain and transmit resinous materials. On a cut surface, they are usually inconspicuous. They may extend vertically parallel to the axis of the tree or at right angles to the axis and parallel to the rays.
• Ring Failure: A separation of the wood during seasoning, occurring along the grain and parallel to the growth rings. (See Shake.)
• Ring-Porous Woods: A group of hardwoods in which the pores are comparatively large at the beginning of each annual ring and decrease in size more or less abruptly toward the outer portion of the ring, thus forming a distinct inner zone of pores, known as the early wood, and an outer zone with smaller pores, known as the latewood.
• Rip: To cut lengthwise, parallel to the grain.
• Sapwood: The wood of pale color near the outside of the log. Under most conditions, the sapwood is more susceptible to decay than heartwood.
• Saw Kerf: (1) Grooves or notches made in cutting with a saw. (2) That portion of a log, timber, or other piece of wood removed by the saw in parting the material into two pieces.
• Seasoning: Removing moisture from the green wood to improve its serviceability.
• Air Dried: Dried by exposure to air in a yard or shed, without artificial heat.
• Kiln Dried: Dried in a kiln with the use of artificial heat.
• Second Growth: Timber that has grown after the removal, whether by cutting, fire, wind, or other agency, of all or a large part of the previous stand.
• Shake: A separation along the grain, the greater part of which occurs between the rings of annual growth. Usually considered to have occurred in the standing tree or during felling.
• Softwoods: Generally, one of the botanical groups of trees that have no vessels and in most cases, have needlelike or scale like leaves, the conifers, also the wood produced by such trees. The term has no reference to the actual hardness of the wood.
• Stain: A discoloration in wood that may be caused by such diverse agencies as micro-organisms, metal, or chemicals. The term also applies to materials used to impart color to wood.
• Strength: (1) The ability of a member to sustain stress without failure. (2) In a specific mode of test, the maximum stress sustained by a member loaded to failure.
• Strength Raito: The hypothetical ratio of the strength of a structural member to that which it would have if it contained no strength-reducing characteristics (such as knots, slope-of-grain, shake).
• Structural Timbers: Pieces of wood of relatively large size, the strength or stiffness of which is the controlling element in their selection and use. Examples of structural timbers are trestle timbers (stringers, caps, posts, sills, bracing, bridge ties, guardrails); car timbers (car framing, including upper framing, car sills); framing for building (posts, sills, girders); ship timber (ship timbers, ship decking); and cross arms for poles.
• Substrate: A material upon the surface of which an adhesive-containing substance is spread for any purpose, such as bonding or coating.
• Tack: The property of an adhesive that enables it to form a bond of measurable strength immediately after adhesive and adherend are brought into contact under low pressure.
• Texture: A term often used interchangeably with grain. Sometimes used to combine the concepts of density and degree of contrast between early wood and latewood. In this handbook, texture refers to the finer structure of the wood (see Grain) rather than the annual rings.
• Timbers, Round: Timbers used in the original round form, such as poles, pilings, posts, and mine timbers.
• Timber, Standing: Timber still on the stump.
• Trim: The finish materials in a building, such as moldings, applied around openings (window trim, door trim) or at the floor and ceiling of rooms (baseboard, cornice, and other moldings).
• Twist: A distortion caused by the turning or winding of the edges of a board so that the four corners of any face are no longer in the same plane.
• Vapor Retarder: A material with a high resistance to vapor movement, such as foil, plastic film, or specially coated paper that is used in combination with insulation to control condensation.
• Veneer: A thin layer or sheet of wood.
  Rotary-Cut Veneer: Veneer cut in a lathe that rotates a log or bolt, chucked in the center, against a knife.
• Sawn Veneer: Veneer produced by sawing.
• Sliced Veneer: Veneer that is sliced off a log, bolt, or flitch with a knife.
• Virgin Growth: The growth of mature trees in the original forests.
• Wane: Bark or lack of wood from any cause on edge or corner of a piece except for eased edges.
• Warp: Any variation from a true or plane surface. Warp includes bow, crook, cup, and twist, or any combination thereof.
• Water Repellent: A liquid that penetrates wood that materially retards changes in moisture content and dimensions of the dried wood without adversely altering its desirable properties.
• Water-Repellent Preservative: A water repellent that contains a preservative that, after application to wood and drying, accomplishes the dual purpose of imparting resistance to attack by fungi or insects and also retards changes in moisture content.
• Weathering: The mechanical or chemical disintegration and discoloration of the surface of wood caused by exposure to light, the action of dust and sand carried by winds, and the alternate shrinking and swelling of the surface fibers with the continual variation in moisture content brought by changes in the weather. Weathering does not include decay.

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About the Author

Madera Floors is a state of the art wood floor company which serves all of Northern Virginia, Maryland and D.C. We are growing to encompass a staff of highly trained craftsmen who execute each job skillfully and meticulously.