# What's the strangest thing you ever hit?



## Mandolin (May 26, 2012)

I would like to know what are some of the strangest thing you guys and gals have ever hit while sawing. I was sawing once and hit a cannonball in a log. Can anybody top that?


----------



## davidgiul (May 27, 2012)

45 lead bullet in some FAS walnut from GVWP. We left it in the finsih wood and hung it in the ceiling with the rest of the purdy wal-nut.


----------



## EricJS (May 27, 2012)

My finger.:dash2: But that still doesn't top a cannonball!


----------



## LoneStar (May 27, 2012)

Well I never milled so I cant join in the fun, but you reminded me of a story my mom told. They had a giant tree a couple hundred years old in the yard when she was a kid. The old timers used it when they'd come in from a hunt, if they hadnt fired, this was the tree they would discharge their guns on before coming back into town. The kids would get a knife and dig old musket balls out for fun, wish she still had some of them.


----------



## Ralph Muhs (May 27, 2012)

Mandolin said:


> I would like to know what are some of the strangest thing you guys and gals have ever hit while sawing. I was sawing once and hit a cannonball in a log. Can anybody top that?



So far I've hit a chunk of lead in a walnut board and what appeared to be an arrow head in another walnut log. I left the lead ball in the wood and used it as a trim piece in my son's beach house in Connecticut. The arrow head was pretty much obliterated, along with my saw blade!


----------



## Mike1950 (May 27, 2012)

A couple lead bullets and some 2" long copper nails.


----------



## woodtickgreg (May 27, 2012)

I was milling a big red oak once and made the first pass and flipped the slab and saw the coolest swirly figure and thought oh wow this one is gonna be cool. next pass I really struggled with the csm and it was very slow going, flipped the board and found about 2 dozen bullets! I still have the board but don't know what I will do with it, kind of a souvineer. sharpened the chain and the rest went ok, It is now mission style end tables in my living room. Nails! lots of em, just part of urban milling.


----------



## gvwp (May 27, 2012)

Insulators. The 100 year old type they put on telegraph poles. The tree came from the local park and evidently they put these insulators in the tree to hang wires on YEARS ago. The tree had completely grown all the way around with no evidence whatsoever they were in there. Actually we hit the first one and fire flew. Destroyed a blade but it was really nice wood so we dug the insulator out and put a new blade on. A couple passes later and about 2 foot up the log we hit the other! Should have known better I guess. Threw the rest of the log into the woodburner. Dug the insulator out of the ashes later completely undamaged (they are TOUGH). Found a 1929 date on it. Still have this insulator. 

Another time I hit an old time porch swing chain. Cut completely through it but the sawmill came to a halt with all the vibration and destroyed blade. I hit a horseshoe in a Walnut log that the mill did NOT make it through. That one was a scary one. 

I've hit MANY MANY MANY nails and bullets of ALL types. Snakes, mice, baby racoon, wire, fence, the list goes on and on. I told Aaron the other day we could start a scrap yard with all the metal we have found in logs.


----------



## HomeBody (May 28, 2012)

I visited Reinhart Fajen gunstock company in Warsaw, MO years ago and got the tour. They showed me their bandsaw mill and also showed me an old style iron for ironing clothes. Evidently the hot iron was stored in the crotch of the walnut tree to cool and was forgotten until the bandsaw found it. They said that wasn't the first one of those they'd found. Gary


----------



## Mandolin (May 28, 2012)

I got a new one. I hit a wasp nest in a pine log the other day. It was some kind of big black evil looking wasps, not dirt daubers. After fighting for my life for several minutes, (I didn't get stung) I got to looking and never did find a hole or crack where they were going in or out. They were about three inches deep in the log and I've never seen wasps like that before. Maybe they were some kind of prehistoric or alien wasps sent here or conquer my sawmill.


----------



## Mike1950 (May 28, 2012)

Sounds like black hornets- If they had white stripes that is what they were. Mean suckers. They can sting and bite.


----------



## woodtickgreg (May 29, 2012)

Mandolin said:


> I got a new one. I hit a wasp nest in a pine log the other day. It was some kind of big black evil looking wasps, not dirt daubers. After fighting for my life for several minutes, (I didn't get stung) I got to looking and never did find a hole or crack where they were going in or out. They were about three inches deep in the log and I've never seen wasps like that before. Maybe they were some kind of prehistoric or alien wasps sent here or conquer my sawmill.


:hornets: Was cutting a tree down once and there was a bald face hornet nest up high in the tree that I didn't see, they didn't like me cutting their house down so the came out and told me so! I musta looked funny running through the woods and swinging a chainsaw , they nailed me three times, swelled up like a balloon!


----------



## HomeBody (May 29, 2012)

Darn I hate bees. I'll take snakes over bees any day. (No poisonous snakes here!) Gary


----------



## gvwp (May 29, 2012)

Mandolin said:


> I got a new one. I hit a wasp nest in a pine log the other day. It was some kind of big black evil looking wasps, not dirt daubers. After fighting for my life for several minutes, (I didn't get stung) I got to looking and never did find a hole or crack where they were going in or out. They were about three inches deep in the log and I've never seen wasps like that before. Maybe they were some kind of prehistoric or alien wasps sent here or conquer my sawmill.



Its kind of ironic you have posted this up. In one of our forests there is a very large Red Oak which we had planned to harvest. I looked up in the tree the other day and noticed something flying around a knot in the tree. Its way up in the tree and a bit difficult to see but I finally realized its a massive bees nest!  Must be thousands and thousands. I could just imagine what that would be like if that tree were cut down. I think we will leave that one alone.


----------



## shadetree_1 (Jun 9, 2012)

I have never seen this before and I have cut as most of you have, soft weird stuff, I was cutting a 30" Ironwood in Cave Creek AZ awhile back and had all but 3" of it cut, just about ready to drop it when the chain gave up real sudden like, pulled it out and it looked like it had hit a rock, changed the chain and came in from the side and it kicked back,, same thing, to shorten this up a little, I ruined 2 chains before it dawned on me that there was something in that tree that was meaner than a chain, a saw and me!

Had to use a chiesl and hammer to get them out, 2 Boat tailed Armour Piercing rounds Who would have thought it?

Joe


----------



## LoneStar (Jun 9, 2012)

shadetree_1 said:


> 2 Boat tailed Armour Piercing rounds Who would have thought it?



And Ironwood stopped them both !


----------



## Mike1950 (Jun 9, 2012)

Look like 50 caliber!! The bees, I was probably 11 and gramps was making cedar posts that summer. He had 160 acres and a nice crop of cedar near the creek. Now this cedar was about 30" above the swell- pretty big. He showed me where a bear had been sharppening his claws on the tree he fell it- started limbing and then started running-Gramps never ran- there was a huge honey bee nest about 25' up. My cousin and I chewed on the sweetest freshest honey for the whole summer. Gramps paid the price though with about 20 stings.


----------



## Mizer (Jun 10, 2012)

I sawed a blue tailed lizard in half. :cray: Poor little guy, he never had a chance.


----------



## CodyS (Jun 17, 2012)

I think the winners so far are the cannonball and the children's bucket thing.



HomeBody said:


> Darn I hate bees. I'll take snakes over bees any day. (No poisonous snakes here!) Gary



The first thing I thought was, "come to aus and you may change your mind  "


----------



## woodtickgreg (Jun 17, 2012)

cody.sheridan-2008 said:


> I think the winners so far are the cannonball and the children's bucket thing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It seems like everything in aus wants to bite, sting, or kill ya! If bee's are the my biggest threat I'll stay right where I'm at:lolol: Had rattle snakes in californie, but I used to catch them and sell them to a guy at a college, he used to milk them for venom to make anti venom. I got a buck a foot, stupid kid. But they were cool!


----------

