Post Oak

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tseger

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This tree died over the summer, it is in my front yard and I finally got around to cutting it today. I have never seen oak with these colors before. My Grandpa told me it was post oak.
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It's a fairly big tree, that's Austin, he's 10.

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This is what the leaves look like.

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My questions are... is it correctly identified as post oak? Is it common for the wood to have this coloring?

One more question... can anyone tell me what this black spot is?
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Thanks for any help.
 
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ohiococonut

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A quick look in my book say's it's a water oak, or a pin oak as we call it. That's what I thought it was when I first saw the pics.

As far as the dark spot it looks like mold or spalting.
 

seamus7227

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from my angle, I would say the coloring and black lines are from spalting. I ran into a couple of guys last year that had just cut down an ash tree and it had these beautiful reds and tans and black swirls throughout. they said the tree was dying so the owner wanted it cut down. Just turned some of it the other day! talk about beautiful, I will post some pics when I get a chance

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tseger

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A quick look in my book say's it's a water oak, or a pin oak as we call it. That's what I thought it was when I first saw the pics.

As far as the dark spot it looks like mold or spalting.

Thanks, I was looking last night at different oaks(about 600 varietys) but i never
found an exact match.
 

tseger

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You may have some iron embedded in the wood below the dark spot . A very strong magnet might react . Be very careful when cutting it .
That's kinda what I was thinking, but wasn't sure.


I've also seen dark spots like that on oak trees that were struck by lightning.
That may explain why this tree died.

from my angle, I would say the coloring and black lines are from spalting. I ran into a couple of guys last year that had just cut down an ash tree and it had these beautiful reds and tans and black swirls throughout. they said the tree was dying so the owner wanted it cut down. Just turned some of it the other day! talk about beautiful, I will post some pics when I get a chance
I guess it could be spalting, but i have never seen spalting in such a uniform pattern. Thanks for all comments. If anyone else has an idea, please chime in.
 

Jim Smith

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My experience with the dark spot is the same as 1080Wayne. I suspect that you'll find a nail or some other iron in the wood so be careful.

When I was a young man, I worked at an old saw mill between my freshman and sophmore years of college. We were cutting a VERY large Sycamore tree into lumber. Midway into a cut, the saw blade hit something that shattered all the carbide teeth inserts on the saw, sending them flying like bullets. I never saw them, I just heard a very loud bang and the saw stopped. I was positioned almost directly in front of the four foot blade where I would roll the logs on the carriage to the next position to be cut. The Sawyer asked if I was okay and then pointed out several one inch holes scattered around me where the carbide teeth inserts had been blasted through the 3/4 inch pine walls like bullets. Just pure dumb luck that I wasn't hit by any of them. When we finally cut the board off where the saw had stopped, we found a horseshoe that someone had nailed to the tree somewhere around 75 years earlier. Somehow the tree had grown over the horseshoe completely and you couldn't even see any scars on the bark. The moral of that story is be carefull when you cut up your wood, especially near that dark spot.

Jim Smith
 

tseger

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You may have some iron embedded in the wood below the dark spot . A very strong magnet might react . Be very careful when cutting it .

You are 100% correct, Sir! I tried to cut close enough as to not loose too much of the surrounding wood. Not careful enough, I guess... I cut through what appears to be a 16d nail.
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There was a scar left on the bark, unfortunately, i didn't see it until after I had cut through the nail:mad:
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No apparent damage other than having to resharpen the chain, i'm thankful for that!
 

ctubbs

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We cut some wood out of an area that had once been a hog lot. All the wood from that lot looked like that. The sawer tole us that hog manure would cause that. He called it fireing up the tree. It all went into the trash.
charles
 

Haynie

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You should count yourself lucky. I met a guy who was not lucky when he hit a nail in a log he was sawing. Almost lost his arm.

The injuries I have seen from chainsaws and electrical lines make me NOT want to be a logger or a lineman.
 
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