# Metal objects in the wood, An incident that happened to me. One chainsaw and two blades destroyed



## Blackie_ (Jul 10, 2011)

Well this topic is a split between Safety & Shop, Wood & Lumber and Power tools as it involves them all.

I've been out for the past few months using my dads gas chain saw clearing out old rotted Hackberry trees from a family cemetery and using the spalted wood for my boxes cutting logs and bringing them home, well one day a few weeks back I was prepping the large logs by slicing off a small portion and creating a flat spot so they would fit my 14" bandsaw for resawing. I was using my electric 16" poulan chain saw when it hit something very hard, I had no idea that the tree had wrapped around a bobwire fence, the wire was actually inside of the tree out of sight and it actually broke the saw so that it would no longer turn the chain, still unknowing what caused it, I held off a few days knowing that I would someday need a gas power chain saw I went and bought one and finished the cutting on all logs including the one that broke my electric, lucky I must have cut the wire enough that the other saw went through.

It was just yesterday I was running those very same logs through my bandsaw doing the lumber mill thing using a 3/4" blade I remember hearing something of a different pitch in noise but again thought nothing of it and pushed on well after that part of the log was sliced I saw the metal in one of the boards and it all came to light that was what killed my chain saw and destroyed that 3/4" blade to boot, I had no idea there was still more metal in the other part of that log so I changed out the 3/4 and put a resaw 1/2" in this time I heard the loud screech and stopped immediately but once again to late the damage was done anther blade destroyed, I got on line and did a search for metal detectors and found the little wizard II at my local woodcraft store and high tailed it out there and bought it, so now I wand all of my wood before cutting so let me tell you a metal detector is a must have if you are doing the same kind of cutting I'm doing.


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## Viking (Aug 26, 2009)

Blackie;

Ouch!

Metal detectors are cheap insurance and with the low cost these days I would not be without one if cutting uknown lumber, logs, etc. Think most bandsaw or chainsaw blades cost way more that the low cost metal detectors available now. Buy the best one you can afford.

I found this the hard way when my chain saw found an old steel eye that probably once held a swing.

Good Luck


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## mtenterprises (Jan 10, 2011)

I don't know if I told this story here before or not but to make the short version of it , my dad widened a door for me by adding a strip along the hinge side with glue and lag bolts. I told him to MAKE SURE the bolts would be deep enough so that I could cut the door to proper width. Well all was going well untill the last bolt then I heard this hurendious screaching sound but I figured I only had about 6" to go so why stop the blade had had it now. So I finished and boy was I pissed at my dad for leaving a bolt not deep enough. Well not the case when I looked there was this round thing filling the hole. Upon further investigation I found that it was a 1/4" drive 7/16" socket! I had cut it in half!!! It had gotten stuck in the hole and dad didn't notice it. Now believe it or not the carbide tipped blade survived, I had it sharpened and I still use it now and then. True story guys I swear.
I have also found a hook bolt burried deep inside a log with my chain saw, the blade did not survive, ripped the teeth right off. And in some hemlock lumber I got from the guys logging my property I found buck shot deep inside near the center of the tree. Counting the rings out from there and figuring the years that buck shot could have come from my grandfather's shot gun when he owned the property and was hunting it. Amazing what a tree will grow around.
MIKE


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## Blackie_ (Jul 10, 2011)

You are right Mike, I learned the hard and expensive way. I know what you are talking about Viking when it comes to a good detector, I read the reviews on that wizard II and there was just as many bad as there were good, so far during my test it's worked fine, I'm wondering if those that gave it bad reports didn't have it adjusted right.

Randy


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## SnowyRiver (Nov 14, 2008)

Good advice Randy. I hit a bullet one time with my planer, but fortunately it was soft lead and it didnt damage anything but it did make a racket when the knives hit it.


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## jumbojack (Mar 20, 2011)

Here is a chainsaw wrecker being produced.


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## WDHLT15 (Aug 15, 2011)

This is interesting. Having a sawmill, metal in logs is a huge issue. I got a call from a guy two days ago wanting to sell me 4 walnut trees from his yard. I would have to drive 80 miles, fell the trees which I am sure are hanging over his house, load the logs with the tractor that I brought with me on the trailer, clean up and remove all limbs, debris, etc., drive 80 miles home with the logs, drive back to get the tractor, put the logs on the sawmill, hit nails, old clothesline pulleys, lag bolts, fence wire, etc. Ruin several band saw blades at $25 a pop, get a bad attitude, and end up burning most of the wood in the woodstove.

And, he wanted to know how much I would pay HIM. I am sure that he called me to sell his "highly valuable" black walnut trees after the Tree Service told him that it would cost him $3,000 to get them removed. Yard trees are bad bad news. They almost all have metal in them because yard trees attract metal. Landowners think that every black walnut yard tree is worth $10,000 when in fact they are not worth anything and will cost money to have them removed.


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## Viking (Aug 26, 2009)

Well said!


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## TCCcabinetmaker (Dec 14, 2011)

What no bullet stories yet?

I've found quite a few bullets with planers. Usually burried deep in wood from a lumberyard, with no warning signs around them, and even if I had used a metal detector, I'm nut sure they would pick up 64 caliber lead bullets :/


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## JimmyK49022 (Oct 23, 2009)

A friend of mine had a bigger chain saw then my dad or i had. We asked him to fall a hickory in my side yard. Half way into the first he hit something ruining the chain. We ended up just pushing this rotten hickory over with a tractor and found that the former owner had poured concrete in the tree. It started at ground level and went up the first limb. The tree had a hollow core say 4 inch dia. by 12 feet of concrete in it. Lots of work to keep an old tree Don't you think?


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## HalDougherty (Jul 15, 2009)

The only reliable metal detector is a saw blade. I took a log section with a 10p nail with me to test metal detectors at every store around and most of them could find it on the surface, expensive ones could find it several inches deep and none of them could find it without turning the log and searching all around it. Plus if it's on the log deck of my sawmill, the massive metal deck keeps any handheld detector from finding anything. I saw a lot of walnut, maple and cherry logs that come from yards, but I know some percentage of them will cost me at least $25 for a new blade. I still saw them, but I won't pay a home owner anything for them. Like WDHLT15 said, the expense of the blades, plus the trouble and expense of hauling them is all I'm willing to pay. I'll remove the owners trees if they are already down, or if they can't hit anything when I fell them…

The strangest thing I've found is a gate hinge inside a 48" red oak log. It had to have been nailed on when the tree was just 4 or 5" in diameter.


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## mtenterprises (Jan 10, 2011)

I've seen that concrete trick before too. People used to do it to save the tree. Seems it works finding it burried so deep. Lately you can find LOTS of fence posts (pipes) and tons of chain link.
MIKE


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## chrismark (Nov 25, 2011)

As long as this thread is about metal objects in wood, I thought I wood share this photo. It was taken at the Pratt Farm Conservation Area in Middleboro MA.


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## Blackie_ (Jul 10, 2011)

Interesting stories and pictures, I'm enjoying reading them .

@WDHLT15 speaking of this very same thing Walnut, I have a tree arborist that will be cutting down a black walnut from a near by location, (house) since I am using my 14" bandsaw he is going to cut them up into 14" - 18" sections for me and is going to charge me $50 for doing it, a cord's worth so I'm going to jump on it, only a 4 mile drive. I'll have wand in hand and ready before I do any cutting on them. 

Randy


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## GNiessen (Dec 7, 2011)

I was being very careful and checking some reclaimed poplar for nails and I missed one. It went through my planer several times. An the reason I didn't notice it was it was on the under side of the board. And it being a very old board, it was a cut nail. Cut nails are much harder then normal nails. And much harder then cast iron. I have a badly scored planer bed that took hours to re flatten and partially repair. I now check and double check.

But logs are a bigger issue as the metal can be buried below the surface where your metal detector does not catch it. Make sure to set the sensitivity as high as possible. And scan from several angles.

Carbide teeth can often cut through a normal nail. It will dull it very fast, but not as bad as plain hardened steel. Prevention is a much better option, but carbide is good insurance.


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## Nomad62 (Apr 20, 2010)

Yep, that's the way a lot of us learned. I got a detector too, lol. Bit it didn't help me with that one huge maple crotch I was a-slicin' and there was a roch down in the center. Ruined that blade too. It's just part of the game. On yard trees I really cover the bottom well with the detector but usually base my effort on getting the tree on the wood that starts higher than the typical homeowner can reach.


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## TheDane (May 15, 2008)

This past summer, I was helping another turner cut some bowl blanks from logs he had been hauling around in the back of his pickup.

Things were going along fine until I was about 2/3 of the way through a 12" piece of maple. I hit something big that destroyed the teeth on my chain. I finished splitting it with a sledge hammer and splitter, and found the remains of what looked like a steel-jacketed .50 caliber round.

I asked him where these logs came from … the answer: "I think somewhere out around Fort McCoy."

-Gerry


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## DonnaMenke (Sep 20, 2006)

Neatest thing I've seen is a mini-ball embedded in some lumber that a customer displayed in our Woodcraft store in Austin. That would be black-powder, I believe, and we speculated that it could have been there since the Civil War.
This has been interesting. I especially liked the metal wheel in the tree.


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## b2rtch (Jan 20, 2010)

Steel in a piece of oak cost me two fingers.
I use quite a bit a 'reclaimed" wood, last CHRIST-mas I had my daughter buy me a metal detector that I now use "almost" all the time.


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## Blackie_ (Jul 10, 2011)

WOW sorry to hear that Bert.


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## b2rtch (Jan 20, 2010)

wizard II is what I use and so far it has been working fine for me. 
I test it repeatedly while I am using it, to make sure that it in fact it is detecting the metal.


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## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

That's a drag. I had to pay for a bandsaw blade at the mill once. My metal detector didn't find it. Oh well, though, you weren't hurt and it's only money and hassle.


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

I hit a 5/8" dia metal spike in some heart pine with a planer many years ago. A little noisy. Somewhere that planer still sits with that permanent 5/8" groove in its head.


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## Blackie_ (Jul 10, 2011)

Bertha, you took wood to a mill to have it cut and metal in the wood damaged their blade thus you had to pay for it? Stands to reason just never thought of that.


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## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

^yep, Blackie, it did happen. The mill had a clearly posted sign in big red letters, attesting to their policy. I, of course, ignored it The blade was $300 for the LT40. They let me off with $150 after I asked how many board feet they'd run through it. Still stings.


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