Is this sweetgum?

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20190123_141305.jpg 20190123_141252.jpg 20190123_141241.jpg I suspect this is sweetgum due to the reddish brown heartwood and growing in a bottom. No leaves, so tough to tell.
Id love to hear its walnut or some flavor of oak but I wont get my hopes up. Those only fall on steep ridges 20 acres deep.

It fell in an easy spot to buck and split, so I figure its trash wood.
What do folks use sweetgum for on the homestead?
Everything I read says its not worth processing for firewood.
 
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Everything I read says its not worth processing for firewood.


I suspect that's gum. Gum is usually very wet and very hard to split when it's fresh, so if you hammer a wedge into it and it oozes water and doesn't split, it's likely gum. Hickory wouldn't split either, but usually isn't so wet as gum.

It'll be fine for firewood if you have space for it. The real problem with burning gum is that it attracts bugs quickly, so if it just fell it needs to be burned next winter or it will be eaten up with insects by the following year. It burns quickly and not as hot, but that's not the ends of the world.
 
I suspect the same water content that makes sweet gum prone to rot and bugs would make it ideal for mushroom farming if you are in to that. I had a bunch in a wood pile for an outdoor firepit. It burned just fine but I didn't split it. I cut it with a chainsaw in to shorter lengths instead.
 
Sweet gum or green ash. I lean towards the latter, especially if it came from a creek bottom.

Edited to add...do you have any of the twigs? Sweet gum twigs are often winged. Green ash twigs are not.
 
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Sweet gum or green ash. I lean towards the latter, especially if it came from a creek bottom.

Edited to add...do you have any of the twigs? Sweet gum twigs are often winged. Green ash twigs are not.
Ash wood wet or ash wood dry, a king can warm his slippers by.
The big difference is sweet gum will not burn at all unless its seasoned and ash will easily burn green
 
Ash wood wet or ash wood dry, a king can warm his slippers by.
The big difference is sweet gum will not burn at all unless its seasoned and ash will easily burn green

Boy, oh boy, is that true. Years ago, a neighbor had trees taken down and it was a mix of green ash and yellow poplar. Tree company dropped it all in our yard. We sure got toasty from that ash, after starting fires with poplar kindling. Life was good.
 
It looks like Gum bark

We recently ordered a mushroom kit, that requires fresh cut hardwood logs. One of the suggested varieties was sweet gum.
What mushrooms? I’m interested in Lions Mane, I found some growing wild on the property.
 
Looks like Sweet Gum. I have a 36ton log splitter and it just tears it apart, wont split. It's great for mushrooms and sideboards on dump trucks, and the bottom of log trailers.
 
Was the ground around the tree covered with these?
il_fullxfull.546483426_aw8s.jpg
 
I tried growing shiitake and oyster mushrooms on sweet gum logs and it only produced 3 oysters.

Sweet gum rots very fast when left laying on the ground.
 
I figured under the deck, if they have ground contact they should stay damp.
As long as it rains every two weeks, yes, per the instructions. Otherwise you want to either soak them or put a sprinkler on them for 24 hours.
 
Was the ground around the tree covered with these?
il_fullxfull.546483426_aw8s.jpg

Back in the 80's, we had a yankee from Long Island move down across the street from us. It was culture shock for him, and Dad made it worse by always pranking him. One day the neighbor saw some sweet gum balls laying on the ground, so he picked a couple up, walked to our house, and asked Dad what they were. Dad replied, "oh my gosh, them's porcupine eggs, put 'em back where you got 'em!" It was about a year later before someone told him any better.
 
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I'm going to try splitting it tommorow.
If it splits, then it will be added to next years firewood. If it wont split, anyone want a mushroom log?
Will load it for you for a sixer of IPA.
 
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I'm going to try splitting it tommorow.
If it splits, then it will be added to next years firewood. If it wont split, anyone want a mushroom log?
Will load it for you for a sixer of IPA.


If you try to split it with a axe or a maul and it bounces off like its a rubber tire when you hit it def sweet gum.

It will tear/split with hydraulic splitter if wet and pops apart if dry. It makes ok firewood but nothing great just let it dry and blend it in with other wood to stretch your good firewood.
 
It splits clean as a whistle. No strings at all. It's a light wood with lots of water.
I'm leaning towards poplar. No porcupine eggs around the stump.
I also split a blowdown shagbark hickory today. It was beautiful out. Hard to beat the smell of diesel and hickory.

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I hate to even say this, but is there a chance it is walnut? It looks big for one, but the color and bark look right. Poplar would probably have had greens, yellow and purples in the color, and not so much brown.
 
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I hate to even say this, but is there a chance it is walnut? It looks big for one, but the color and bark look right. Poplar would probably have had greens, yellow and purples in the color, and not so much brown.

The bark is right.
I will check the pith in a twig.
Walnut has a spongy middle.
 
Busted up some honey locust today.
It takes forever to dry, so I bust it small.
Plus it burns so hot, I like to only mix in small chunks.
20190209_160946.jpg
 
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The first pics you posted look exactly like Black Locust to me based on the bark. I've been splitting Black Locust every year going on 13 years now and that's what it resembles to me. I have several Sweet Gum trees with the star shaped leaves and the PITA gum balls that fall everywhere and the bark is not near as deep ridged as on Locust trees. It's smoother, at least on my gum trees. I'm certainly no expert but that full round sitting on your splitter in the pic above looks exactly like a Black Locust log to me.
 
I found this pic on the web.
Black walnut on the right side.
Bark and heartwood look exactly like my tree.
(Left side is osage orange in case anyone is wondering)
View attachment 105459

I have a guitar neck fretboard made of Osage. When it was first done is was bright lemon yellow. Very pretty. Darkened up a lot of the years .
 
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