Improvement projects you regret doing?

Ski

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Always wished I had some of my "extra" white oak milled. I'm not a woodworker now but have often thought of taking up the hobby. And we have some pretty white oak.

Well if you want to try your hand at it, I'll gladly give you a pile of wood to get you started. I never really know for certain what I'll be milling because I rarely cut trees. What I usually mill is blow downs, which can be anything. My woods are mostly white & chestnut oak, but there's plenty of everything else that grows in the hills. Cherry, maple, hickory, sassafras, elm, etc. If it get blown over in a storm, I mill it.
 

BSK

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What do you think of Chestnut Oak? Often loggers don't want it because all it gets sold for is railroad ties. But I've never seen any of it milled before.
 

Ski

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It's my favorite oak. It's hard and stable like white oak, but with darker color and stronger medullary ray pattern, generally. And these days it's not a "junk" oak. It's going for top dollar for lumber and veneer. White oak isn't being used much for lumber anymore because it's all being bought up by the barrel stave market. With it being largely unavailable, chestnut oak has filled the gap. The biggest issue with chestnut oak is that it often grows crooky and has low branches or split trunks. But if you got a good saw log f it, it's worth good money.
 

BSK

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It's my favorite oak. It's hard and stable like white oak, but with darker color and stronger medullary ray pattern, generally. And these days it's not a "junk" oak. It's going for top dollar for lumber and veneer. White oak isn't being used much for lumber anymore because it's all being bought up by the barrel stave market. With it being largely unavailable, chestnut oak has filled the gap. The biggest issue with chestnut oak is that it often grows crooky and has low branches or split trunks. But if you got a good saw log f it, it's worth good money.
Very, very interesting.

You aren't kidding about the barrel stave market. Although I had some good veneer wood in my white oak stands, most of it was sold - at top dollar - for the barrel stave market.
 

BSK

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Did they not pay you well for your chestnut oak?
There was little of it on this cut (I cut north-facing slopes, which have the best white oak). But in years past, loggers didn't want the Chestnut Oak because it only went for railroad ties.

I got paid VERY well for the White Oak. Crazy good.
 

Ski

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White oak is still king and probably always will be. But chestnut is right there with it. Apparently even lesser logs of white oak are valuable because they only need 4ft of clean log to make staves. Doesn't even have to be large diameter. My forester called it "quarter grade", which was new to me. He said it's a new grade specifically created for staves, and is second in value only to veneer. And supply consistently falls short of demand. That means pretty much any white oak right now is gold.
 

BSK

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White oak is still king and probably always will be. But chestnut is right there with it. Apparently even lesser logs of white oak are valuable because they only need 4ft of clean log to make staves. Doesn't even have to be large diameter. My forester called it "quarter grade", which was new to me. He said it's a new grade specifically created for staves, and is second in value only to veneer. And supply consistently falls short of demand. That means pretty much any white oak right now is gold.
If you can believe it, stave buyers outbid veneer buyers for some of my veneer logs.
 

hoghunter65

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Getting too involved in a deer lease, was on this lease for 11 years, bought gates put in food plots, built shooting houses, mowed, probably had around 18,000.00 invested, someone told the guy who was over the lease that he thought I might have let non members in to hunt , which was a lie,we got into a fight that lasted a couple of days and I got kicked out of the club.
 

recurve60#

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Rock Island
Just wondering if you've done "improvements" to your hunting areas and afterwards regretted doing them. I have 1 for sure, I cut some trees out of a 1/2 acre micro plot hoping for better sunlight back in Feb/March. I cut about 15 trees down along the edges and in this plot. Problem was, it was more work then I realized trying to get them cut up and out of the plot. So I've got about 6 the size of basketballs still left in the plot and has really messed up a great thing I had. On the flip side, I had a hen nesting in a group this spring and was out there checking some fruit trees I planted and had a fawn jump up from beside one of the trees and run off through the plot. I have a few others that have been minor that wasn't a big deal.

After I started cutting and before clean up....
View attachment 146542

After some of the clean up...those trees in the middle and are the far end are creating a mess for me this year.
View attachment 146543

before I cut any of the trees looking back...

View attachment 146544
My only regret was bushhogging too much. I learned that years ago and stopped doing that. Deer out my ears now.
 

Swampster

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Huron, TN, USA
I would say trying to make LARGE scale forest improvements with hack-and-squirt alone. For the amount of effort I put into it, the results weren't what I was hoping for. I should have just gotten a logging crew in there and really cut some timber.
My experience also. It effectively seems to be more surgical than tactical.
 

deerhunter10

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maury county tn
Yes I forgot about those. We're losing a lot if ash trees disappear. Fortunately it appears some are becoming resistant to the beetle. I've got several large, mature, healthy trees growing in the midst of otherwise devastated groves of ash. Hopefully we don't see it go the way of chestnut.
We have lost 100 percent of our ash on our place we own. Cutting the rest down this winter. Luckily we burn wood so it doesn't go to waste.
 

Ski

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We have lost 100 percent of our ash on our place we own. Cutting the rest down this winter. Luckily we burn wood so it doesn't go to waste.

I'm cutting a dozen or so this week & milling them up for cousin to use in a cabin restoration job. He's a timber framer by trade & uses pine most of the time, but this job is an old pioneer dovetail cabin with a modern addition and the owner wants the interior of the addition to aesthetically match the rest of the house. So we're flitch cutting the ash to make "log" veneer for the interior walls. I'm thrilled that something of use can come of it because otherwise it would just rot & be lost.
 

Henry

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There was little of it on this cut (I cut north-facing slopes, which have the best white oak). But in years past, loggers didn't want the Chestnut Oak because it only went for railroad ties.

I got paid VERY well for the White Oak. Crazy good.
I didn't know white oak grows best on north-facing slopes. We're in NW TN and would like to grow some white oak. The tree guy we had out to look at our 200 acres said he's never seen someone be successful planting oak. Do you have any pointers?
 
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