tips on stump burning?

Stumps from my experience are pretty darn hard to burn out. After the tree is cut its way to green, and it takes a considerable amouint of time to dry, which in the meantime in comes rain and winter, whjich compounds problems even worse. There usually is not sufficient dry matter even on a dead stump of some time to support a hot enough fire to dry remaining wet wood to the point of it burning. I have caught some stumps just right and it then took days of just a smoldering stump (glowed really nice in the night time) to eventually burn up, or at least down into the below ground sections.

What some entertainment, get some dynamite and ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel. Be a short show, but entertaining just the same. Visit my website:

Dig all around it and put a 55 gallon drum over top it--make sure some air can get in from around the bottom........

Add fire and fuel to suit.

If you saw the grill video, you pretty much know the answer already.

I think what you should really be asking is how to do it and stay alive.

;)

Richard

Oh yeah! Go for it. Drill a bunch of holes, pour the stuff in, let it soak a few milliseconds, then light it. Mebbe it'll get hot enough to burn the water in the stump!:) If it's dry enough you could drill all the holes and fill 'em with diesel or kerosene, let it soak in, and repeat until it will take no more, Then light it. I've also heard of dissolving saltpetre in water and letting that soak in and dry. Then the stump burns completely, but slowly, for a number of days. More of a smolder really. ERS

If you just want a real showstopper of a fire, get hold of an old VW engine block and burn it. Those are made of magnesium and boy, you better wear welding goggles. Some good friends of mine got banned for life from all Washington State campgrounds after they pulled this stunt at Alta Lake. They still laugh when they tell the story, though.

Be careful crafting July 4th stunts. They can be life-threatening. Also, defer doing this until after you have at least one child, that way you won't qualify for the Darwin Awards when you kill yourself being stupid.

Grant

I have been saving this oak stump under a trash can for about a year now , after posting I went out and put a large pile of charcoal on the top and piece of 14 inch pipe that is about 8 inches long got it going real nice at the moment

it is out in a field , I probably don't have the balls to dump LOX on it

though I might try some of the thermite lances we have at work

the kids love it when daddy gets the fire bug

If you just wanted to get rid of the stump instead of all the above

If the stump is not dead, kill it. There are stump killer compounds available, although I've not used them. Mainly you don't want any water movement in the stump for the next step.

When you're sure the stump is dead, use a brace and bit to drill 3/4" to 1" holes vertically as deep as you can every 3 or 4 inches around the periphery of the stump. Then drill at a 45 deg angle intersecting holes near the base of the stump. Fill all the holes with potassium nitrate. Soak the stump with water, but not enough to dissolve all the potassium nitrate. Just get it good and wet. Cover the wet stump with a garbage bag and tape securely.

Now just wait six weeks to two months. When the waiting's done, soak the stump several times with diesel or kerosene, then light. I've had the stump burn for a full week, including through some light showers. When smoke finally quit coming out of the hole, even the roots were gone, with tunnels into the ground in all directions.

Pete Keillor

It's not much in the way of entertainment, but I've burned many a stump 8" or more below ground level by setting a 55gal drum with no ends on bricks over the stump. Fill the barrel about two thirds full of chunks of wood and light it off. The process will take a number of hours and the fuel supply above the stump will need replenishing from time to time.

On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 17:59:38 -0500, "williamhenry" stated wide-eyed, with arms akimbo:

My neighbor, an old 4,000 acre ND farmer, says "Don't. It can continue burning underground into living trees and kill them."

(I've never done it so I don't have firsthand knowledge.)

-- Vidi, Vici, Veni ---

Dave Barry's "Barbecueing with liquid oxygen". I haven't heard of that for a while.

They wanted to do it a second time, and applied for a permit. The fire department said it was too dangerous. They said naaaaaah, they had done it before, and showed the FD the tape.

The firemen and fire marshals were REALLY pissed off then. First that they had done it, and second that they didn't get a permit.

Too funny.

Is that site still around?

Steve

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 21:09:25 -0400, Peter T. Keillor III vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!: remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Surely, to make sure the stump is dead, a 15 metre hop is the best of bets?

OK. In Oz, the trees _love_ being left as a stump.

They do not die.

Eucalypts have a whole industry based on this fact.......called chip/paper/agroforestry. Perennial crop.

In my case the emphasis is on the aggro....bloody things!

Hardwoods. Fire survival history over the last 50(?) thousand years. Fall over? Regrow!

_Kill_ them (poison. ..poison). Remove them to a depth of about 1 metre. Or you _will_ have them back! Called "regrowth". Regrowth bashing is an Oz industry in itself.

DAMHIKT.

Next year.... DAMHIKT. :-<

We are not even allowed to buy amm nitrate now (btw would that work?). Not a hope on Pot ntirate!

Sometimes in a workplace you find snot on the wall of the toilet cubicles. You feel "What sort of twisted child would do this?"....the internet seems full of them. It's very sad

On Fri, 4 Jun 2004 00:55:10 -0700, "SteveB" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!: remove ns from my header address to reply via email I quote....

"The people in charge have requested this web site be removed.

BTW..............What "people in charge"? This is the Net!

Hasn't the 3 second barrier already been broken by the throw of a gas tap in Mac's?

Sometimes in a workplace you find snot on the wall of the toilet cubicles. You feel "What sort of twisted child would do this?"....the internet seems full of them. It's very sad

On Fri, 4 Jun 2004 00:55:10 -0700, "SteveB" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!: remove ns from my header address to reply via email

What frightens me is that there was a Dave Barry, comedian, from what?

maybe it was Doug....

Sometimes in a workplace you find snot on the wall of the toilet cubicles. You feel "What sort of twisted child would do this?"....the internet seems full of them. It's very sad

Anyone have a link on how to make it, or other interesting bits?

Thanks for you time Les

Well, if you were not trying to be done by the end of the summer:

Method 1 - find a horse owner (city - try mounted police unit), get enough horse food that has been processed through the horse to cover the stump a foot or two deep, wait. Holes are optional.

Method 2 is perhaps more suitable for a citified stump - buy some 45-0-0 urea fertilizer, drill holes in the stump, pour in fertilizer, water it, repeat, eventually mulch over it. In either case the nitrogen and retained moisture helps promote decay of the wood. But it still takes time.

You can buy "stump removing chemicals" applied much as method 2, but they don't work any faster, and they cost more, IME. Anything nasty enough to "work fast" is probably too nasty (and expensive) to actually use.

A backhoe or excavator of suitable size is the fastest non-blowing-up method to remove a stump, but if you can get one of those in there, you can get in a grinder and just lower the thing without removing it all.

Perhaps you could try a jackhammer with a chisel-point on it? Some of the tips used to cut a neat hole in an asphalt road look like they might chisel wood pretty well.

Excuse me?

I think he just blew his bandwidth on the server and got shut down. It got to be a pretty popular site.

Steve

Guy Lautard's "Machinist's Third Bedside Reader" page 219-224