Gunco Forums banner

so I read on another site to get rid of stumps

1K views 11 replies 8 participants last post by  twa2471 
#1 ·
You drilled holes into em, poured milk in the holes and the cellulose would disintegrate.sounds like a great newfat remover!LOL!
 
#4 ·
Old timer's trick was to drill holes and fill with potassium nitrate and cover with wet hay. After a few months of that fill with old battery acid from junk batteries. After a while the stump is pretty porous. Finally add kerosene, refilling as the stump absorbs it. Light her off and in a few days to weeks while the smoldering roots are consumed, ya got no more stump.
 
#10 ·
we've always done our stumps this way minus the burning if we didnt just dig them out to start with...

now that im older & more often injured... if they are big ones we take the dozer and pop them out with that, then put them on the trailer and get rid of them. just had a willow stump we took out about a month ago, humongous & sprawling roots, wasnt diggin that up or gonna live long enough for it to rot out. had to just shove it across the road and put it on the creek bank.
 
#7 ·
If the stump is away from anything you don't want damaged I used to take a bit brace with a long 1" auger bit and drill a hole into the stump at a downward angle 10-12" deep, pack it with 1/2 to-3/4" ( I'm guessing 500- 600 grains or so) of black powder. Take a 3-4" piece of 1 1/4 dowel and drill a hole through it to put a piece of cannon fuse through it then drive the "fuse plug" tight all the way down into the hole in the stump with a piece of pipe. Then stand back and touch it off. On a bigger stump 3-4 may be needed but usually it that will break one up enough to be able to hook onto it with the truck and it will pull right out pretty easy , if it doesn't pop it out entirely. No Muss,, No Fuss. Just go under ground level as much as possible though and it will pop the main roots right off so it comes out real easy. Plus you don't get a bunch of racket or debris flying all over Hell. We used to blow them all the time that way on the farm.

I know some of you chuckle heads would probably get carried away, but let me tell ya a little powder will go a hell of allot further than you might think, doing it the way we used to. On our 2nd or 3 rd attempts at removing stumps we had a BIG old Oak stump, and I mean a huge one, maybe 4-5 ' crossed. It was in the corner of a corn piece we had and Pa figured a bit more powder than normal would be better at getting that one out,,,,,

Well he put the powder right to it alright,,,in 5-6 spots and he rigged it with model rocket ignitors and when he touched it off ,,,WELL,,that frigging thing,,,

did a half rotation in mid air and landed back in the hole with the roots pointing at the sky and debris and shit raining down for 30 seconds afterwards, from 100 yards away, and you could even feel the ground shake ,,,:fear::fear:

"yup,,,just a bit to much powder there Pa??" :wow::lol::lol::lol:

Not sure of the new legality's involved with doing it that way nowadays, but that's how we got rid of stumps back in the day. It usually lifts the stumps right out of the ground pretty much in one piece and you can just drag them away and fill the hole in and your done. Fast and cheap too, we could remove 5-6 medium sized stumps with a lb of black powder, and be done in 2-3 hours or so, holes back filled and all.
 
#11 ·
I got rid of about a dozen stumps a few years ago. I cut flipped a 55-gallon drum upside down, added a 5" galvanized vent stack, and made a hatch on top. Then I filled it from trash wood and let 'er rip. On a good burn overnight, I'd have a hole 18" deep in the ground where the stump used to be.

The trick with burning stumps is you have to get them HOT ALL THE WAY THROUGH, otherwise they'll just char on the outside and quit. Once you get it hot enough it'll keep on burning on its own.

A couple of stumps were too big to fit the drum over. I chainsawed some vertical slots to fit the drum into and did them in two or three steps. Also, large surface roots will burn if you remove as much dirt as you can first.
 
#12 ·
Where I'm living now,,for like 28-9 years now,,,it's only a small 1 1/3 acre lot on the edge of a 1100 person population township. So I pretty much constrained to using the cut off barrel method to burn stumps too with houses around. But I just use a couple large bags of charcoal to keep things going instead and that method does make pretty short work of stumps, with less smoke too. I have 2-3 fresh ones to take care of right now from 2 trees I just took down, but they both were tight up against a building, so I can't burn those. Especially sense there next to my reloading /ammo storage building!!:wow: That could be hazardous!

This place was bordered by Box Alder trees at one time,,,THOSE THINGS SUCK!!! They run wild, make a mess and like to spread out over buildings and they just don't hold up well to big winds,,,,,only 1 left now. Hate those things.

Now everything else is Maple, White Ceder, Poplar and a MONSTER Willow which I want to get rid of next, couple Ash ,2-3 different types of Lilac bush's and a couple other flowering bush's,, tons of them, and one lone Pine that's just about toast too. Woodpeckers are starting to get at it, so it will have to come down soon too I'm afraid.

In the last year or so I've planted about 40 Emerald Green Arborvitaes in double rows on my North and West side boundary line to help block the wind and road noise and I need a few more 6 footers for my North end now. They only get from 12-15 ' but nice and bushy so hopefully it will help block those North winds off the fields all around us. 3-4 more Maples are going to be planted too in place of the others I take down. Those I can just dig up in the woods and replant here, so I don't have to buy those. I can get some 8 footers out safely with the wheeler pretty easy I'd think.

Yup,,,Looks like I'll get plenty of practice on taking out stumps real soon !!

Still wish I could "POP" them out like the old days though!!:brows:
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top