In April of this year, I had to cut down three trees to get a new internet service. The smallest of the three was a medium sized hickory.
I decided to dig out the stump so it would be out of the yard and away from the path toward the range. It didn’t seem too big from the top. Maybe 12-14”.
I very quickly learned that hickory trees have a TON of roots! And they are tough! (Maybe that’s why axe handles are made of hickory wood…duh!)
I have a small tractor that is pretty tough for its size. It took some time to dig, but I eventually had a 3’ deep moat around the stump. Yet with all the digging and cutting of roots, the central stump was rock solid.
I was getting frustrated and wasn’t sure how to proceed. I considered shoving the dirt back in the hole and renting a stump grinder someday.
Then I decided to try a bit of binary explosive.
(It felt a bit ‘hillbilly’to do this, but hey, I live in Brown County!)
I put 4 pounds of H2Targets material in a gallon milk jug and mixed it. I considered whether to put more material in, but decided to stick with 4# after using a similar amount on a half-dead beech tree I wanted to drop. (Didn’t work!) This filled about half the jug’s volume. I smashed the jug down to get rid of most of the airspace.
I dug a hole in the side of the dirt directly under the stump. After putting the jug in the hole, I packed the extra space with dirt so I could get the most work out of the explosion. I aimed the hole away from the house so any gas would head that way. The neck of the milk jug was barely visible from the house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-QsytwBJD0
I went to the sunroom of the house and opened the sliding window so I could shoot a .223 round at the neck of the milk jug. My wife opened the other window on that side of the room and had a camera out, ready to take a video of the action!
The first shot was a hit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PTyk6ORsiA&feature=relmfu
As the explosion went boom, I could see a swarm of small dirt pieces heading toward the house! I heard them hit the side and top of the sunroom. My wife said something and moved back. I could tell she was not hurt, just startled. When I saw the video, I had to laugh at my insensitivity. My wife was getting the dirt pieces out of her mouth and hair and the first thing I said was “Did you get any pictures?” I’m certain I’ll be hearing about this for some time!
A fair amount of dirt coated the floor of the sunroom. The porch below had a similar layer of dirt!
The good news is that the H2Targets materials did the trick! In the following picture, you can see where the explosion broke off a good-sized piece of root. More importantly, the blast blew away a bunch of dirt exposing an enormous tap root! That root was the size of my leg and explains why the stump was so solid even after the surrounding roots had been cut. After cutting the tap root and a quick bit of digging with the tractor, the stump came out of the hole. Backfilling was a snap with the Kubota tractor.
In the second picture, I’m taking the stump to a ravine on our property for disposal. In that picture, the stump is upsidedown. The chain is around the tap root! It was a monster!
I took two screen shots of the explosion as it began. I like how you can see the initial glow of the detonation and then the expanding gasses in the second picture. As planned, the bulk of the gas headed away from the house.
TheH2Targets product really solved a problem for me. I was at an impasse. With its help, I got the stump out…and I had a ton of fun doing it!
I decided to dig out the stump so it would be out of the yard and away from the path toward the range. It didn’t seem too big from the top. Maybe 12-14”.
I very quickly learned that hickory trees have a TON of roots! And they are tough! (Maybe that’s why axe handles are made of hickory wood…duh!)
I have a small tractor that is pretty tough for its size. It took some time to dig, but I eventually had a 3’ deep moat around the stump. Yet with all the digging and cutting of roots, the central stump was rock solid.
I was getting frustrated and wasn’t sure how to proceed. I considered shoving the dirt back in the hole and renting a stump grinder someday.
Then I decided to try a bit of binary explosive.
(It felt a bit ‘hillbilly’to do this, but hey, I live in Brown County!)I put 4 pounds of H2Targets material in a gallon milk jug and mixed it. I considered whether to put more material in, but decided to stick with 4# after using a similar amount on a half-dead beech tree I wanted to drop. (Didn’t work!) This filled about half the jug’s volume. I smashed the jug down to get rid of most of the airspace.
I dug a hole in the side of the dirt directly under the stump. After putting the jug in the hole, I packed the extra space with dirt so I could get the most work out of the explosion. I aimed the hole away from the house so any gas would head that way. The neck of the milk jug was barely visible from the house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-QsytwBJD0
I went to the sunroom of the house and opened the sliding window so I could shoot a .223 round at the neck of the milk jug. My wife opened the other window on that side of the room and had a camera out, ready to take a video of the action!
The first shot was a hit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PTyk6ORsiA&feature=relmfu
As the explosion went boom, I could see a swarm of small dirt pieces heading toward the house! I heard them hit the side and top of the sunroom. My wife said something and moved back. I could tell she was not hurt, just startled. When I saw the video, I had to laugh at my insensitivity. My wife was getting the dirt pieces out of her mouth and hair and the first thing I said was “Did you get any pictures?” I’m certain I’ll be hearing about this for some time!
A fair amount of dirt coated the floor of the sunroom. The porch below had a similar layer of dirt!
The good news is that the H2Targets materials did the trick! In the following picture, you can see where the explosion broke off a good-sized piece of root. More importantly, the blast blew away a bunch of dirt exposing an enormous tap root! That root was the size of my leg and explains why the stump was so solid even after the surrounding roots had been cut. After cutting the tap root and a quick bit of digging with the tractor, the stump came out of the hole. Backfilling was a snap with the Kubota tractor.
In the second picture, I’m taking the stump to a ravine on our property for disposal. In that picture, the stump is upsidedown. The chain is around the tap root! It was a monster!
I took two screen shots of the explosion as it began. I like how you can see the initial glow of the detonation and then the expanding gasses in the second picture. As planned, the bulk of the gas headed away from the house.
TheH2Targets product really solved a problem for me. I was at an impasse. With its help, I got the stump out…and I had a ton of fun doing it!
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