I bought what I thought was a bag of Post Oak chunks for meat smoking but it was actually two entire half-logs. Looks like the pic I posted
I’m not making a dent in the logs with my axe at home…
I might be overthinking this but, is it fine for me to use the woodshop equipment to chop these up into the chunks I want? Plenty of food-safe projects like cutting boards get made here so I feel like the chance of some sort of contamination is incredibly low that would make it unsuitable for smoking.
Two thoughts come to mind for your consideration:
Wood that’s repurposed or has been lingering outdoors in rocky or wet terrain can have embedded impurities that can damage equipment. Your log looks fine in the picture but nails or rocks can wreck havoc on blades. Also, moisture can be an issue if it’s too fresh or soaked and it can trip the SawStop.
Stable cutting is key to safe cutting. When running this through a bandsaw or table saw, it’s important to have the flat side down on the bed. Rounded surfaces are unstable, can twist, and can break blades, trigger kickback and worst of all result in harm to you.
Be safe and be good to the equipment.
I agree with everything Travis said but I also want to encourage you to try it out. I’ve cut cookies and slabs from logs on the big bandsaw, it is a beast! The key is getting that flat reference surface first to keep it stable. Charlie and I put together a quick shop built jig with scraps from the cart when I did it.
