[AT] 100 year old stumps are nasty (burning)

[Billy Hood]

I have been burning stumps for years with a 3" electric forge blower, I picked up somewhere.  Last year I could not locate it and had two 24+" hickory stumps in the yard to burn out.  I used a squirrel cage blower (from an old furnace/air handler) and a piece of old tin and started burning the first one out.  Someone told me to make homemade "napalm" (sp?).  I took about 5 qts of stale gasoline and started dissolving Styrofoam in it.  I think I wound up with a bobtailed truck of foam and it still was runny--really I had over 5 cu yds of foam in it.  Added some dish detergent and it helped.  Added some old hyd oil and stirred it with air pressure and presto--napalm  The second stump was hollow about 4" and 1ft below ground.  I drilled into the hollow at ground level about 1 1/2 hole and lit the napalm and added air from the blower.  I had this stump burned completely out by 9 that night.  But it was not worth the effort of making the "goop".   I have since located the blower--by brother borrowed it and it works great with some pipe for burning stumps--cheaper than stump grinder and time don't mean nothing to a hog.

Dean.  Sorry about your mishap with the tree and your tractor.  We were building a house last year and a big oak limb (15 in) had cracked at the trunk of the tree.  We had house in dry and deck felted.  I tied the backhoe boom to the limb, climbed a ladder, and cut the limb.  Everything tied off and safe--right--wrong.  We had to rebuild two trusses, replace some top plate and several studs broken when the limb jumped back and landed on the corner of the house.  Easier to repair than file a claim on builders risk insurance.  As long as you weren't hurt, the other things are replacable.  We all have to experience these "foobars" every once in a while.
Bear
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bruce Fallon<mailto:bfallon at whidbey.com> 

  Burning stumps and limbs any source of air works good I have an old squirrel 
  cage fan when close enough for extension cords or a gas powered fan . Also 
  putting an old hood or tin sign  sheet metal anything like that over the