Trees taken from the edge of a forest or wood has usually been used as a fence at some point in time.

And will be full of nails and spikes of all descriptions. These will be layered over by new growth every year until they disappear into the tree. Also.

If the timber is from a contested build, or motorway build. Then local preservationist may have spiked the trees to save them from the chainsaws.

You could always buy a hand held metal detector, like electricians use to find wires in the plasterwork and run it over the timber before you risk the chain saw.I’m not a huge safety guy myself but the bare feet  flip flops are hilarious.

Beautiful slabs and pretty precision cuts considering the basic tools. Well done on utilizing the whole piece. Obviously not the first time these guys have milled unusual shapes of trees.I did a job unpaid for a mate, he had been finding all sorts of metal in the wood he was milling.

I took my gold detector down and searched the logs and was able to mark the location of all the metal objects. Mostly nails except for a massive target deep in the log. Turned out to be a cast iron hing for a farm gate.

Seems the tree had stood for a long time  and was used to hold a fence around a sheep pen and the hinge was where the. Gate was hung. Several hours work saving multiple saw bands and the miserable bugger didn’t even shout me a beer. Still mates though