Embedding a stump.

[philip in china]

I have got a tree stump a little over a metre high. I am going to use it as the base for one of my new anvils and just wanted to know the best way to embed it so it won't move. I am just about to start work on the new shop floor. That will be concrete. I am going to break up the old slab where I shall be extending. At the same time I shall be digging out for the stump. I had thought about digging in a plastic dustbin so as to keep the foot of the stump dry. What does anybody think? Also, and this might be a stupid question, which way up does the stump go? Does this matter?? I have never had a stump embedded before but want this one seriously fixed as it will be where any really heavy work will be done.

[MRobb]

What type of tree stump is it? Is it the same diameter at both ends?

[irnsrgn]

in the old days at least 5 ft deep, set it on some small gravel about 9 inches of it, to let the water get away, then tamp earth around it. the one in my uncles old shop, he bought another smith out way back when, when he moved and sold it the new owners went down 6 feet and still couldn't move it so they cut it off with a chainsaw and covered it up.

Edited July 4, 2009 by irnsrgn

[Bentiron1946]

Do you have termites? If so think again about burying it or all you will be providing is a feast.:cool:

[SGropp]

Dig a hole a couple of inches deeper than you want for the right height of the top of the stump . The hole should be about 4'' to 8"" bigger all around than the stump. Line the hole with a sheet of plastic. Pour a level concrete pad a couple inches thick in the bottom of the hole. When it is hard, set the stump in and fill all around with concrete to the finish floor if the floor is concrete and a few inches below if the floor is earth. Trim away the excess plastic below grade. The plastic will allow the concrete to cure at a slower rate resulting in a harder and stronger block.

If the stump is slightly smaller in size than the foot of the anvil you can hold it tight to the stump with two heavy [1/2'' to 3/4''] plates through bolted through the stump pinching the feet of the anvil. This will hold the anvil so that it will not budge and it effectively kills the ring. It also enables you to reorient the anvil if you can't decide which way to point the horn.

[Rob Browne]

I would just dig as hole a bit too deep, put in some gravel to the right height and ram earth around your stump to hold it. If it works for stock fences for 80 years of so it will work for an anvil stand.

[Dave Budd]

All of my anvils are on sunken stumps.

My floor is clay and there is no hope of keeping water out of the base of the hole, so a foot of gravel wouldn't help much sadly. Mind you, the stumps will take a very long time to rot and then sink I would think. I've got English Oak trunks measuring 16-22" across set in the ground about 3 feet. The holes were dug a few inches larger all round, the base roughly leveled (but the trunks weren't ever cut comppletely stright either) and the trunks placed in the hole. Then I put some clay back in, tapped it down really hard and kept back filling until I got to the top. The clay is damp below the surface of the ground and there is nothing I can do about it, I can feel a little vibration in the ground under sledging blows but my anvils are more solid than I have ever used before.

As for which way up. Some greenwood friends (they build and install green oak sculptures, bridges, benches, etc) suggested that the butt end should be upwards as in life water moves upwards in the tree. That way the water shouldn't soak up the trunk (along with rot) so much. They did say I could char or tar the end of the stump, but I didn't get around to it. They also suggested NOT concreting them in place as they've found the oak they install rots at most quickly at the transition of concrete and wood and at a faster rate than the ones just packed into the ground; I guess the ground moves with the wood and vice versa. Also, concrete is more difficult to dig out should you want to replace or move the stump

Only time will tell how they will survive, but I have hope ;)

Edited July 4, 2009 by Dave Budd

[bsiler]

Are you sure you want a concrete floor. They are very bad on the feet and knees.
Just my 2 cents!

[ptree]

Phillip, My experience matchs Dave Dudds. I have some of China's soil here in S. Indiana. What we have here is Loess, or dust so fine it blew around the world! Our top 10 to 18" is dust from the Yantzee river valley, a thin 1" layer than 30" or so of the same. Top layer is reported to have blown in 10,000 years ago, the bottom 120,000 years ago.
Under that is heavily weather limstone and shale.
I used treated 6 x 6" lumber laminated into a 6" x 12" with some 2 x 12" as a band at the top, set down as far as I could dig, about 4' in that area. Back filled with the dust/clay, tamping hard with a steel tamper. Been there since 2002, and still solid. Now my "Stump" is "Copper Cromated Arsenate" treated, but the electric power poles around here are creosate treated and have an average life of 50+ years, and thet too are set in the dirt.

If using a natural wood stump, I would tend to want to treat with something like a creosate paint or roof tar ihn the below grade, but even if not, I suspect that the stump will outlast you and me.

Shoot a couple of packs of firecrackers for me there in China, today is the 4th of July, when Americans celebrate our independence from that old Colonial power,... oh wait, not to insult. Just shoot some firecrackers for us:)

[arftist]

For the record, I was told to cut a large white oak with a fork in the trunk, bury it fork down, with the fork six feet underground. Never done it, but imagine it would be pretty stable.

[JohnW]

Hey philip, you might try the famous everlasting fense post recipe. Stir pulverized charcoal into boiled linseed oil until the consistency of paint. Put a coat of this over the fence timber. There is not a man alive who will live to see it rotten.