# Sweet Gum is no joke...



## chilly460 (Mar 19, 2017)

I just cut down a dying 23" DBH sweet gum in my back yard. I'm new to cutting firewood so haven't split a great deal, helped a buddy cleanup 5 large red oaks and split 5 cords of that by hand. This sweet gum is a whole other animal, I'm having to wedge 10" logs, the maul has no chance. I sort of knew this from it's reputation, but I figured the pieces with no knots would be ok. Not the case. 

I assume let it dry for a couple months then give it another shot? I split one 20" piece and it took forever, I'll be out there til June trying to split the rest at this pace.


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## svk (Mar 19, 2017)

You have a few choices. You could roll it out to the curb and hope someone else takes it, fight it by hand, rent a good splitter, or noodle it. 

FWIW: I've never dealt with gum but from my dealings with American Elm I've learned that if you leave it out in the elements for about 2 years it gets to the point that it will split with a good mail.


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## hedge hog (Mar 20, 2017)

Give it away
Burns likes wet chit 
Or you will need all that oak you have to blend with it to get it to burn up

Never heard of any one around me having any luck burning it other than a 1-3 or 1-4 ratio 



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## NGaMountains (Mar 20, 2017)

From my experience, svk and hedge hog are both on the right track. I got some decent sized sweet gum blocks at a scrounge that the guy already had cut, and from the bark and sawn ends it looked like oak. Once home, the stuff was a stringy mess trying to split with my hydraulic splitter, most pieces needing to be "torn" by hand after going through the splitter, or chopped with an ax to break the remaining fibers if too tough to pull apart. I tried burning a few pieces this winter and the other wood burnt around it while the gum was laying there in the middle like a big ol' charcoal briquet hours later. For what I already have split I'll try again next winter to see if it burns any better, but in your case I'd say the payoff isn't close to worth the effort.


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## Babaganoosh (Mar 20, 2017)

Get rid of it if possible. It's more trouble than it's worth.


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## jrider (Mar 20, 2017)

Pain in the arse to split. I never had a problem burning it though. If I get stuck with any, it usually goes into the boiler without being spit. It will spit better as it seasons but it also rots quickly in the round.


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## Hunt4lumber (Mar 20, 2017)

Chilly 460, got any pics of bark?


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## TeeMan (Mar 20, 2017)

Agreed, gum is not worth the time. Also, avoid sycamore too.


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## DrewUth (Mar 20, 2017)

I will echo what everyone else says- I have a pile of sweet gum that I am simply letting rot, as the poor burning is not worth the energy to split or stack and dry it. Its not even good in a firepit. Get rid of it, give it away for free on CL, dig a hole and bury it...don't waste any sweat trying to turn it into firewood.


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## chilly460 (Mar 20, 2017)

Best i can do for bark pic right now


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## DrewUth (Mar 20, 2017)

chilly460 said:


> Best i can do for bark pic right now



Well that sure doesn't look like sweetgum to me.........


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## NGaMountains (Mar 20, 2017)

Here's a split from one of my piles, showing the bark and how stringy the wood is. This was split about 6 months ago.


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## Hunt4lumber (Mar 20, 2017)

I was just wanting a picture of it to compare to a tree I took down that I'm not sure of species I will try to post pictures of bark of tree I'm talking about later


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## Babaganoosh (Mar 20, 2017)

Sweet gum is a lot whiter. It's a lot stringier too. The grain doesn't look like in that pic.


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## NGaMountains (Mar 20, 2017)

Babaganoosh said:


> Sweet gum is a lot whiter. It's a lot stringier too. The grain doesn't look like in that pic.


Which pic would 'that pic' be?


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## Babaganoosh (Mar 20, 2017)

First one of the 2 above. That's a little stringy but it's actually split. Usually sweet gum rips the entire length of the split.


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## Woody912 (Mar 20, 2017)

chilly460 said:


> I just cut down a dying 23" DBH sweet gum in my back yard. I'm new to cutting firewood so haven't split a great deal, helped a buddy cleanup 5 large red oaks and split 5 cords of that by hand. This sweet gum is a whole other animal, I'm having to wedge 10" logs, the maul has no chance. I sort of knew this from it's reputation, but I figured the pieces with no knots would be ok. Not the case.
> 
> I assume let it dry for a couple months then give it another shot? I split one 20" piece and it took forever, I'll be out there til June trying to split the rest at this pace.


noodle or throw it away, it will rot inside the bark if you try to outwait it


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## DrewUth (Mar 20, 2017)

I think that might be Cherry. It is definitely not sweetgum.


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## DrewUth (Mar 20, 2017)

NGaMountains said:


> Here's a split from one of my piles, showing the bark and how stringy the wood is. This was split about 6 months ago.



I don't think that is sweetgum either. Yes it is surely stringy, but gum grain is not like that...it pulls apart in chunks- the grain is not strong enough to split as nicely as that.


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## JeffHK454 (Mar 20, 2017)

Elm? Doesn't look like any Gum I've ever seen..but like was said earlier if you run across some in the future leave it lay its way more work than it's worth.


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## chilly460 (Mar 20, 2017)

Tree has the spiky seed balls and five pointed leaves same as what I've seen online for a Sweet Gum...


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## harpersend (Mar 20, 2017)

Black Gum turns darker in the heart than Sweet Gum, but I am not sure if it gets that dark... However, that would be my vote... Pretty sure the leaves and gum balls are similar... I believe the foliage turns dark red in fall...


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## NGaMountains (Mar 20, 2017)

Here's another piece from the same scrounge. What do you think it is? If it's not sweet gum I'd appreciate one of you guys posting a picture that is.


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## GF#2 (Mar 20, 2017)

I've had decent success splitting gum from the outside in. Working around the outside perimeter knocking chunks off working in towards the middle instead of splitting from the middle like you normally would. With a hydraulic splitter this works ok but still not worth it. Gum burns like crap and rots fast. Had some I thought would split better dry and after a year in rounds it was a soft rotten mess.


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## Ash_403 (Mar 21, 2017)

harpersend said:


> Black Gum turns darker in the heart than Sweet Gum, but I am not sure if it gets that dark... However, that would be my vote... Pretty sure the leaves and gum balls are similar... I believe the foliage turns dark red in fall...



They actually look a bit different. (Though that wood pictured by chilly460 is quite dark for Sweet Gum.)
Links have some good pictures too. http://forestry.ohiodnr.gov/sweetgum
http://forestry.ohiodnr.gov/tupelo


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## tnflatbed (Mar 21, 2017)

I do not know about sweet gum but black gum has a distinct odor almost like wintergreen


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## muddstopper (Mar 22, 2017)

NGaMountains said:


> Here's another piece from the same scrounge. What do you think it is? If it's not sweet gum I'd appreciate one of you guys posting a picture that is.


I live just across the mountain from you and I dont see many sweetgum's. altho they do grow here. I do see a lot of blackgum. From the look of the dark color, my guess would lean toward the black gum instead of sweetgum. The two trees are only distantly related. The black gum has rounded shiny leaves. The sweetgum has pointed star shaped leaves. Both trees are a bugger to split. I mostly see sweetgum around lake banks, but have never really paid that much attention until last year when my sisterinlaw asked me what kind of tree it was when we where on the lake fishing.


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## NGaMountains (Mar 22, 2017)

muddstopper said:


> I live just across the mountain from you and I dont see many sweetgum's. altho they do grow here. I do see a lot of blackgum. From the look of the dark color, my guess would lean toward the black gum instead of sweetgum. The two trees are only distantly related. The black gum has rounded shiny leaves. The sweetgum has pointed star shaped leaves. Both trees are a bugger to split. I mostly see sweetgum around lake banks, but have never really paid that much attention until last year when my sisterinlaw asked me what kind of tree it was when we where on the lake fishing.


We have lots of sweetgum in this area. The pointy leaves are everywhere as are the spiky balls all over the ground. Unfortunately...


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## Full Chisel (Mar 23, 2017)

Worst. Tree. Ever. Absolutely worthless as firewood. The gum I have *tried* to split was next to impossible. It laughed at my maul and the splitter just sheared the grain and pulled chunks off. I did manage to get a few actual splits and it's easy to see why it's so hard to split...wavy grain and super stringy. Junk wood!


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## muddstopper (Mar 23, 2017)

I dont have any sweet or blackgum currently in my wood pile. I have split it with my hyd splitter in the past. I can say with certainty that Sweetgum/blackgum is the only thing I have ever split that would slow my splitter down. I have split 40india whiteoak with 4-5 large knots and watched my splitter grunt, but it always slices thru it. Then throw on a smallish, 10-12in dia piece of sweetgum and worry that it is going to stall my splitter out. I actually believe if I was to try running a 24in dia sweet gum thru my mulit wedge, I would have to beat it off the wedge with a sledge hammer, or cut it off with a saw. Sweetgum doesnt split, it tears apart. Stacking the splits is like stacking razor blades because of all the sharp, jagged splinters. I have heard a lot of folks talk about how hard it is to split elm, well if elm is anywhere near as hard to split as sweetgum, they can keep it.

Bradford pear is almost as bad and I have a load on the ground waiting to be split now.


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## Babaganoosh (Mar 23, 2017)

Full Chisel said:


> Worst. Tree. Ever. Absolutely worthless as firewood. The gum I have *tried* to split was next to impossible. It laughed at my maul and the splitter just sheared the grain and pulled chunks off. I did manage to get a few actual splits and it's easy to see why it's so hard to split...wavy grain and super stringy. Junk wood!
> 
> View attachment 567201



Now THAT'S sweetgum.


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## Full Chisel (Mar 23, 2017)

I don't know why anyone would even bother with it. Way too much hastle for what it's worth. The best cure for sweet gum balls is a saw and the best cure for a pile of logs is a blazing bonfire.

I'll take elm over sweet gum...every time. It actually splits if you know how to do it right. Slabbing with the rings towards the core is the key...not splitting across the rings.


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## JB Weld (Mar 23, 2017)

I like burning elm, but it is hell to split. Noodle it. 

Pitch the sweet gum. 

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using Tapatalk


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## mr.finn (Mar 24, 2017)

I haven't split Sweetgum in a while, but the last time I split it I remember my log splitter screaming mercy. I recently took down a SG, and am now having second thoughts about cutting and splitting it. May try a few pieces for the heck of it


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## mr.finn (Apr 3, 2017)

So I recently cut up a few rounds and decided to run them through the hydraulic splitter. The first pass, splitting the round in two is very slow. Once you have two halves it actually goes much easier. I'll split the rest and let it dry out.


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## rmihalek (Apr 4, 2017)

More of a philosophical question than anything else, but why would some wood like Green Ash (the King's wood) burn beautifully even when green yet year old split Sweet Gum hardly can catch the flame?


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## jrider (Apr 5, 2017)

rmihalek said:


> More of a philosophical question than anything else, but why would some wood like Green Ash (the King's wood) burn beautifully even when green yet year old split Sweet Gum hardly can catch the flame?


Never had any problem lighting year old sweet gum, it just doesn't burn long or terribly hot.


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## zogger (Apr 6, 2017)

Just noodle it. Burns OK in a stove once real dry, at least two good summers. Not so good in a fireplace, it spits. I have hand split some but it has to sit for a long time before all the bark falls off and big natural cracks occur, then follow the cracks with a wedge and have a hatchet handy to cut strings.


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## johnnyballs (Apr 6, 2017)

almost looks and sounds like chinese elm, but i don't know if they grow in your area...


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## Del_ (Apr 6, 2017)

Sweet gum splits pretty easily using my hydraulic log splitter. I can split it with the 4 way wedge on.

Black gum is very difficult and must be split with the 4 way wedge off. Even then it tears more than it splits.

There is a huge difference in splitting difficulty. 

I heat with both but black gum that is too large to fit in the stove without splitting I usually just dump in the woods. I get both in my tree service. 

We have two kinds of black gum here, Nyssa sylvatica and Nyssa aquatica. Aquatica is easier to split than sylvatica.


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## bert the turtle (Jan 14, 2018)

Its 24 outside, 77 inside, sweet gum in the stove. Yes it is a ***** to split, but a 12 pound sledge and a couple of wedges is as good a workout as anything I'd do at the gym. No, it doesn't burn as long as oak, but I can load the stove at night and the stove is still warm in the morning with plenty of coals to start the next fire. Most importantly, I'm sure as hell not going to cut down an oak and leave the sweet gum standing.


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## Woody912 (Jan 15, 2018)

rmihalek said:


> More of a philosophical question than anything else, but why would some wood like Green Ash (the King's wood) burn beautifully even when green yet year old split Sweet Gum hardly can catch the flame?


Ash is about 30% moisture when green, sweet gum is about 200%


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## chilly460 (Jan 15, 2018)

Didn’t realize this thread is still going. I gave up and just noodeled it, I could pound two wedges completely through a 12” round and I’d still have to flip it over and carefully hit it with the maul to split it and get the wedges out, amazing stuff. It’s burning ok but goes quick, fairly light once it dried out, as stated it’s wet as hell when green


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## Toy4xchris (Jan 15, 2018)

This is how I handle splitting gum.


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## Tree Feller (Jan 18, 2018)

I will not waste my time on gum trees. The only way I will consider burning them is if they are small enough I don’t have to split. I’ll burn pine before gum!


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## Toy4xchris (Jan 18, 2018)

I burn mainly pine because that's what I have a lot of on my property and most of it is dead. The gum trees came out of my backyard also and I was not going to pay the guy that took them down to remove them at the time I had not realized what they were and now it just gives me an excuse to spend quality time with my saw.


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