# Splitting Hickory?



## BMantlow (Mar 20, 2012)

When using a maul, is hickory easier to split green or seasoned?


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## Jere39 (Mar 20, 2012)

In my experience, even the nice straight grain rounds are stringy and difficult green or seasoned with maul. I like to keep a nice stack of my straight grained red oak around so when I get frustrated with the hickory, beech, or birch, I spend an hour on the oak to re-set my self appreciation.

Good news - bad news on hickory

I've got lot's of interest in hickory for smokers, and these people pay well for very small amounts.
But, they want it split small. 

I try to talk them into nice straight easy splitting cherry or mulberry.


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## Steve2910 (Mar 20, 2012)

BMantlow said:


> When using a maul, is hickory easier to split green or seasoned?



Hickory is never easy to split, but it will be a lot less stringy if allowed to dry some.


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## dave_376 (Mar 20, 2012)

I just finished splitting a cord of shagbark Hickory. It it stringy and tough, I sent 4 or 5 hours trying to split 1/4 cord of it by hand. 4 wedges, 12lb sledge and a hatchet to cut the stringy mess the maul just bounced off. Some of them I noodled up smaller thinking it would be easier, no matter what I tried it was a PITA. I finally broke down and asked my buddy to borrow his splitter. Busting the pieces up is easier but the stringy stuff is still a pain in the butt. My wood is still fairly green, even when frozen it was still hard to split.

I still have 1 more cord to split thankfully i have the splitter.


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## zogger (Mar 20, 2012)

BMantlow said:


> When using a maul, is hickory easier to split green or seasoned?



Real dry. And if you want to eliminate the serious bug problem, go around the round and split just inside the bark, and take all the slabwood off first. Set that aside to dry, still burns good and will dry the bugs out. Now with the bark off, and well seasoned, it splits a lot easier. Be patient, let the rounds season well. 

Great wood, it makes you work for it..so just let it dry and get the dang dinosaur scales bark off first, as soon as possible after cutting it. I'm now peeling the bark before I even block it into rounds. If you are cutting green, right now, this week, spring, it is the easiest time to peel hickory. It's what the original "settlers" around here did.


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## zogger (Mar 20, 2012)

dave_376 said:


> I just finished splitting a cord of shagbark Hickory. It it stringy and tough, I sent 4 or 5 hours trying to split 1/4 cord of it by hand. 4 wedges, 12lb sledge and a hatchet to cut the stringy mess the maul just bounced off. Some of them I noodled up smaller thinking it would be easier, no matter what I tried it was a PITA. I finally broke down and asked my buddy to borrow his splitter. Busting the pieces up is easier but the stringy stuff is still a pain in the butt. My wood is still fairly green, even when frozen it was still hard to split.
> 
> I still have 1 more cord to split thankfully i have the splitter.



I did more than four cord last year of *old* big fully mature shagbark, all with the fiskars as far as I remember, exception a coupla crotch pieces. Get the bark off, let it season first before splitting. 1000% easier than green with the bark on. It just wasn't that hard once it was well dried, good deep cracks showing on the rounds. Fresh cut green, ya, it can suck, let it dry some, loads easier. It doesn't freeze hard here so I can't do that "split frozen wood" trick.


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## jdc123 (Mar 20, 2012)

Splitting it green seems to work better for me, slabbing it off around the edges with a maul a bite at a time. Just my opinion, but I have split a lot of hickory. Split some both ways and see which way is best for you. Last year I cut up a huge scaley bark (shagbark) and I split most of it as soon as it was cut. Had a few rounds that I didn't get to until fall a few months later, much harder to split.


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## PEKS (Mar 20, 2012)

Shagbark Hickory is a good workout..
Did a load last week, used a maul and X27..


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## BMantlow (Mar 21, 2012)

Thinks for all the replies.


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## D&B Mack (Mar 21, 2012)

Frozen in the winter either way, but this winter didn't provide much time for that around here.


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## kkelly311 (Mar 21, 2012)

I had about 18 hickory logs between 25 and 32" diameter that I split green with a gas powered splitter ..... used 12 tanks of fuel just to get it done. Lots of knuckles too. It was quite difficult to say the least ..... I cannot imagine anyone trying that with wedges & sledge. The stack of wood smelled like a horse barn. Is that a signature of a certain type of hickory?


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## BMantlow (Mar 23, 2012)

View attachment 230408

Thanks for all the replies.

I finally got it cut up and to the house... I'm going to try and split some now and maybe save some to split when it's dried out and see which works best.

By the way, how do you post an image where you don't have to click on the link to view the image?


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## Jere39 (Mar 23, 2012)

BMantlow said:


> View attachment 230408
> 
> Thanks for all the replies.
> 
> ...



Once you have your image loaded, as you already do, then you have to copy the link to the image then paste it into the body of your message between a pair of bracketIMGbracket and bracket/IMGbracket (where the word bracket is replaced by the square left and right brackets on the right end of your keyboard.
like this:


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## bbxlr8 (Mar 23, 2012)

I split a shagbark log by hand that I had been saving thinking of milling that was 25 feet long, 24" most of the way , super straight w/ no branches. It was seasoned a year & half and was easy. Now the tops & crotch wood were another story entirely and ended up in my outdoor pit in large chunks after wearing me OUT. Still my favorite wood - and this from a guy with no splitter!


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