Need advice on breaking down 42” oak round

[CTwith3]

Neighbor had a 70’ white oak taken down and need to break down rounds from 28”-42” x 18”.
I have a 28 ton County line splitter, and those bigger rounds would be too big for to move around with a grapple on my Deere X738. I need to split them in place because dragging them is going to destroy my lawn- I already tore up the ground on the hill I had to drag it up.

 

[TimberWolf530]

I always split vertically until they are of manageable size to pick up to split horizontally. I have split oak that big, and what I did was, in the vertical position, put a half (4'X4') 1" piece of plywood in front of the splitter to level out the round. That way you don't have to hold it up to split it.

 

[NSMaple1]

Tow the splitter next to the rounds (with a lawn mower, or ATV), then do them up. That's assuming it can go vertical. If not, noodle.

 

[kyle1!]

Oak is pretty easy to split with wedges/sledge. That is how I would tackle them.

 

[67L36Driver]

Slab/noodle to a manageable size?

PP 655BP w/30” in the back left for size.

 

[FlyingDutchman]

x2 for steel wedges and a sledge.

 

[greenskeeper]

 

[CTwith3]

I have a hitch and front blade on my tractor and was thinking of tilting the blade and getting under the round to hold it up straight on whichever side needs to be raised. My splitter does horizontal and vertical.

 

[buzz sawyer]

Noodling spaghetti trees again?

 

[Deleted member 150358]

Did a lot of red oak that size last year. If I had a buddy we rolled em on the splitter (dayum near blew a nut anyway!)

If no help wedge and sledge. Did noodle some 54" maple just to make fast work of it. The oak busts fairly easy but the maple was too soft and gnarly.

 

[sirbuildalot]

Agreed on the wedges. Pop those suckers open

 

[Deleted member 117362]

Someone try this and tell me if it only works for me? Place a few 2x6 or similar flat on the ground, makes spinning those rounds easy and you do not need to tilt round into vertical splitter.

 

[Deleted member 150358]

Yeah guess should have mentioned the old speeco horizontal... Lay it on the ground for busting large rounds. Honda motor is a lot more forgiving of this position then the original B&S was.

 

[tnflatbed]

I found it is easier on oak rounds to do a plunge cut to start a wedge and pop them into manageable pieces as opposed to wrestling them into a splitter turned vertical. At least it is for me working alone.

 

[Sandhill Crane]

Tip rounds on end. Cut to depth of bar. Set steel wedge in kerf. Two hits, maybe three to split in half. Less to quarter them.

 

[Jhenderson]

Tip rounds on end. Cut to depth of bar. Set steel wedge in kerf. Two hits, maybe three to split in half. Less to quarter them.View attachment 615374View attachment 615375View attachment 615376View attachment 615377

X 2. That's what I do with wood that's too big to sell for tree length. 4 inch deep cut across the top and one or two hits with a 5lb rafting axe. I bring home that wood because I can't bear to waste it.

 

[moondoggie]

I noodle them these days. That's a 28" bar

 

[chads]

I had some big ones from the neighor. My splitter does not have a table or lift so I lifted them up with my loader and split and they fell to the ground rinse repeat.
THat was work, would of been much faster to noodle or split them into quarters or something I could handle.
Definately bring splitter to the log.
When I get stuff like that in the field we get a plank and roll them up on the trailer or wherever we are going with them.

Chad, thinking of design for a lifting table.

 

[Cody]

Noodle them, but for me the noodles serve a purpose as well, be it in the chicken coop or bagged as a fire starter.

 

[Wood Doctor]

I ran into a red elm the same size as this tree. I bucked all the big rounds to 18" lengths and then noodle cut from there. Sometimes I needed halves, then quarters, and then sixths when I reached the bottom. The idea was to make lengths that I could either lift and carry away or split.

Gasoline is cheaper than paying a chiropractor to treat a strained or wrenched back. Crane and MoonDoggle know what they are doing, and as Cody said, the noodles work in a chicken coop (or in a horse stable). Two thumbs up!

Glad to see they also know how to do things in St. Joe, Missouri. Good Pics, Driver!