Splitting methodology - long billets or firewood length rings/rounds?

[KiwiBro]

Looking at some of the European operations, they tend to split into 700mm-1m long billets and then cut those into two or three firewood lengths. Here, we cut the logs into firewood length rings/rounds and then split those.

Is it simply the straight grained wood they have that allows them to split that long? Is it faster to split that way and then cut later?

Has anyone had the opportunity to try the two different methods, or any others, and figure out which is best and under which conditions?

Obviously, for bigger wood or really knotty wood it might be a bit of a hassle to split long, but if the grain will allow it, is it a better way?

 

[taskswap]

It depends on the wood. Depending on where in Europe you're talking about, they have a lot of straight-grained wood. I could easily split a meter-long piece of knot-free maple with my Fiskars, or my splitter if it would actually fit on it! But no way are you doing that with some of the sycamore I just got "donated" to me. This stuff doesn't seem to split so much as it fractures - in all directions. I can barely stack it neatly with all the broken cross-grain stuck out everywhere.

I can't figure out why this makes any sense, though. Cutting things with a chainsaw is touchy. Cutting thin things is just annoying. Little stuff gets "grabbed" or binds the chain. I've seen people who make "cribs" for cutting limb wood, but I have to believe that's to avoid throwing away good wood, not doing to deliberately because it's actually fun.

Besides, green wood is freaking HEAVY. Why would you want to muscle around a meter-long 20" wide log just to split it when you could cut it into thirds and deal with the smaller pieces so much more easily?

 

[zogger]

what he said. No way I would try to hand split 3ft long gnarly wood.

 

[KiwiBro]

I can't figure out why this makes any sense, though.

that's pretty much what I'm trying to establish. When wood is able to be split long, perhaps there's ultimately less handling involved. 0.7-1m long splits or small diameter logs can stack easy and perhaps that's the max lengths they've found that is comfortable to handle and stack well and season well? As for cutting these into firewood length:







The thing is, these are people who have generations upon generations of wood heating/harvesting experience to draw on and their techniques and machinery has evolved this way for a reason, so I'm keen to learn why. There aren't too many species of wood here that become available to me of similar sizes and that could be split long, but there are a few. Besides, I'm wondering how some of these ideas might 'scale up' for bigger wood for a kind of robo-bucking option.

 

[KiwiBro]

what he said. No way I would try to hand split 3ft long gnarly wood.

They have some interesting long hydraulic splitters, some with three rams on a wide bed - put 1m log section in, split it into two, let each piece be split by the two outer rams on the same bed. So two stroke cycles = four x 1m long splits. Or in the case of some of the gnarly or stringy woods, one heap of splinters and shards and a tangled mess and if lucky, one length that looks like it might be acceptable.

 

[066blaster]

Seems efficient if you have nothing but small diameter logs. Still nothing compared to a good processor that does it all on big stuff, and small stuff. I mean why even split that small stuff

 

[066blaster]

And with outdoor burners around here. Basically eliminates the need for any of these machines. Just throw em in.

 

[KiwiBro]

In a commercial firewood context, maybe we are going about it wrong. Maybe we could recover the tops or thinings and feed a tub grinder which then feeds a briquette press and we actually end up with a wonderfully uniform, high quality firewood product that is faster/cheaper to produce. No pruning, bucking, splitting or stacking and a perfectly consistent product that can be palletised and moved to storage and customers on conventional carriers.

 

[zogger]

They have some interesting long hydraulic splitters, some with three rams on a wide bed - put 1m log section in, split it into two, let each piece be split by the two outer rams on the same bed. So two stroke cycles = four x 1m long splits. Or in the case of some of the gnarly or stringy woods, one heap of splinters and shards and a tangled mess and if lucky, one length that looks like it might be acceptable.

The home made one here my boss built will *just* fit a 36 inch long piece, he likes his fireplace wood that long, but I never cut anything for myself longer than around 16-18, that size I can handle and hand split better. That long stuff even with a log lift, uggh, way to heavy to deal with.

In fact I am starting with sweetgum to cut only to 12 inches, just to make the splitting easier for me. A lot of people around here won't even bother with sweetgum, this is primo abundant oak and hickory land, but I have to cut it, so I like to get some use from it.

I'd like to see one of those multiple ram splitters.

 

[066blaster]

I think they do make those but they are expensive and the equipment way to pricey. Wood pellets also, alot of people burn wood, it has to be cheap to produce or you might as well burn gas. If they would make a pellet stove that works off of standard wood chips. I think the outdoor wood burners are the easiest to use. Any kind of wood, big chunks, don't have to bring wood in the house.

 

[066blaster]

When my dad was a kid they heated and cooked with corn cobbs. Only corn cobbs , got them free from a feed mill.

 

[KiwiBro]

The home made one here my boss built will *just* fit a 36 inch long piece, he likes his fireplace wood that long, but I never cut anything for myself longer than around 16-18, that size I can handle and hand split better. That long stuff even with a log lift, uggh, way to heavy to deal with.

In fact I am starting with sweetgum to cut only to 12 inches, just to make the splitting easier for me. A lot of people around here won't even bother with sweetgum, this is primo abundant oak and hickory land, but I have to cut it, so I like to get some use from it.

I'd like to see one of those multiple ram splitters.

Sorry, can't find the two videos I was looking at yesterday, but will keep looking. Meantime, this doesn't look like too much work:

 

[NSMaple1]

Nice to make all those long splits at once - but I would think if it's not in the right length for your burner when you get to that stage & stacked, the extra work to go through the cutting step again to get it to the right length would be the point of diminshing returns.

 

[Hddnis]

In a commercial firewood context, maybe we are going about it wrong. Maybe we could recover the tops or thinings and feed a tub grinder which then feeds a briquette press and we actually end up with a wonderfully uniform, high quality firewood product that is faster/cheaper to produce. No pruning, bucking, splitting or stacking and a perfectly consistent product that can be palletised and moved to storage and customers on conventional carriers.

That is a growing market here. They make pellets, which are a nice fuel, and they also make "logs" the same way and sell them by the pallet load. All the big home improvement places around here sell several semi-truck loads of those logs each week, they are getting popular, and taking a bite out of the traditional firewood market.

This is just one company, part way down the page they have a video showing how they make them.
http://www.lignetics.com/fire-logs.html


Mr. HE

 

[Hddnis]

One thing I will say about the European operations I've seen is that they are all handling intensive, and they all use down to very small branches even, nothing gets wasted. Here in the US the source is so plentiful that people get really picky about what they burn, and waste a lot because of it, but they've got handling to a minimum. Trying to use European methods here would put you out of business fast, couldn't compete with the guys that are only processing the fast and easy stuff.

With my little operation I'm working towards finding a market for everything, from lumber to bedding shavings. We often get paid to remove the trees, either in a thinning operation or yard trees. My competition dumps them, maybe making some firewood to sell out of the easy stuff, I'm slowly working towards looking at the removal as a raw material stream. Once I get that down, I'm going to start letting the other guys dump in my yard and increase my processing capacity. It just takes time and money.


Mr. HE

 

[KiwiBro]

That is a growing market here. They make pellets, which are a nice fuel, and they also make "logs" the same way and sell them by the pallet load. All the big home improvement places around here sell several semi-truck loads of those logs each week, they are getting popular, and taking a bite out of the traditional firewood market.

This is just one company, part way down the page they have a video showing how they make them.
http://www.lignetics.com/fire-logs.html


Mr. HE

Thanks for that. They seem to be taking sawmill waste; wood dust as opposed to wood chips and blending with other things. I wonder if there is a process out there which will take wood chips and produce pressed logs that will hold together and be reasonably consistent.
Interestingly, regarding your observation about taking a bit out of the split wood market, here's a link I found that takes that disruption to a much bigger level:

http://climate-connections.org/2014...-fort-drum-biomass-plant-for-lumber-shortage/

 

[dave_dj1]

I thought maybe a reason for the long splits is that when the time comes to cut you can cut it to different lengths depending on customers needs. I guess for that to work there would have to be a set couple of sizes. Maybe you could get 3 lengths or 4 lengths out of each piece.

 

[zogger]

Sorry, can't find the two videos I was looking at yesterday, but will keep looking. Meantime, this doesn't look like too much work:

I dunno, looks a little clunky. I guess either full log length processor, or cut to final size then split. This in between size...not sure, UNLESS those one yard/one meter long pieces *are* the final size, say for a boiler.

 

[alexp_uk]

I’ve only recently come across this site and have been lurking reading the various forums with interest. I thought I could add something here since I live in Europe and process my firewood in billet lengths so can give some of the reasons why I find it useful.


Firstly some caveats.


I really don’t want to start a religious war about this. Whilst I find the method works for me and my situation the main reason I do it this way is probably because my Dad did it this way and I learnt from him – once you’ve got a system going all tools / equipment you get tend to fit into your system so changing is not too easy. So I’m not claiming that this is the best system ever or that it would work for others.


Saying that though I find it interesting seeing how other folks do basically the same job - turn some trees into heating in a reasonably efficient way (both of time and resources) so I had a think about what I find useful working with billet lengths and came up with the following.


Split billets stack well and dry quickly (or at least more quickly than un-split)– at 4’ length a 8’ high stack is quite stable especially if the stack curves a little to stop any wind gusts from blowing it over. I guess amount of drying people do varies with climate but for me I really seem to need 2 years stacked and split to season well – I’ve misjudged amounts at times and burnt after only a year but you end up burning way more wood to get the same heat so it’s much less work overall to dry it properly.


Easy to handle different size stoves. I cut firewood mainly for 2 properties with 5 wood stoves (the only heating source) and 1 large boiler (for heating greenhouses) – each stove seems to want a different length so having the wood dry in billet length then I can cut on demand using a saw bench. It’s very quick and easy to cut up a couple of month’s supply for a stove from the stack using the saw-bench – very little bending / lifting since it’s just a case of reaching from the stack and throwing the cut wood into a bucket / trailer.


Using a saw-bench works well with coppicing of small round wood. I actually try to avoid handling too much big wood for firewood – splitting is a pain – 4’ or 1’ length doesn’t seem to make much difference – if the wood splits well it’ll split in 4’ lengths if not it’s a lot of work however you do it. Though saying that I bought a (way too expensive to realistically justify) 1m hydraulic splitter + winch last year which has changed my view slightly on the ease of handling larger wood. My best firewood though is still hazel – this coppices very well here producing 20’/30’ fairly unbranched stems of about 6” diameter at the base on about a 15 year cycle. It’s actually reasonably quick and productive to cut this to lengths and chuck out of the wood to a trailer Splitting any larger wood so that it mixes in with this just makes life easier (and means the split wood dries the same time as the small round so can mix the stacks without any problem).


Probably the most important for me – billet lengths seem to be the easiest to handle in the woods without much equipment. Most of my ground is very steep (it’s why it was left as woodland – people have been farming here for millennia and if it could grow anything other than trees then it probably would) and so can’t get in close with any machine. With billet length I don’t need special forwarding trailers and grabs (though they would sure be nice to have…), the lengths stack easily on the forks of a loader or sideways in a trailer (and pass through gateways) and can be thrown out of difficult to reach areas. Winching out in larger sizes is possible but it never seems as easy in practise as it is in theory, the slope is always just wrong and you start thinking about more power, more length of cable or start dreaming about skylines (I’ve never used one but I guess there are plenty good reasons why yarders cost so much money).


Going the other way and cutting smaller length rounds in the woods (after all it’s for firewood not timber so it has to be cut up at some point anyway) has its own set of problems here. Basically billet length rounds don’t roll too far. A 4’ length round is just about handle-able by 1 person (though sometimes at the end of a day I question this) and can be rolled down a slope safely. There is normally enough length that if it starts rolling on its own one end will roll a slightly shorter length than the other and so will swing on the slope and end up coming to rest across the slope. I got fed up with handling these once on a biggish (for me) tree and cut to a small length round to save effort loading onto trailer– one just started rolling and didn’t stop at the track where the tractor and trailer was – it kept on going through 3 hedges / wire fences, across a public footpath, a vehicular access road and only stopped after about ½ a mile when it hit a neighbour’s house. The noise of it hitting was loud enough to echo round the valley. I thought that this was going to be very expensive firewood that year but fortunately it didn’t do any serious damage to their house other than knocking a picture off the wall. Having got away with it once, particularly on a steep bank, I’ve been very careful to keep some length on any rounds to avoid a repeat.

 

[dave_dj1]

Alex, welcome to the site and thank you for sharing your method of operation with us.
dave