Tough Splitting Wood

[Mike Van]

With any wood thats as hard to split as that, I've found it best to just get it down to a size that'll fit in the stove door. Trying to make 'normal' size firewood out of it wastes time, pisses you off, wears on your machine [and you] A lot of times, you just wind up with a lot of broken pieces/parts of wood on the ground that don't stack well. Bigger is better with that snotty stuff.

 

[wkpoor]

With any wood thats as hard to split as that, I've found it best to just get it down to a size that'll fit in the stove door. Trying to make 'normal' size firewood out of it wastes time, pisses you off, wears on your machine [and you] A lot of times, you just wind up with a lot of broken pieces/parts of wood on the ground that don't stack well. Bigger is better with that snotty stuff.

Amen to that!

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

With any wood thats as hard to split as that, I've found it best to just get it down to a size that'll fit in the stove door. Trying to make 'normal' size firewood out of it wastes time, pisses you off, wears on your machine [and you] A lot of times, you just wind up with a lot of broken pieces/parts of wood on the ground that don't stack well. Bigger is better with that snotty stuff.

Yep. A lot of my stuff is big oak crotches. I just split off the easy stuff, then knock the twisted stuff down to a manageable size. Burns well, but sure doesn't stack well!

 

[Andyshine77]

A had a bunch of wood like that last year, I'm almost sure it's Maple. I split it into big chunks for the stove. As others have said trying to split it smaller is a wast of time.

 

[JBinKC]

I think it is a gnarly piece of red maple. I had to tackle a bunch of it two years ago and even when the pieces were straight it took about twice as much effort to split by hand than I am usually accustomed to.

 

[woodbooga]

Yep. A lot of my stuff is big oak crotches. I just split off the easy stuff, then knock the twisted stuff down to a manageable size. Burns well, but sure doesn't stack well!

Ditto that. Where most of my firewood is free, I fall into the category of beggars not being able to be too choosy.

I keep all my wierdly shaped stuff in a sep pile - my b*st*rd pile as I call it. Some pieces are so big they'll fill up the whole woodbox of the cookstove. I use these biggies just before turning in when there's a thick bed of coals.

 

[mantis]

That is Maple for sure.Just twisted. It can be split just take a lot of persistance.(and persuation )I have had a lot of maple like this. When I was youn I had to do this all by hand.That sucked

 

[danrclem]

I spotted some trees the other day going to work that has bark that looks like it is the same. I couldn't tell what the leaves looked like. I think I'll stop and see if they'll let me look at their trees. They might think I'm some kind of lunatic but I think I'll try anyway.

"Hey, ya care if I lookatcha trees?"

Danny

 

[czeigler]

I think it almost looks like the Red Elm I have here. It is stringy when split, has a reddish tint and if you leave it outside it gets whiter. Almost like faded. It even looks like the piece with the bark removed. If you split it green the water seems to run out of it, definately easier to split once it dries a little.

 

[Gumnuts]

I spotted some trees the other day going to work that has bark that looks like it is the same. I couldn't tell what the leaves looked like. I think I'll stop and see if they'll let me look at their trees. They might think I'm some kind of lunatic but I think I'll try anyway.

"Hey, ya care if I lookatcha trees?"

Danny

LOL - Been known to do it too . Funny, sometimes, get passer-byes stopping lookin for a space-ship or some thing.

 

[aokpops]

just got some hickory an cottonwood bought had enough of this stringy crap .elm is a little tougher .not sure what wood you got there might half to order a rip chain.