Are there names for different splits???

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BobUrban

Minister of Fire
Jul 24, 2010
1,933
Central Michigan
Silly question I know but... Other that the obvious name for splits being, splits - are there any names for different types? I am particularily talking about the near perfect rectangular splits you get out of large rounds. At deer camp we call the Yulies and when I am working by myself I tend to refer to them as stackers and they get thrown off to the side because they make such nice end and corner stacks.

Anyone have a label they put on different shaped splits or am I just getting wood brain from all this CSSing I have been doing lately?
 
I like to split a lot of rectangle or square pieces when splitting and use those for the end cribbing. It makes the stacks much stronger and also I can pack them in the stove much tighter which really helps on those cold nights. I have occasionally called a few splits by certain names but it just does not seem appropriate to post those names on this forum.
 
It's not a silly question if you remember that we're all wood nuts here lol! I know what you are talking about, the splits that look "manufactured" because they are perfectly square. I really don't have any names for splits except kindling (small), quarter-splits (a little bigger) and then the larger fuelwood sized.

But I'm sure you'll get some very interesting answers shortly!
 
gymnastic splits
they look painful to me no matter who accomplishes one
 
Dennis - I was on a splitting mission today and was working on some more ash that I was getting 12+ splits per round out of - regarding your "not to be mentioned" names... I think I called a few by those names today. Working monster rounds can get you to say a lot of things that should not be typed here!!!

I also noticed, after I had the splitter put up in the shed and the quad parked that I had my stool log sitting in front of each mountain of splits? Arrggg - I always forget to split my sitting log, dang-it!

No biggie as I have so much more to get to - I just find it funny that there is one perfect little round in front of 5 different piles of splits in the yard.
 
Hello bob. Of course there are different names for splits.

Aside from the obvious- "small " "medium" "big one" "goongy" (big one with a gnarly twisted look).

When I was married (years ago) we used to call the really big, gnarly, twisted, knotty ones "baby makers". They were called this because once you put them into the stove, you had a longer uninterrupted amount of time for "other things" that were important to newly-weds...
 
I had an old friend from New York at our home a few years ago and he insisted in helping our son and I with some splitting . He was splitting some way too small and I asked him to just split the wood into Thirds. Well, when he repeated the word thirds it sounded like Turds. Our son to this day calls wood split into thirds Turds
 
Backwoods Savage said:
I like to split a lot of rectangle or square pieces when splitting and use those for the end cribbing. It makes the stacks much stronger and also I can pack them in the stove much tighter which really helps on those cold nights. I have occasionally called a few splits by certain names but it just does not seem appropriate to post those names on this forum.
+1, to ALL
 
Naming them? Not here, thanks, but feel free to indulge.

There is a problem when you carry on a conversation with them.
 
I've seen the little pieces that are short called "cookies", and knarly ones that aren't clean and stackable "uglies".
 
eclecticcottage said:
knarly ones that aren't clean and stackable "uglies".

My boy and I were out reloading the rack next to the house today and we got into a bunch of wood that was a real mess. He was making rhymes up about all the uglies. They came from a very large silver maple that we had taken down to make way for our house construction. It turned out to be curley maple. I tried to get some friends that dabbled in wood working to come take it, but none bit. The largest log was 6' long by 42" in diameter.

Since I couldn't give it away I cut and noodled it into split able pieces. I borrowed a friend's 35-ton Huskee and there were quite a few pieces that never really split but rather were mashed apart. A lot of splits were in spirals. Now those are a pain to stack. That wood burns well though. It is the densest silver maple that I have used.

My stacks are not the most attractive, but even an ugly piece of wood can keep you warm. I am looking forward to having the luxury of straight splitting wood some day. Then I will begin to consider other names for my splits.
 
No, other than size. But I do have a tendancy (to myself) to name the site of the action as if I were naming Civil War Battles. By the action I mean where trees are cut, bucked, and split. I usually leave them in multiple piles until I am ready to haul them to the shed for stacking. I leave the hauling and stacking for after I have 5 or 6 cords ready. So I refer to them by nicknames like, "Battle of Twisted Oak" "Battle of Struck Maple (lightening strike)" "The battle of fallen Ash" "Skirmish at Chestnut Oak Falls" "Battle of Red Oak Creek" "Battle of Split Hickory Mountain" "Battle of Hung Poplar Forks" "Twin Oak Falls" "Massacar of Hollow Oak"

I know it is probably a bit strange, but it also helps me to remember where my piles are if I name them.
 
the center part of the round i call the heart to me its the hardist part of the round an burn the longest an hotter burning, after splitting a round the heart is square or rectangler i use them for overnight burns.
 
Uglies, straights, crooked, and when they dont split easy i have names for them for which I get in trouble with the wife for using such language in earshot of her or the kids.
 
Quarters, halves, squares (really rectangles), and uglies.
 
I've named some "tough SOBs", & remember them when I throw them in the stove,
& smile.
 
mtarbert said:
I had an old friend from New York at our home a few years ago and he insisted in helping our son and I with some splitting . He was splitting some way too small and I asked him to just split the wood into Thirds. Well, when he repeated the word thirds it sounded like Turds. Our son to this day calls wood split into thirds Turds
I love it!! :lol: that is funny....
 
not sure if I can recall naming our splits BUT when looking at a tree job we DO refer to the trees in relation to splitting. If I go to check out a tree job and my buddy (who helps me do the cutting, we split the profits and the wood) is unable to come along, depending on the size of the tree, I will tell him "the tree on the job I looked at today is a "twenty" ("twenty" meaning that each round of the trunk will give us twenty splits from one round). We have done quite a few 25's and 30's, and even a 40 or two last year (one was a HUMONGOUS ash tree)........I know it's goofy, but we are, after all, WOOD GEEKS...... :roll:
 
Based soley on split diameter compared to crossection cut of beef and venison:
Nasties (unsplittable/unburnable)
Brisket (12"+)
Porterhouse (premium oak/hickory/ash)
Ribeye (6")
Backstrap (favorite 4" splits of debarked white ash)
Stewmeat (uglies, chunks)
Kindling
Bark Shards
 
BobUrban said:
Silly question I know but... Other that the obvious name for splits being, splits - are there any names for different types? I am particularily talking about the near perfect rectangular splits you get out of large rounds. At deer camp we call the Yulies and when I am working by myself I tend to refer to them as stackers and they get thrown off to the side because they make such nice end and corner stacks.

Anyone have a label they put on different shaped splits or am I just getting wood brain from all this CSSing I have been doing lately?
Actually, before I found Hearth.com (something like a decade ago), I had never heard of 'rounds' or 'splits'. In my area, generally a round was referred to as a 'block of wood' and a split was a 'piece of wood' or a 'stick of wood'. Here is the first place I had ever heard them referred to as splits and rounds.
 
KatWill said:
Uglies, straights, crooked, and when they dont split easy i have names for them for which I get in trouble with the wife for using such language in earshot of her or the kids.
That's the nomenclature I use. I guess kindling goes without saying. Crooked pieces are splits that will add instability to a stack (and therefore must be handled a little differently) where uglies (my favorite) are knots, scar tissue, etc. that have no business in a stack of wood. These are too small to be chainsawed safely, too big to throw into the stove whole, and too solid to take apart with a maul; these get cut 'the hard way' on the log splitter.
 
Like Quads . . . until I came here I never heard wood referred to as splits or rounds . . . it was simply firewood.

Now however I have names . . . there's Bob, Henry, Irving, Tyler and Geffrey (with a G) ;) . . . actually I guess I only differentiate between rounds and splits with splits being sub-divided into small, medium, large and what-was-I-thinking-that-will-never-fit-in-the-stove classifications . . . and then there is kindling which is a whole other species entirely . . . well and of course punks (wood that is punky, but not enough so that I can just toss it in the wood for tree fertilizer), chunks (short pieces cut off the stump or what was left over while I was bucking up the tree) and uglies (those curvy pieces, Y-pieces and general oddballs -- myself not withstanding.)
 
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