I met my match today (again).. Bluegum

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SawdustSA

SawdustSA

Burning Hunk
Apr 1, 2014
164
Eastern Cape, South Africa
I've had problems splitting bluegum (Eucalytus) before, but after my recent success with River Red Gum, I thought I would give bluegum another go. A tree blew over about 4 weeks ago and only larger stumps were left.

This wood has a more brown colour compared to the red gum. The first round went ok and I managed to get it split but the bigger one, around 16inches thick would not budge after 15 decent hits with the splitting axe. It eventually made one small crack 3 inches from the edge but then I gave up and started noodling these into quarters.

This is decent wood for burning but hard work without a splitter.
 

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Good job not giving up. Since I cut my wood in 10" lengths and burn north and south, I very rarely have something that won't split. If everything is not cut to length yet maybe you could try your hand at some shorter lengths.
 
We have a fair amount of Bluegum in the east Bay Area, where it was mistakenly planted in a failed get-rich-quick scheme in the latter part of the 19th century. I'm told when using a splitter, the splitter will load up, then the log will suddenly split with a report like a rifle shot. It's great wood, high BTU, but I don't think I'd try splitting by hand.
 
Try sycamore......

There could be some laying in the street in front of my house and I wouldn't bother.....
 
I burn a lot of Eucalyptus, Bluegum in particular, and can't imagine splitting the stuff by hand. I usually buck into 2' / 600mm lengths and a lot of my rounds are big, 2' or more diameter, and the only way they can be split (imho) is with a big hydraulic splitter (mine is 40 ton). If you split it green it pops apart nicely, I don't get the bang MrWhoopee mentions, maybe that has to do with growing conditions (when I split paperbark it does that though).
It is great to burn though - hot, great coals, moderate ash. Most Aussie hardwoods are high in BTU's, I think our ironbark is rated 50% more BTU's than hickory, it's a bastard to cut though (blunts everything), so compared to that, I quite like Bluegum.
 
That one shot made me think you were splitting those things straight into bricks! "This guy wasn't kidding about bluegum", I thought. He must be Chuck Norris. Handsome dog, BTW.
 
Welcome to the forum SawdustSA.

I've been fortunate to never have to split that stuff but if so, hydraulics would definitely be in order!
 
We have black gum here. Wicked to split by hand. Don' t those cute little koala bears eat blue gum?:)
 
I now only burn Eucalyptus in the stove. Other wood we have here I use for the barbecue.
I managed to split the quarters after noodling the logs with the chainsaw. Fortunately noodling is fairly quick. Even the quarters have to orientated the correct way before they split. Log splitters are fairly rare in South Africa. Besides, the wood splitter I would need for bluegum will be out of my price range anyway.

I think in future I will rather target the River Red Gum. They tend to work easier. I built a new log cutting stand yesterday afternoon but did not test it yet. It is fully loaded but did not want to annoy the neighbours on a Sunday afternoon with the chain saw.
 
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