I love the fiskars!

Nice. Who doesn't love a nice x27

How does Willow Oak burn? I just got about 2/3 cord and am about to c/s/s it. They are mostly end of branches, so nothing huge whatsoever...maybe 8''-10'' at best. A tree was trimmed and I was able to get the scraps to keep me warm. I'm guessing it will season quite quickly because of how thin the branches are.

It really is.."that good"...

Now you need a splitting block about 9" high. A slab of Oak or Hickory with gnarly grain....

I think that just maybe someday I just probably might you never know try one of them there fiskars....

yeah its great on the easy stuff, on the tougher stuff not so much.

KindredSpiritzz said:

yeah its great on the easy stuff, on the tougher stuff not so much.

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KindredSpiritzz, I agree with you ^5s.

But most of yur good fuel is pretty easy to split....oak, locust, mulberry, cherry...when green...i had some issues with hackberry..man that stuff is stringy....but to each his own..i love mine...and would never be without it..

I find the fiskers will allow you to split longer than a maul. But it hurts my elbow after a couple hours, sore shoulders heal much faster than an elbow. So I don't care for them anymore. The PA80 feels much better and gets more done for me.

splitoak said:

But most of yur good fuel is pretty easy to split....oak, locust, mulberry, cherry...when green...i had some issues with hackberry..man that stuff is stringy....but to each his own..i love mine...and would never be without it..

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Uh, no. Beech and Hickory are in no possible universe easy to split. Black birch is, but that's what makes it nearly the ideal mid-winter fuel.

gyrfalcon said:

Beech and Hickory are in no possible universe easy to split.

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I have picked up both of these that split quite easily, two to three wacks to break 20" rounds. But I have also picked up hickory that was stringy, nasty, and refused to go down without a fight. Depends on the part of the tree and the environment the tree grew up in..........

smokedragon said:

I have picked up both of these that split quite easily, two to three wacks to break 20" rounds. But I have also picked up hickory that was stringy, nasty, and refused to go down without a fight. Depends on the part of the tree and the environment the tree grew up in..........

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I agree with the hickory comment here, unless its a knotty piece. Mine just explodes off the X25, start by working around the piece till its just heart wood left then it pops easily.

+2 on hickory......it depends on the tree. I processed one that had fallen in the woods - nice and tall and straight with very few branches on the trunk. I got a cord out of it and used only my Fiskars to do so.

When freshly cut I could sometimes whack a round in half with one stroke...a 16" diameter 16" long round that was too heavy to lift without risking injury. And splitting the trunk wood up went very quickly and with little effort.

Some rounds I didn't get to split for a few weeks because of the snow - and they were tougher to split..stringier. Fresh cut - straight grain - it was a joy to split.

smokedragon said:

I have picked up both of these that split quite easily, two to three wacks to break 20" rounds. But I have also picked up hickory that was stringy, nasty, and refused to go down without a fight. Depends on the part of the tree and the environment the tree grew up in..........

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OK, I believe you, but I suspect the latitude may make the difference. Beech is my primary mid-winter fuel, and contrary to your experience, I have only very occasionally had a piece that was easy to split. It's mainly because of beech that I gave in and bought a small splitter, and I still have to take a fair amount over to a neighbor every year so I can use his big gas splitter on it.

smokedragon said:

Depends on the part of the tree and the environment the tree grew up in..........

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I one time read (even before joining here) that trees growing isolated in the countryside adjust their growth and fiber composition due to being exposed to a lot of wind. The lateral stress while at the same time being exposed to a lot of sun requires a different kind of growth than a forest tree that needs to fight for light while being relatively sheltered from the wind.

I just finished splitting a triaxle load on Friday, Including this guy. . .

gyrfalcon said:

contrary to your experience, I have only very occasionally had a piece that was easy to split.

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I have had beech that as Brother Bart said was "a real beech" to split.......but I have had some that split well (if it wasn't a crotch).

That is what makes firewood so interesting for me.

Everyone always espouses that poplar is just SOOOOO easy to split. I got a poplar tree that was 28" DBH and the bottom 10 rounds were as unsplittable as sweet gum. I have never had a poplar tree that hard to split since then, but it does happen.

gyrfalcon said:

Uh, no. Beech and Hickory are in no possible universe easy to split. Black birch is, but that's what makes it nearly the ideal mid-winter fuel.

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I love black birch myself and since it's the predominant species in my woodlot I cut and split quite a lot of it. I agree it's very easily split....usually - but oddly enough the toughest wood I've had to deal with in recent memory came from a black birch I cut down a few years back. The way the bark looked, it seemed this particular tree wouldn't pose any problems...it didn't look twisted at all. It was probably 14" DBH - and I felled it, bucked it into 16" rounds and tried splitting a trunk round there in the woods...NOT

Loaded it into the truck and brought it home. Tried to split the trunk rounds with the maul on the block - nothing...the maul bounced off time after time. Brought out the sledge and wedges - and found that I could literally drive a wedge straight through the round till it hit the block and the friggin' rounds still would not split. I had to get a framing hammer and knock the wedge out of the round just to retrieve it.

Lacking hydraulics, I gave up. The stuff eventually went punky and I ended up dumping it in the brush pile

KindredSpiritzz said:

yeah its great on the easy stuff, on the tougher stuff not so much.

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That's when you appreciate 2.5 kg Wetterlings or Hultafors (via Husqvarna) or Council maul. None of the cheap crop, or toys.

I'd put this up against a fiskars any day, light enough to swing all day but yet enough ummph to get thru almost anything. But thats just my opinion i guess.

beats me, i have had it over 20 yrs, no idea where i picked it up at. But yeah, kinda in between an axe and a maul i guess. All i know is i love it.