My First Free Craigslist Firewood - Elm. Any good?

So they are bucked to about 20 plus inches and 5' in diameter. If so I'd just go right after those with my full chisel chains, making lots of noodles. Standing them up on their ends might be a PITA without help either mechanical or human. Wedge them in place with some smaller rounds and go at it. Have some wood or plastic wedges around as sometime I've had big rounds try to grab the bar while halving them. If one decides to go over on you while you are cutting, get out of the way.

Yea, pictures would be great.

Noodling? I am still not certain what that means. I was planning on using my track loader with forks and getting each one off the ground, then start ripping in off the edges 6 to 8 inches at a time. the idea was to diminish the bigs slowly into manageable pieces.

I need to get some full chisel chains right or can I go with semi chisel?

I'll tkae pics today if it doesn't rain on me!

backwoodz said:

Noodling? I am still not certain what that means...

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The term was coined by the appearance of the long "noodles" that the saw makes. It is cutting in the direction that the tree grows, parallel to the bark, which is perpendicular to how one normally bucks rounds.

The long noodles can clog up the clutch/sprocket area and get pulled back into the chain/bar, clogging up the oiler so you need to be cognizant of that.

In other words ripping. I was going to see if I could pick up a ripping chain at the local dealer otherwise just tackle them with my usual chain.

Most of the rounds need to be reduced to firewood length. Most around 32 inches. A couple of the monsters are good length but there are a few that will need to be halved.

backwoodz said:

In other words ripping...

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Well... yes, but there are two ways to rip. The other way is to saw the way a sawmill would, lengthwise too but across the growth rings. I would just use a full chisel for noodling.

I've been noodling elm and other wood with semi chisel Oregon 73LGX chain. It's the only way to safely manhandle those big rounds...unless you're a 21 year old bachelor. You'll be amazed on how easy it is to do if you haven't done it before. Our wood is dirty cause I drag logs to a work site that's why we use semi chisel.

Oh and I like elm..probably the hardest wood we have around here. Not easy to split but I try and shave it off the sides like you would if you were hand splitting to avoid that spaghetti effect.

rustybumpers said:

I just snagged my first load of free firewood off Craigslist. It is supposed to be Elm. Not sure which species of Elm but woodheat.org says all Elm has pretty high BTUs. What do you guys think, is it any good? How long should it take to season?

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I don't recognize that wood right off the bat, but Elm is pretty rare around these parts.

I'm betting it's Maple or Locust. Split a round. If it smells like hot garbage then it's locust for sure.

I burn some elm every year approx 1 cord worth. There is a big difference in splitting between the different species, slippery, American, and non-natives like Chinese and Siberian. I never know the species because the bark has fallen off by the time I drop them. It is always chancy until I hit it the first time with the mail. Elm seldom gets very big around my parts but if it did I would be noodling them down for easier splitting using my full chisel chain.

I started in on some smaller rounds Saturday. I sawed them to firewood length. Most rounds were in the 14 to 20 inch diameter. After 15 rounds I had a 8 foot bed of pickup filled with splits. Half would split smooth ( real dry) other was stringy and shread
( still wet or alive ) I assume.
Barely made a dent in the original pile. I am taking pics as I go, cause I don't know if I'll ever have that much elm at my house again, at least not in one dumping.
I did try to split by hand to prove to my dad why it was a PIA. Obviously I turned to my Huskee 35 ton splitter.

I had a standing very dead elm cut down at my house. My maul just bounced off the rounds. I gave up and stacked it on the street in front of my house. Somebody took all of it.

Elm smallish rounds are sometimes ok but the big ones give you quite a workout. I had an red elm last fall and split a good bit by hand but the rounds that I hit 50 or so times without a split went into the need a splitter pile and I used my buddies and it shuddered and quit a couple of time on the larger ones 2' plus across
and its a 25 ton with an 10hp engine. If it gets all stringy when you try the splitter you might try letting it dry for a bit first, some of the stuff I had was cut to length then sat for 6 months before I split it and it worked better than the wetter stuff that was left in longer logs.

Save a couple large rounds and challenge an inlaw to split it while you choose a oak to split and have some fun ! Maybe even wager on it.

I will admit I didn't read this entire thread, but I saw the pic's of the wood on the splitter and that sure as heck is elm. Stack it until next year and split it in the spring. Crack it in half, then bust the "heart" out of it. The outside 3/4 will split pretty easy once you manage to get the heart out of it.

My buddy dropped a load of elm last ear and I had at it. Shortly there-after I said "the hell with this" and just stacked it. This spring I had to split it to get it get it out of the way and it was not nearly as troublesome.

Elm,
Burns hot, leaves lots of ash

Big rounds split hard

Called Piss Elm for a reason

I just cut down a dead elm yesterday, have alot of big stuff to split. My buddy has a 27 tons splitter he's bringing over to help me.