miserable wood

Sounds like Mulberry. I scrounged three cords from a Giant Mulberry this summer and was the same PITA as yours.

Sounds like ELM.

Does anybody know if Poplar,Box Eldar or Tulip splits really stringy? I've got a huge tree I think is one of these types- its got really thick bark and the wood smells like septic! It's super stringy.

Sounds like elm to me to. i split about a 1/4 of a cord of elm this year . worst stuff i have ever split. i spit a cord of oak faster than i did the elm. absolutely horrible

fire_man said:

Does anybody know if Poplar,Box Eldar or Tulip splits really stringy? I've got a huge tree I think is one of these types- its got really thick bark and the wood smells like septic! It's super stringy.

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I think all of those usually split pretty nicely, but you can always find a few tough, stirngy pieces in any tree. If the tree had lots of large branches, that can also make it tough. Still, I'd expect any of these trees to have mostly easy splitting wood.

Well the OP pretty well described elm. Nasty stuff.

Wood Duck said:

fire_man said:

Does anybody know if Poplar,Box Eldar or Tulip splits really stringy? I've got a huge tree I think is one of these types- its got really thick bark and the wood smells like septic! It's super stringy.

Click to expand...

I think all of those usually split pretty nicely, but you can always find a few tough, stirngy pieces in any tree. If the tree had lots of large branches, that can also make it tough. Still, I'd expect any of these trees to have mostly easy splitting wood.

Click to expand...

The smell leads me to think box elder , does it have red running thru the center ? BE can be a bit stringy and they grow pretty large.

Tony H said:

Wood Duck said:

fire_man said:

Does anybody know if Poplar,Box Eldar or Tulip splits really stringy? I've got a huge tree I think is one of these types- its got really thick bark and the wood smells like septic! It's super stringy.

Click to expand...

I think all of those usually split pretty nicely, but you can always find a few tough, stirngy pieces in any tree. If the tree had lots of large branches, that can also make it tough. Still, I'd expect any of these trees to have mostly easy splitting wood.

Click to expand...

The smell leads me to think box elder , does it have red running thru the center ? BE can be a bit stringy and they grow pretty large.

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I don't see any red in there - Ill try to get a picture. The base of this tree is 45 inches diameter. The grapple truck driver thought it was Box Eldar, but I saw some pictures that disagreed. Boy does this wood smell bad!

boxelder typically smells pretty bad. but it doesnt always have red in the center of it.

pictures would really help in this case.

Yellow stringy center with large bark. I would go with Locust.

Some locust is stringy and tough to split but most splits nicely.

Box Elder is a real pain to split because it's all twisted up and gnarly.

I got about a half a cord of box-elder for free a few years ago, and after splitting it, even for free, I'll never take it again.

-SF

CowboyAndy said:

boxelder typically smells pretty bad. but it doesnt always have red in the center of it.

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Last spring I cut up a good sized box elder that was shading my house because I couldn't stand the box elder bugs that were invading my house. I wasn't happy about losing the only shade tree I had, but I was consoled by the fact that at least I'd be getting some pretty wood for bowl turning. Turning friends were promised all they wanted. Then the first split revealed that the tree was devoid of the highly desired red staining.

Smells like s*** and burns like s*** too.

jersey boy said:

I would appreciate some help id'ing some wood I got. It has a fairly thick deeply ridged bark. The wood itself is a little yellow. This stuff splits miserable. Its very stringy it almost tears apart rather than splitting. I have to keep pounding all the way down to my block. It was chunked up by a utility co. so I didnt get to see the rest of the tree.

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From your description of the bark, wood and splitting characteristics it certainly sounds like elm.