Pine Didn't Season for Carp!

'bout last Feb. or March (I think, coulda even be early April) I scrounged a Ranger load of fresh cut pine. Don't know what kinda pine - it was already cut on the curb and had thick, reddish bark. I split most of it shortly thereafter, some of it purty small.

I've bragged here many times how qucikly wood seasons in so. calif.'s heat and Fall winds. Well, not this stuff. After burning much of the Green Ash (as opposed to White Ash, Mountain Ash, etc., not green as in fresh cut), I came down to this pine in the stack. I don't have a moisture meter, but I'd guess this stuff is still well over 30 percent ... maybe 40 percent. When I split this wood w/ a rented splitter, moisture actually flowed outta it as the wedge came down.

I made the mistake of bringing in a couple of pieces and puttin' in the FP with some other wood and this pine sizzled like bacon in fry pan. I'm sortin' this stuff out of the dwindling pile that gets covered when it rains and I'm gonna stack it in a more open location. Hopefully, it will season in time for next winter.

I've had other pine that seasoned really quickly, but not this stuff.

Peace,
- Sequioa

It's pine. Beyond that, I couldn't tell ya. It was very wet when I split it, but I was CONfident that so. calif's heat would dry it out. I was wrong.
I'm purty sure most of it has been split for nine months or so, but I now recall that I split maybe 4 or 5 rounds in the interceding months - stuff that didn't get done when I had the rental splitter, so I went after it with Thumper (MegaMaul clone) until my arms or back hurt. That was usually one or two rounds, sometimes less, as it was really tough to split w/o hydrualics.

I'm tempted to get a Harbour Freight moisture meter just to see how green this wood still is. Sun ain't gonna burn this season.

Peace,
- Sequoi

raybonz said:

Sounds like you got your mitts on some pisspine lol

Ray

Click to expand...

It did sort of "piss" off when I was splitting it. Piss Pine ... that's what I'll call it. I'll report back when I get a chance to p/u a moisture meter.

Peace,
- Sequoia