Read of it, dreaded it, met it.

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ChrisNJ

Feeling the Heat
Sep 25, 2009
380
Burlington County
Ice cream sandwich....m-m-m-m-m-m-m...I WANT one!
 
Yep I would stick with the Ice Cream!
 
ChrisNJ, you poor thing. Come out west for your wood. No more stringy, nasty, wedge-sucking wood here. I'll trade you cord-for-cord, take that nasty-wasty woodum's off your hands. There, there.(you bring the ice cream!) :lol:
 
That's an interesting piece of wood. I'm noticing that it fractured in a jagged pattern instead of straight lines as rounds normally do. The second thing is that at the top of the round, there's a split section that's clean and smooth. One of the characteristics of the elm that I've split is that the fiber comes apart looking like angel hair pasta - a stringy mess where each strand seems to be attached to its neighbor with epoxy. I don't see any of that at the top split portion of the round. Next, it looks like by the blue wedge in the first pic, is some really ugly twisted grain. But the thing that really caught my eye is the top surface of the round. That discoloration might be saw burn, but probably not. Plus that nasty looking imperfection, next to the young woodsman's hand, could be another sign of growing pains. Not sure what type of wood this is, but my guess is that this section of the tree grew under lots of stress - maybe something leaning on it, or some other problem that forced it to grow extra strong and tough. I've only seen a few rounds that have surfaces looking like this one, and all of them turned out to be bad hombres for a hand splitter. I'm with everyone else that picked the Ice cream instead of the wood :p
 
Well now you all just send those lovely chunks of Elm right on over here. An you can keep all the ice cream. Heck I might even buy ya some more.
 
hummmm....doesn't look like Elm either. You could try splitting off the sides, that's what I do in the winter with the bigger rounds.
4018448273_5147582757.jpg

^someone posted this a while ago
 
ChrisNJ said:
As a scrounger I am not picky but after all I have read of this species I am fortunate to have only run into what I believe to be a single piece of it, and after absorbing all three of my wedges it went to the dump :-( Elm I assume.

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss120/Rhombus_2009/IMG_2984.jpg

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss120/Rhombus_2009/IMG_2985.jpg

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss120/Rhombus_2009/IMG_2983.jpg
Click to expand...

After reading some of your previous post I took you for an older feller.Glad you started young. By the time your 16 you will know more than most of us. You will switch from ice cream and chainsaws to beer/chainsaws/wild women.
 
That ain't elm. Looks like some nasty poplar to me. It can grow like that at times. Heck, just about any species can grow like that under the right (wrong) conditions.
 
willworkforwood said:
That's an interesting piece of wood. I'm noticing that it fractured in a jagged pattern instead of straight lines as rounds normally do. The second thing is that at the top of the round, there's a split section that's clean and smooth. One of the characteristics of the elm that I've split is that the fiber comes apart looking like angel hair pasta - a stringy mess where each strand seems to be attached to its neighbor with epoxy. I don't see any of that at the top split portion of the round. Next, it looks like by the blue wedge in the first pic, is some really ugly twisted grain. But the thing that really caught my eye is the top surface of the round. That discoloration might be saw burn, but probably not. Plus that nasty looking imperfection, next to the young woodsman's hand, could be another sign of growing pains. Not sure what type of wood this is, but my guess is that this section of the tree grew under lots of stress - maybe something leaning on it, or some other problem that forced it to grow extra strong and tough. I've only seen a few rounds that have surfaces looking like this one, and all of them turned out to be bad hombres for a hand splitter. I'm with everyone else that picked the Ice cream instead of the wood :p
Click to expand...

Interesting hypothesis, I have no idea and found it very odd that a single round gave me so much trouble.
 
I've lost wedges into oak also, crotches in big old trees. Found one of 'em again, with my chain saw, a few years later. Guess thats what I get for not having an outdoor firepit.
 
I feel your pain. Im currently splitting some w a gas powered splitter....its still a pain. It has more strings than an all girl high school!
 
I'm not positive what it is but elm it is not unless you have some type of elm there that we do not have. Yes, it splits like elm but looks more like poplar or cottonwood. It very well could be something else that we don't have here.

The next time you run into that sort of thing, try driving both wedges in together. That is, one right beside the other to make a wider wedge going in. One nice thing about doing it that way is that they are easier to get out if they do hang up.
 
I have some of that!!!! Looks exactly the same and split the same way. Did it stink when you cut it, like cow poo? I borrowed a splitter and it grunted through the smaller rounds I had so I left the bigger ones stacked unsplit. After some research I was almost sure it was cottonwood, poplar. I didn't have leaves to double check these pieces but have since found some this summer to get an I.D.
 
ckarotka said:
I have some of that!!!! Looks exactly the same and split the same way. Did it stink when you cut it, like cow poo? I borrowed a splitter and it grunted through the smaller rounds I had so I left the bigger ones stacked unsplit. After some research I was almost sure it was cottonwood, poplar. I didn't have leaves to double check these pieces but have since found some this summer to get an I.D.
Click to expand...

LOL, those pics are actually a couple months old and I dont recall any offensive odor. Actually at the time I was thinking I had a load of gum but it all really split easy with the splitting ax and this was only piece to give me a hard time.
 
Hmmm . . . based on your picture you look a lot younger than I thought you would be . . . or maybe you just look young for your age. ;) :)
 
Looks like a nice soft ice cream smmich too. And look at the size of that bite he took. That was no dainty nibble. That was a full shove it in your trap and take the most you can bite.

I love them sammichis.
 
Yeah, I've had that before with boxelder that had grown twisted like a steel cable. It split about as tough as I imagine a steel cable would too. I ended up carefully cutting my wedges out and using the chainsaw on the rest to get it to split. I saved the last piece to use as a lightweight, portable chopping block :)
 
BucksCoBernie said:
I feel your pain. Im currently splitting some w a gas powered splitter....its still a pain. It has more strings than an all girl high school!
Click to expand...

BWAHAHA
 
What state do you live in??

That looks like Sweet Gum to me.

seems like the hard wood to split up north is ELM, down south is Sweet Gum.

I've sure split my share of sweet gum - and it always looks just like that - my dad has a big pile of it right now, that has dried enough this summer, that the splitter doesn't even like splitting it - but does, reluctantly.

luckily for me, where i live now, I have neither elm nor sweet gum around - and the hardest wood to split around here is hickory - oh and knotty hemlock.
 
Not sure how this helps now - but having a sharp axe handy to slice into the side of the round (cutting those strings) will sometimes be enough to complete the job.
 
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