Before & After

You definitely cut uniform lengths and make very symmetrical and width graduated stacks.

But with all respect...I gotta ask

Why would you expend all that effort moving the pile of rounds and stacking it so carefully and orderly

....without splitting it first ????

I love working outside in wood a lot...but the older I get, the more efficient I try to be, and even without the extras, I try to minimize the handling

Even so:
Pick up the round after cut and put in truck
Pick off truck on to splitter
Pick off splitter to stack
Pick off stack and carry to stove
Pick up and place in stove
Pick up ashes and carry to garden

That is Plee..n..ty of handling for this old coot ;-))

Thx for sharing pics and best regards

Must either have a lot of free help or a wife that won't deal with the interim splitting mess during processing.

jlow said:

Bucked these last week and stacked em' on Saturday. Wood for 2011-2012.

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jlow, those are some nice looking rounds, time for splitting with more pictures. :snake:


zap

Nice pile...and stack. I too stack rounds - even if I am splitting within a few weeks. Wife doesn't like the piles, and its good exercise. Plus...sometimes a few weeks turns into months with a house full of activity (kids, dogs, wife!). For the extra hour...it looks much nicer.

jlow said:

I had thought about splittin em', but, I still would have to move them into my shed next spring. I wanted to get them inside the fenced in area because we do have some poachers. When the left side of my shed is empty ( approx. Early February) I will split them (weather permitting). Where they are now, the west wind should punish them pretty good. The ash has been down for over a year, so, I expect them to season well over the summer.

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jlow did you get any of that snow?


zap

Nice work.
Piles look like art work

Lucky you, no snow.

Everything I do is either hickory or various types of oak. I've found that, especially with the hickory, letting them sit in rounds a long time makes it harder to split. I had a stack of rounds of hickory that sat there a year before I came back to split it (by hand-always) and my 8 lb maul just bounced off of it. (This was before I got my Fiskars SS). It took a lot of extra whacks to split each round.
Does that vary with variety of tree? Are some trees easier to split when freshly cut while others split easier after sitting in rounds for a while?

I also like to stack rounds to make an artsy wall.

jlow said:

I wish I had an answer for you, but, this is my first time stacking rounds. I am doing it because it is ash and my splitter just pops em' open and I like the look for the winter and I am sore and I don't have enough daylight and it is the holidays and this is the first year that I have enough fot the season and and and etc.

I do know that my first year before I got my splitter, my fiskars won the battle with the ash I bucked.

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Any axe works well when splitting ash!