What size/diameter limb ideal for splitting?

6 inch range.

Anything less than 4" is brush as far as I'm concerned.

In that case I'd keep everything from the largest round I could buck in 2 passes, down to about 2 inch diameter. The biggest you can buck easily is gonna depend on your saw of course, but ballpark would be bar length minus 1 inch X 2. so for 16" bar that'd be 30". Anything that is small enough that it's difficult to split does not need to be split anyway.
Heck who am I kidding? Oak and Hickory? I'd keep it all but the twigs.

I am not sure how you split your firewood, but when using a maul or splitting ax, splitting a short but large diameter round from the trunk of a tree (thus normally knot-free) is no harder than splitting a smaller diameter round. Big rounds take more splits, but each split is not hard. In fact, big,straight oak splits very nicely. I would ask the tree guy to buck the large diameter straight sections of trunk to 16 inch long rounds.

But that isn't what you asked. To answer your question, a rounds six inches or larger are probably what I'd want. However, if you are looking for easy splitting by hand (maul or ax) THE CUT ON AT LEAST ONE END MUST BE REASONABLY PERPENDICULAR TO THE LONG AXIS OF THE ROUND! Tree trimmers seem to be prone to making sharp angle cuts which create rounds that don't stand up on their own. This makes standing the round up to split it a pain. I solve the problem by leaning the round as vertically as possible against a horizontal log, standing on the side of the log opposite the round, and splitting. This works OK, but I'd much rather have rounds that I can stand up on a very short, large round to split. By the way, I'd ask the tree guy to cut a couple of short (8 or 10 inch?) rounds from the fat part of the tree to use as splitting blocks.

Stacked in blocks (view any post by backwoods savage to see pics) you can fit a bunch of wood in a small space. I'd have to give away wood then need it in a year or two.

Anything under six inches is the best there is, since it doen't need to be split! Why do you only want to keep wood that needs splitting?

As to how small to save, that is definitely a personal preferance issue, we all have own ideas. I save everything from thumb size up.
I seldom have to make kindling, I just grab a handfull of small diameter, super dry stuff out of the pile. Comes under waste not, want not. Speaking of that, if you don't have room to store both trees, leave one standing for now. Oak and hickory are as good as it gets for firewood.

Anyone throwing away wood under 4" diameter is wasting tons and tons of wood, and creating much more work for themselves by then splitting larger peices down to four inches. Not only does the small stuff burn fine, it seasons faster as well.

Not sure I understand why you don't want to use the trunk wood. That's as good as it gets and is the easiest to split. If you're physically unable, and there's not shame there, maybe someone would do it for you on shares. Give the guy three parts and you keep one. It's better than just tossing it all away and it's certainly better than buying it back from the same guy who cut down the tree.

If I ended up buying the same wood that I earlier paid to have cut and hauled away.......well.......I think I might cry......Cheers!

I rarely split any rounds under 6",less than 10% at most.Nice to have them for overnight burns & when I'm away from home more than 8-9 hrs.Can always resplit one of the larger pieces if needed.Plus when cutting I save everything over 1"-1 1/2".Anything smaller is piled up in the woods for wildlife cover.

I would keep the entire Hickory first off. Splitting 5-10 inch diameter by hand is likely the easiest. Let the stuff dry a while before splitting may help too.

What a shame you can't keep it all, that is prime wood. If it were me, I'd rent a storage shed and keep all but the sticks. Do you have a friend or relative who would allow you to store some of it on a corner of their property?

NH_Wood said:

If I ended up buying the same wood that I earlier paid to have cut and hauled away.......well.......I think I might cry......Cheers!

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Thats what I was thinking, I hope he's going to give you a heck of a deal!

NH_Wood said:

If I ended up buying the same wood that I earlier paid to have cut and hauled away.......well.......I think I might cry......Cheers!

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To Funny! lmao

I guess it depends on how you split. Axe splitting requires logs that can stand on their own. With hydraulic it won't matter. I usually keep/scrounge anything down to about 2", and split 4" or bigger with a splitter.

If you can get the wood...trunk and limbs...bucked to your stove length and organized a little you could rent a splitter for a day (and maybe get a friend to help) and split it all up into good firewood in a day. You wouldn't even have to split the big rounds up completely, just knock'em down to size so that your splitting axe/maul will make short work of them later.

It'd be a lot cheaper than buying it back from your tree guy. :-S

It seems to me that you're about to let a lot of good wood get away from you. Of course, if money is no issue...

Ed

One more thing, if you're just going to keep a few of the limbs then at least pick the straightest ones. You'll get lots more wood (and better wood) out of those rounds from the trunk rather than a bunch of limb wood...the grain will be straighter, too.

Ed

snosurfa7 said:

Thanks for the replies.

I am going to keep all of the hickory and as much of the oak as I can. This guy gave me an incredible deal - at least $400 less than anyone else I called - w/ ins, worksman comp, everything. Thing is, I think he recoups his money in selling firewood - so he actually told me it would be MORE money if he left a lot of the limbs down on my property. So it comes down to him wanting this wood too. So either I spend $400 more and get to keep a bunch of wood that I have to buck and split myself if I use another guy or I just use this guy and save the money. I'll still get probably 2-3 cords out of it. Like I said, I can almost always get free wood from my buddy's farm so its not really a big deal. Not trying to waste money or wood that's for sure!

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You know the situation and the lay of the land better than any of us so you'll have to decide on what to do. I'd hang onto as much of it as I could, though. Bottom line is that you've got to do what you feel good about doing. The best wood will come out of the rounds cut from the trunks, definitely score a few of those. Limb wood tends to "curve" and won't stack up as straight to dry nor in the stove. Take the bigger limbs if you can...definitely the straighter ones. The little 1"-2" stuff burns, too, it's good kindlin' and can be stuffed in around the bigger pieces in your stove he'd would probably happy to leave that with you.

Just do what makes you happy and move on. Everything will work out.

Best wishes,
Ed

midwestcoast said:

In that case I'd keep everything from the largest round I could buck in 2 passes, down to about 2 inch diameter. The biggest you can buck easily is gonna depend on your saw of course, but ballpark would be bar length minus 1 inch X 2. so for 16" bar that'd be 30". Anything that is small enough that it's difficult to split does not need to be split anyway.
Heck who am I kidding? Oak and Hickory? I'd keep it all but the twigs.

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Roger that. And ... some twigs make great kindling, for those who just can't see buying kindling.

The bulk of the lumber is in the big stuff- just can't see tossing that.

snosurfa7 said:

I am definitely going to keep 2 or 3 sections of the trunk for splitting blocks - that makes a huge difference when you have a nice splitting block.

The guy cutting is only going to leave me some limbs - I have to do all the bucking - so with the smaller branches hanging off these limbs I will keep that as well. I just have to figure out which limbs to keep. It does not make financial sense to have the tree guy do any further bucking/trimming because for that additional price (nothing extra to leave some limbs though) I could just pick up firewood. I've got a friend with a farm anyway about an hour away I usually get wood from there. Plus, this guy sells wood for firewood so hey I'll probably see this wood again anyway if I choose to buy it.


Like I said, I can almost always get free wood from my buddy’s farm so its not really a big deal.

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Sad to hear those trees have to come down. On the size, you are paying dollars to have these trees cut down; save all you can.....even if you don't split it. We always try to save some rounds and I like the 5" or so rounds for overnight fires even if I put in only one or two of them.

I must remark about the things in bold in your quote. Firstly, I split wood by hand for close to 40 years before graduating to hydraulics and in all that time I never used a splitting block! Well, I did try it once but found it not worth the time and made the job harder rather than easier. I simply just stood the log up on the ground and split it there. Just think; no lifting of every log you want to split! Just think; if you have to split more than once, most of the time the split wood will fall to the ground. No splitting block, no lifting of that split to split it again. Splitting wood is hard enough work; why make more work for yourself? Wood will split easier on the ground than it will on the splitting block and one of the reasons for that is the fact you have a longer stoke when swinging the axe or maul.

So you can cut wood on your buddy's farm and its not really a big deal. However, the wood you have at home is wood you do not have to haul! But maybe the price of gas is lower there? Also, we've seen it many times when suddenly the buddy says he doesn't want more wood cut. What then?

Case in point: this past winter I offered to let a fellow come in and cut some firewood at no charge. Yet, he will never cut wood on our place again. I had to tell him to stop because he did some things that I did not want done. He thought he was doing good but in fact he ruined his chances of ever cutting wood on our place again......even if he was to pay for it. These type of things can happen and can happen very easily because folks idea of what is good for the land may not be the same as the landowner's idea. So if you do cut on a buddy's place. be very thankful and ask before you do something. Also, even if he wants nothing for the wood does not mean you should not give anything. Some token of thanks is almost always in order.

Good luck.

Six inch pieces are great for splitting, but man that big stuff splits so nice too if its a good clear tree like red oak.