how do you know when it is time to split.... by hand

I'm not an expert but I've been splitting a lot of wood the past couple of years. The answer here as far as I can tell is - It depends. I like splitting fresh cut oak. It splits really nice wet and green-However I've also been splitting oak that's been bucked for two years and that stuff splits like a champ, too. Locust practically falls apart, and splits itself after sitting bucked for some time. I've found that Sugar Maple was easier to split fresh. When it dried out it seemed rock hard. Some pines seemed to be almost impossible to split fresh cut, then after a little bit of drying time it split better. But that's just my limited experience in the past two years or so.

Anyway, I think you'll know once you take a couple hacks into it. For the big boys: Start on the outside, and work your way in. Don't try to split them in half. I'm sure some other far more experienced guys are going to chime in soon.

They're ready when you're ready. Split the big boys with a wedge and sledge, from there on its easier. What are you using to split? Its a lot easier with a Fiskars.

You can do the research your self but the fact of the matter is that green wood (except elm) splitts better fresh cut. Been splitting wood for over 30 years and thats the way it is plus info on the net says the same thing.

par0thead151 said:

weatherguy said:

They're ready when you're ready. Split the big boys with a wedge and sledge, from there on its easier. What are you using to split? Its a lot easier with a Fiskars.

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a Fiskars is a brand of axe?
I use a maul. 8# and 10#
maybe that is what i am doing wrong?

time to youtube how to split with a wedge and sledge


looks like i found my new favorite way to destroy those massive rounds....
widdling along the outside with a maul SUCKED.

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Thats how I do it, I have 15-16 30+inch rounds to break up this weekend, I hit it with the wedge and sledge then the fiskars (see below), easy as pie.

par0thead151 said:

a Fiskars is a brand of axe?
.

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Not just any brand of axe, only the best, baddest-a$$ brand of axes out there! Their handles are super-durable & virtually indestuctable! Their "splitting axes" are a sort of hybrid between an axe & a maul, & can make short work of almost any log you throw at them!

I own several Gerber (exact same as Fiskars, different color) axes, & they are the most amazing wood-splitting tools I've ever owned or used!


Many people on this forum share similar thoughts about the Fiskars.

A fiskars is a very nice tool but if the wood splits easily the other types of mauls will work also, I never had to use a wedge except once in a while, the last thing you want to do is cut the rounds and let them lay for a periond of time as they become harder to split after setting.

oldspark said:

You can do the research your self but the fact of the matter is that green wood (except elm) splitts better fresh cut. Been splitting wood for over 30 years and thats the way it is plus info on the net says the same thing.

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Totally disagree, but what eles is new?

I'm still searching for the elusive piece of wood that splits easier when green. Been looking for about 30 years now and I have yet to find ANY wood that splits easier when its fresh cut. Maybe its a New England thing, but wood around here will vary between harder to split up to utterly impossible to split by hand when green.

Tried to split a piece of fresh cut maple last fall when my brother and I dropped it. Took a round about 18" tall by 18" diameter, fresh cut off the trunk. Wailed on it wiht the 8lb maul for about 20 whacks and all I got was tired. Busted out the 12lb sledge and wood grenade...I was able to tap the grenade in about an inch or so, but thats as far as it would get...any good pounding I gave it would result an most of the energy being reflected back into the grenade and the sucker would pop up out of the round several feet. Same rounds right now pop open with a few smacks of that very same maul.

Same results with beech, red oak, yellow and white birch. Ash splits easily no matter what.

Wet wood is most definitely not easier to split around here. Let it sit till the ends start cracking. It would be so much more convenient if wood did split easily when green as it would speed up the seaoning time by a significant amount, sadly it is not the case, at least not for me.

Well that is hard to understand, I split oak, ash, locust. silver maple, and mulberry and they all split better when fresh cut and others on this forum have said the same thing. If I leave the wood set for as little as 2 weeks it become harder to split.

Am I old school, or an old fool?
I've always split it as soon as I cut it.
I want it to dry. If it's gotta be split to dry, the sooner I split it (by hand), the sooner it dries.
When it's in my stack, it's drying time. Not waiting-to-be-split time.
Your choice, obviously. I'll burn my wood, you burn yours.

par0thead151 said:

so, splitting by hand is easier after letting the rounds sit for a while, but how do you know when it is a ideal time to split them?
i have to split by hand all the stuff i bring to my work storage lot, and have noticed that the small rounds of ash split like a breeze, but the large ones are a huge pain in the ass.
i assume this is due to the smaller ones drying out faster.
what can i do to tell when a round is ready to split other than giving it a few wacks?

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Most all of the wood I split works best when fresh. (yes- I've lived in New England all my years as well) I haven't split elm since I was a kid, so I dunno.

Oak is especially easy when the heart is still beating.

I spent the $300 a few years ago and bought my buddy an electric wood splitter as a "gift". I say "gift" cause I think I've used it more than him.

Anyhow I laughed at it when I first bought it. It was kind of a joke, figured we could return it if it sucked like I thought it would. Well it flat out kicks butt for the cost!

I have a bad back from an injury this winter (fell off a building) and I wasn't about ready to split 2 cords of wood by hand. It took me 2 evenings, 3-4 hours each night to split and stack using that little splitter.

So what am I doing wrong/differently that seems to make green wood much harder to split than slightly seasoned in the round? Its not logical that my experience differs so it must be some other factor.

Why is it that when I hit a green round with an 8lb maul, it bounces off the wood with 10-20 consecutive strikes, barely leaving a mark but if the round sits for a couple months the same maul busts it apart in a couple swings?

I totally agree that the sooner after bucking you cna split the wood and exose more surface area to open air the better as it will dry sooner...just can't figure out why you guys all say its easier to split green wood when my experience says otherwise. Must be me.

I say split whenever you can, the sooner the better. I don't consider the time wood sits in the round to be drying time. That begins only after splitting, so why wait?

As for Fiskars, don't buy into the hype. They work fine on easy stuff, but what doesn't?

Mayhem- do you use a sharp maul or a dull one? Do you split a lot of oak?

[quote author="DaFattKidd" date="1308635604"]I'm not an expert but I've been splitting a lot of wood the past couple of years. The answer here as far as I can tell is - It depends. I like splitting fresh cut oak. It splits really nice wet and green-However I've also been splitting oak that's been bucked for two years and that stuff splits like a champ, too. Locust practically falls apart, and splits itself after sitting bucked for some time. I've found that Sugar Maple was easier to split fresh. When it dried out it seemed rock hard. Some pines seemed to be almost impossible to split fresh cut, then after a little bit of drying time it split better. But that's just my limited experience in the past two years or so.

I very much agree with this entire statement. I would add that birch is much easier to hand-split when drier. It loses a lot of its springiness.

mayhem said:

So what am I doing wrong/differently that seems to make green wood much harder to split than slightly seasoned in the round? Its not logical that my experience differs so it must be some other factor.

Why is it that when I hit a green round with an 8lb maul, it bounces off the wood with 10-20 consecutive strikes, barely leaving a mark but if the round sits for a couple months the same maul busts it apart in a couple swings?

I totally agree that the sooner after bucking you cna split the wood and exose more surface area to open air the better as it will dry sooner...just can't figure out why you guys all say its easier to split green wood when my experience says otherwise. Must be me.

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I do 8 or so cord per year, exclusively with an 8# maul - no wedges, sledges or anything else. And I'm with all of the other guys on green being easy. It's hard to figure out what's going on with your splitting. If it were poor technique, you still wouldn't be able to split it later rather than sooner. And, if it's something like Elm or Hornbeam, ditto. How about slabbing - do you try that on the ones that you can't crack down the middle? I get some that don't want to go down the middle, and that's always my fallback (and nearly always gets the job done). Maybe if you post pics of one of these bad boys that you wait on to split - someone might have an idea about what's going on.

I usually laugh every time splitting comes up on this forum. Lots of guys seem to know a lot more than I do about it. One that always makes me laugh the hardest is the thought that big logs split so hard.

Well, I've split with hydraulics for over 20 years now and everything splits easy. However, way back in the 1940's I began splitting wood.....with an axe. Anything we could not split with axe got the sledge and wedge. So yes, I've split a little bit of wood and I don't mind splitting the big stuff at all.

Two things about splitting big stuff. Like in that video, people seem to think when you split wood that you hit is dead center. That indeed will work on the small stuff. People say split the big stuff by taking slices off the sides. That indeed will work. But why not try striking the log instead of dead center, more towards the outside of the log away from you. Next swing, hit closer to you. Next one hit closer yet. So, it is the 3 swings (or more depending on the size) that makes them think it is splitting hard but I do not look at it this way. Just look how much more wood you have split with those 3 swings. From there you can usually quarter the split and just keep working from there. Count how many swings you've taken. Then split all small stuff and count how many swings it takes to split the same amount of wood.

My point is that yes, you will hit a huge log more times to get that firs split than you will with a small one.....but that does not mean it splits harder. You'll actually split more wood in less time by splitting the big stuff. But remember that here we are not talking about those knotty, knarly logs. Those are in a different category by themselves.

As for splitting green vs partially dried. I like to split green but had no particular problem splitting dry stuff either.

Adios Pantalones said:

Mayhem- do you use a sharp maul or a dull one? Do you split a lot of oak?

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Dull 8lb maul, sharp Fiskars X27. The maul bounces off, the fiskars is too new to have been subjected to those pieces of maple, but I'm sure I'll cut and find more unsplittable green wood soon.

I'm starting to process my oak now. Haven't done much of it before...I had some a few years ago that split ok green, much better after a year in the round...utterly impossible to split green and frozen, which is another way my experience contradicts many others.

Next time I run into this I'll take some photos. What you guys will see is alot of nice big straight grained, fresh cut rounds with little divots in the top where the maul bounced off the wood.

I have tried slabbing those rounds...doesn't help. The maul doesn't even crack it...just bounces off. The wood grenade penetrates, but only to a depth of about an inch or so...then it just blows out with most of the force I hit it with reflected back into the steel. I've had my wood grenade shoot above my head height when it blows out of a green round.

If I needed the wood soonish (often the case) I rented the splitter. If not the coldest days/nights were the best. I also have some wood grenades, ordinary mauls, and wedges, a wedge with a twist to it, and long wooden wedges of hedge or elm. I'd also noodle a bit. This was frustrating, so I eventually bought a splitter.

mayhem said:

... The maul bounces off, the fiskars is too new to have been subjected to those pieces of maple, but I'm sure I'll cut and find more unsplittable green wood soon. .... Next time I run into this I'll take some photos. What you guys will see is alot of nice big straight grained, fresh cut rounds with little divots in the top where the maul bounced off the wood. I have tried slabbing those rounds...doesn't help. The maul doesn't even crack it...just bounces off. ....

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Wow - I’ve never seen straight-grained maple that can’t even be slabbed. Did you cut down trees or have the stuff trucked in? The reason I’m asking is that the only 2 times I’ve experienced what you describe is with Elm and Hornbeam (and that will be one and done for each of those). If you cut this stuff down yourself, and it had Maple leaves, then you have something special growing out your way :snake:

It was a maple I cut down myself. The round was very heavy so I figured I'd just split it now and make life easier. A great many swings later with the 8lb maul and the thing was just sitting there laughing at me so I picked it up and took it home whole.

Tried it out on my new at the time 5 ton Speeco electric log splitter. The thing would push it onto the wedge about a half inch and thats it. Same round this spring and the splitter didn't even bog down. I can't explain it any other way. I know what I'm doing, I know how to split a piece of wood...I find it much easier to wait a month or so after cutting...wish it worked the other way around as my wood would season alot faster.

This happens with beech and other hard woods as well. Its just alot easier to split once some of the water has evaporated and the wood starts to crack on its own. I can't figure out any reason why it SHOULD be easier to split when green and all the wood fibers are still strong.

I always use a sharp maul and it works SO much better. I have seen such a difference of opinion on that, and now I wonder if there's a need for sharp maul on fresher wood and dull maul on drier wood. Most oak pops with a sharp 8#er, from just the falling weight from overhead, in my experience.

Hmmm...

mayhem said:

oldspark said:

You can do the research your self but the fact of the matter is that green wood (except elm) splitts better fresh cut. Been splitting wood for over 30 years and thats the way it is plus info on the net says the same thing.

Click to expand...

Totally disagree, but what eles is new?

I'm still searching for the elusive piece of wood that splits easier when green. Been looking for about 30 years now and I have yet to find ANY wood that splits easier when its fresh cut. Maybe its a New England thing, but wood around here will vary between harder to split up to utterly impossible to split by hand when green.

Tried to split a piece of fresh cut maple last fall when my brother and I dropped it. Took a round about 18" tall by 18" diameter, fresh cut off the trunk. Wailed on it wiht the 8lb maul for about 20 whacks and all I got was tired. Busted out the 12lb sledge and wood grenade...I was able to tap the grenade in about an inch or so, but thats as far as it would get...any good pounding I gave it would result an most of the energy being reflected back into the grenade and the sucker would pop up out of the round several feet. Same rounds right now pop open with a few smacks of that very same maul.

Same results with beech, red oak, yellow and white birch. Ash splits easily no matter what.

Wet wood is most definitely not easier to split around here. Let it sit till the ends start cracking. It would be so much more convenient if wood did split easily when green as it would speed up the seaoning time by a significant amount, sadly it is not the case, at least not for me.

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I'm with Mayhem. In my [limited] experience, splitting wood that has sat for awhile was much easier than splitting green stuff. I suspect it might have something to do with the sharpness of your weapon, as someone opined. It seems logical that you'd need a sharper implement to get through all the moisture-laced wood fibers.