Bucking/splitting wet wood?

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Jay H

New Member
Nov 20, 2006
659
NJ
Wet, as in it just rained, is it bad to buck wet logs? I would think that the wet sawdust would clog up the drive sprocket which would mean more cleaning but is it bad in any other way if the wood is wet from a recent rain. (even though the wood is on it's side so the bark should keep most of the wood dry. How about splitting rounds with my gas splitter?

Jay
 
Are you serious? If you are then you clearly spend too much time thinkin' for no good reason and need to take up a hobby that occupies more or your time.

Wet or dry makes no real difference for cutting or splitting. Your saw won't care and your splitter won't care.
 
Jay,

I agree, in fact eastern red cedar will "clog" up the chainsaw even when the weather is dry. This may mean my auto oiler is putting out too much oil, or it means the fresh cut cedar has a LOT of moisture in it, I think the latter...thus, if wet because it's raining, I'd guess some of the same. Not sure how important it is to clean our the accumulation, my saw just keeps on cutting.
 
I suppose you could clog up your oiler ... I'm occasionally checking mine to see how much oil it's throwing off anyway. A few times over the years it has clogged and I'm glad I caught it. Truthfully cutting when its wet or slightly raining is one of the few things I can do outside in those conditions...so I do it to make good use of the time.
 
Wet as in it just rained makes no difference at all. Very little of the total cut piece of wood is exposed to the weather. Just the bark. The center of the log will be just as dry in the rain as it will be in the sun. As far as splitting... I have often times been squirted with foam from a wet round. It might be a little spongier and swollen from the internal moisture but the splitter doesn't care.
 
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