Hardest Wood to Split by Hand???

Some Blavk Gum It will not split this is with a hyd splitter

i say elm

Elm

SWEET GUM

+1 elm. All of those mentioned above that I've ever seen have had a few difficult rounds, but elm is consistently crap. I don't even like the smell. Try to avoid it, whe possible.

Gum by far, i split some today and i didnt even know what i had. I had to post a tread to help identify it. Think I will stay away from that stuff from now on

I never messed with Gum because of the way it does't split, but I cleared some land for a garden and cut them in cookies and let them dry for a yr. and they made great firewood.

Don't think I saw anyone mention Sycamore. I tried to split up a piece bucked from a large Sycamore limb, and despite giving it my best with my X27, nothing but a few dents, NOTHING!

+1

sycamore worst I dealt with forget it without a splitter. easy to ID with its "camouflage" bark.

old dead ellum

I gave away 2 elm trees out of my yard cut and limbed because I didn't want to mess with it. I have one rick split now but hope I don't expect to do it again.

Holy cow, glad I've never run into any of that stuff on my property, my Sotz is shaking in its handle!

Puffin, your wood looks like Elm. I haven't tried Sweet Gum and Elm is bad, but what about spruce with lots of branches? Each branch seems to extend into the center of the heartwood so each split has to be hacked apart from the round. Without branches spruce is great but the part with the braches is miserable.

Elm.

You can split sweet gum fairly easily by hand, just have to go about it differently. You whittle around the outside edge with an x27 working inward, you get a bunch of small splits from the outside and then one or two large ones from the middle. I was splitting 30" rounds around 20" in length without too much trouble. Trying the typical method of splitting in halves will get you nowhere.

Never had Elm looks awful just like the Black Gum we have, don't have any sweet gum that I know of,

My 31 yr old Sotz 20 lb'er has never gotten stuck,in anything. 24" + American Elm crotches or knotty ones,Apple/Honey Locust/Mulberry stumps,doesnt matter.It would bounce off some of that stuff at first,if it didnt bust it in 10-15 swings (this was when I was several years younger) I wouldnt kill myself on the damn stuff. 1-2 minutes tops,depending on size log & if I had clear access -the big saw would make short work of it.No wood that wont go through.

I have only split red & white oak, poplar, and box elder. Box elder was my least favorite by far

Sycamore. Never split elm.

Worst I've ever seen was pin oak - I've never split elm or gum, but the pin oak shredded in the splitter a lot like some of the pics people have posted.

Gum is the worst Ive ever split absolutaly horrible!

I thought I scored on a huge yard tree from my inlaws... went up there (its a bit of a ways away) spent a good half day atleast cutting it all up and loading up the truck and taking it home the next day. Come to find out its harder than heck to split. WTF I couldnt split most rounds much bigger than 8-12". Tried to look it up to ID it... had those spikey - ball thingies... guess its sweet gum.

That was back in summer. I've got a pile of rounds I can't split still and debating what to do. Some of the more knarly ones are only 12" thick and I still can't split! I'd noodle em but I've got like two dozen rounds... thats a lot of noodling.