scored a maple tree need tips n tricks

After serious frustration buying wood I was headed to work yesterday as a tree crew got started with a tree at the end of the block, driving by I thought "hey, that's a maple." put a quick call in to the pretty one in the house and had her ask if we can have it. got pretty much the whole thing and didn't even have to leave the block!

several limbs were dead and cutting/splitting them they measure 12-18%, several pieces ready to burn, hurrah!!

here's my newbie questions for you. I have a fiskars splitting axe and on pine and walnut I've thought "holy cow that's easy!" - literally one swing splits on all of it. got going on the maple and holy cow it's a different story. I've had about the same luck with the dry pieces as the live parts of the tree. some super straight pieces split easy, but mostly the wood grain looks a bit twisted and I have a heck of a time getting through it. Any tips on making it easer (other than renting/buying a splitter)?

Also, they gave us 5-6' sections and I hauled them home and bucked them into rounds. Now I have a mountain of sawdust. I'd love to put it to use, but I'm hesitant to put it on the garden because I used 12-14oz of bar oil doing the project. I don't really want to put 14 oz of oil into my garden. other than throw it away, what are some of the things you do with your chainsaw dust?

also, we have lots of roughly 7-8" rounds, I've mostly been splitting them in half, quarters makes pretty small pieces. do I really need to split them smaller to get them dry? I'm hoping for some larger pieces for night burns and generally not having to reload every 2 hours like I do with pine.

thanks!!
Mark

Not sure about the saw dust since I cut usually in the woods and don't bring it home.

The smaller you split it the faster it will dry, but maple does not take overly long anyway. It should be ready by next winter. You want a variety in size, including some larger for longer burns and overnight. I let the wood be my guide. If it splits easy I take it down fairly small. If it's tough, I leave it at 7-8" and it's for a longer burn.

Depending on the size of the tree, maybe a sledge and wedges to halve the rounds or quarter them? At that point I would think you could split as you normally do. Or as you mentioned, rent some hydraulics!

I had a lot of Norway maple last year about 20 in long, it was very difficult to split in half, I had to 8# maul it and double wedge it, got it on my Huskee 22 and it became like working with butter. It's a great wood to burn and mix with red oak or black locust or beech

It depends what kind of Maple you have there. The soft Maples (Silver and Red) will be ready next fall if you stack it loose in the wind and don't have several rows stacked tight together, even if you leave some splits bigger. Sugar Maple (aka hard Maple) takes longer. If you need it for next season, it might get dry enough if you don't split 'em real big.

Some of those yard trees can be tough; They have more branches, so more knots and crotches, than woods trees do. Good luck.

this is silver maple.

we're in negotiation for the location of the wood pile. We have a spot in your back yard that I can not keep the grass green from constant sun/wind. I want it there. but we look right out at that spot and the boss wants it over on the hidden and very sheltered side of the house (which is also far closer to the back door and fireplace) - so far boss lady wins.

Personally, I LOVE to look out the window and gander at my stacks of joy. Even my wife loves to look of stacked firewood on our lot. It just gives a "Warm" and "secure" feeling to the grounds.

Tell the wife that you are as proud of YOUR stacks as she may be of hers.

honestly I want to stack the wood there so the damn dogs stop breaking through the fence after the neighbors cat too cat sits up there taunting them and they hurl themselves at the fence, one day the cat will learn that a shepherd mix isn't the thing to taunt, but then I'll have to mend fences literally and figuratively

I just want the wood dry, this year has been so frustrating buying it. I had a blast hauling and cutting it up. splitting is less fun, but still it's nice to work with one's hands.

Compromise:

Put a stack in both locations

For your next scrounge, switch to canola oil for bar oil if you want to compost / mulch your saw chips. Plenty of threads on here give canola high marks, especially with small bars (20" or less). I have used my chips to grow shitake and oyster mushrooms.

When using my fiskar on stubborn pieces I always find that instead of aiming for the center of the split and hit more on the outside works best, but when it doesn't I have a couple wedges on standby

brilliant!....just off the shelf canola? any long term wear issues? I'm doing the work with a 16" bar.

I would compost the saw dust for at least a year if it was me. As raw wood breaks down it depletes the soil of nitrogen. I've had good luck on soft maple by splitting with the growth rings. Kinda like taking the layers off an onion.

I find looking at a nice pile of wood very much like looking at a stack of 20's on the table. they both make you feel good
love the canola oil idea too. if you go on youtube you can find various forms of processes for turning sawdust into briquettes
and such. someone also posted a video of a vetical 55 gal drum stove for sawdust.

question on canola that I'm not finding online - what do you do when it's time to store the saw? I will go 2 months without using it sometimes.

I honestly think I'll switch to canola in the forrest too, way better than pouring a quart or more of non-degradable oil right on the ground of the forrest I love.

I would think the canola would cause more wear and sling off faster, but better for the environment. I agree that the chips should be composted for a year first. I don't worry about a little bar oil slinging around.

Petroleum oil will biodegrade in soil over time. Oil contaminated soil is actually spread on fields in small amounts to get rid of it. I would vote against putting it on a garden though.

Maybe she'll consent to stacking in the windy spot until you get far enough ahead to move to the more sheltered spot....

I used canola in one of my old saws for a little bit, but now I just use regular bar oil. I've found stihls to be pretty light oilers so I like to use the real stuff since it'll stick better as the chain turns

I used canola for a while but I found the chains got very stiff if you didn't use the saw for a few months

Seems like canola would go rancid if you didn't run the saw dry and clean it off real good if you didn't plan on using it soon after

I'd just rake the sawdust and keep it as the ground to your processing area, it'll look about the same as mulch and you'll be continually replenishing it

I try not to leave big piles of sawdust in the lawn or in the garden because it will suck nitrogen while it decomposes and breaks down.
The lawn will turn yellow from it.
I will pile it with leaves where the lawn isn't growing. Leaf mulch/compost OK for flowers/ planting bushes as a soil amendment if you don't feel comfortable with it in the garden.
Between evaporation, microbes digesting it and other decomposition processes I doubt there;s much of that oil left in 6 months.

Waste oil from an engine I sure as heck wouldn't want in my garden.


Those 7-8 inch rounds split in half should expose the centers enough to dry well.

I would not put the sawdust in the garden because it is quite low in nitrogen relative to the carbon content, so when it breaks down it absorbs nitrogen from the soil. Sawdust can create yellow patches on your lawn for the same reason. Composting the sawdust will also compost any oil in the sawdust, and after a while in the compost pile you can put it in the garden.

I do a lot of composting, but I just shovel sawdust into the trash (my city doesn't care). As said above, wood dust composting requires a lot of additional nitrogen so unless you mix it with nitrogen-rich materials (like lots of grass clippings) it's very slow to break down. Even setting aside the bar oil worries, it's just not worth messing with if you have easy alternative ways to get rid of it.

Chips go in the compost. If it has a lot of bark and splinters in it I might put it by the curb on yard waste pickup day. I'm just sure to not make the trash cans too heavy.

I have amassed a rather large compost mound doing this over the past 15 years.