Splitting up some of the big stuff

[Jags]

During this weekends splitter session, I was at a point in the pile that was all big stuff. Round after round that was no smaller than 30" diameter. What a work out. When I tossed this bad boy (tossed with the log lifter) up on the beam and realized that this was a quartered section - 1/4 of the round, I had to step back and take a pic. Guesstimating that this quarter was around 300 pounds:

 

[Cowboy Billy]

Cool Jags

It is a work out but I like those barkless splits!

Billy

 

[lukem]

I have a love/hate thing for the big stuff. Love the amount of nice square splits you get (square splits are easier for me to stack), but hate getting them to the splitter.

 

[Jags]

I actually like working up the big stuff, but I am set up for it. I will loader bucket it close or knock the pile down (in this case) till I only have to role these things a short distance. Once on the log lifter they are broken down in short order.

 

[Flatbedford]

I like the big stuff too! As long as it is one of the easy splitting hard woods. What is that?

 

[Jags]

I like the big stuff too! As long as it is one of the easy splitting hard woods. What is that?

White Oak. Many splits just took a short pop from the splitter but some took the full stroke to separate. So as far as splitting ease - I would have to put this squarely in the middle of the pack.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

For rounds like that I'd go vertical, then pop a hernia muscling it into place.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

For those that split sans hydraulics . . .

some splitter fuel . . .

 

[Jags]

For rounds like that I'd go vertical, then pop a hernia muscling it into place.

Zactly - thats why I like to stand on two feet. I can't speak for anybody else, but I am much more of a physical influence standing, than I am sitting. :coolsmile:

 

[Jags]

For those that split sans hydraulics . . .

Sans hydraulics...nuhhh uhhhh. This weekend was the second time since I have built that splitter that I stopped it. I had to wrap a chain around the log and the shuttle and pull backwards to pop it off the wedge. I don't usually pay attention to how I take the first split, cuz 999999 out of 1000000 it just pops through it. Found out that the round had more fibers going sideways than it did going the length of the tree. This one round had a 12" and 14" branch coming from the trunk. Eeeekkk. The second stroke of the splitter made the stump scream and it finally yielded. That is a 5" ram at 2750 PSI. You could have beat on that thing for a month and never split it manually.

 

[Flatbedford]

I leave the ones like that in the woods. Nice to have the hydraulics.

 

[Jags]

I leave the ones like that in the woods. Nice to have the hydraulics.

For the record, it was a different round, not the one in the pic. The round was actually not huge, just ugly.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Even with 20-24" rounds it's crazy how much wood you can get. Should measure out/calculate how many days worth of heat are lost when leaving a 30" round in the woods.

 

[Jags]

Even with 20-24" rounds it's crazy how much wood you can get. Should measure out/calculate how many days worth of heat are lost when leaving a 30" round in the woods.

Absolutely. And this was a yard tree of a friend. I didn't really have the option of leaving it in the woods.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

30" log, 18" long- about 7.4 cu ft of wood, never mind stacking inefficiency/air space. We're talking 4+ good stove loads

 

[lukem]

I had to leave one in the woods last summer. It was a section of a black oak where the tree crowned. Dang thing had to have been 50" or more because my 20" bar didn't stand a chance. I tried for a couple minutes and gave up...I figured even if I did get it quartered there was no way I could get it on the truck.

That sucker probably would have heated my house for two days in January.

 

[Flatbedford]

I only leave them in the woods if they all knotted and twisted. I am not afraid of big rounds. In fact, I prefer them. I think big ones are easier to hand split. I don't have to keep bending over to stand them up.
I wouldn't leave any of these in the woods!

But I did let them haul this one off my side yard.

Way to twisted and knotty for me to split by hand when there is so much easy stuff around for me. Maybe if I had a hydraulic splitter I wouldn't be so picky.

 

[bogydave]

The few times I've had over 20" rounds, it is fun to split them.
You have double the fun with splits that big.
Great sized splits too.

 

[CTYank]

I leave the ones like that in the woods. Nice to have the hydraulics.

Sorry, too valuable to abandon. Not when a little noodling and wedges will break it down.

Noodle through the cross-fibers or just deep enough in the straight fibers to hold wedges. Quarter a/r.

 

[jeff_t]

Didn't split big stuff today, but I made some big splits. I have a bunch of ash rounds about 20-24" in diameter. I peeled off around the outside, so I ended up with a bunch of splits that looked like slabwood, and a big polygon out of the middle about 12" across. I made about a half dozen today, and I have probably 10 more rounds from that trunk. Long dead, probably ready to burn. Wonder if I can fit two in a BK?

 

[maxed_out]

looking good jags, that big stuff wears me out. espesically without a tractor with a heidiraulics.

 

[ScotO]

We did some night trees for a client the other week......a 80 foot red oak, a 50 foot beech and a 60 foot spruce........here's the oak we cut...was on the slope right against the back of his chalet-style house.......took the splitter up and split them on the spot .....ended up with around three cord at the end of the day.....will use that wood in 2014!! You gotta love it when you get 25 to 30 splits off of one round.......had a 30" bar on the ol' Stihl for this job so you can see thattree was a biggun ...

 

[jeff_t]

Looked like milling material.

 

[ScotO]

Looked like milling material.

we considered it, but there was some iron in it and it would have been a MAJOR undertaking to get those logs out.....not to mention the price of that stuff isn't worth the hassle.....and believe it or not, near the middle third of the tree there was a cut-off branch that had been grown over decades ago....as we were splitting the rounds near the base we came across that grow-over, and I noticed a perfectly round "thing" stuck to the healed cut branch....upon closer inspection it was a 1939 wheat penny that the long-gone pruner must have put there.....coolest thing I ever found inside a tree (ran into some railroad spikes and destroyed two chains last summer doing a huge ash but that's another story).....

 

[Thistle]

I leave the ones like that in the woods. Nice to have the hydraulics.

Sorry, too valuable to abandon. Not when a little noodling and wedges will break it down.

Noodle through the cross-fibers or just deep enough in the straight fibers to hold wedges. Quarter a/r.

Same here. If if its sound,it gets brought in from the woods or brought home here if I'm cutting in town.I dont leave anything but chips & small twigs.