What is this PIA crappy #$#@^%# wood?

[KB007]

Any ideas? I had a couple of logs of this stuff, this was the biggest, and it is just so twisted/stringy that I think it's going on the bon-fire outside as I really can't split it (well, can't be bothered wasting 20 minutes per round to get it into some sort of split. Any ideas? I kinda thought it was some kind of maple, but not really sure.

 

[webie]

That sure looks like elm to me . Its a little tuff to split but burns decent when dry . 3 years back I cut down 41 of them here by my home . The dutch elm disease takes them out pretty fast as they are trying to come back . Here they are dying off before they hit the 15 to 18 inch mark or smaller . Years ago before the disease hit you could find many that were over the 3 ft size . Old timers use to say best time to split it was when the temp was -20 .

 

[Wood Duck]

I can't guess what that wood is from the pictures. I think almost any species of tree can produce a twisted, hard-to-split individual. Is the whole tree that bad, or only part of it?

 

[Danno77]

it sure sounds like elm, but that picture makes it as easy to identify as 12 day old roadkill in the summer sun.

pretty sure it's elm, though.

 

[webie]

Has to be elm I showed the girl friend the pictures and she runs the splitter and she says its definately elm . But then I wouldnt argue with her if it was drift wood either .

 

[webie]

Nicest thing about elm is you get to find out how manly your splitter is , Come on fiskar boys swing your axes on these babies , I'll have a beer and watch .

 

[oldspark]

Nicest thing about elm is you get to find out how manly your splitter is , Come on fiskar boys swing your axes on these babies , I'll have a beer and watch .

You have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them!

 

[Nonprophet]

Nicest thing about elm is you get to find out how manly your splitter is , Come on fiskar boys swing your axes on these babies , I'll have a beer and watch .

FYI, I split 30-40 14"-20" Elm rounds with my Fiskars SS--not a problem! I have to admit that if I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't have believed it.......Elm is some tough stuff! Once the rounds got over 24" or so, the Fiskars had a much harder time, so I saved them for splitter rental day..........and a lot of them came out looking like the pieces in your pics!! lol


NP

 

[North of 60]

By looking at your results and if it stays consistent. Ide say it should dry pretty quick. :lol:
Sorry I cant help you on identifying the species though.

 

[leaddog]

makes good fire starter when it stringy like that.
leaddog

 

[rottiman]

Without a doubt, good ole' elm.......................................................

 

[ecocavalier02]

yeah definitely elm. my uncle had a dead one cut that was about 3 feet round. the worst mistake i did was take a few truck loads of that crap. the branches were bad enough to split. id pound my wedge all the way in then take my long bar and pound that in. and sometimes that wouldnt even work. i gave up and took the last few big pieces i had and ripped up with the saw and cut them into chunks.

 

[Danno77]

I would say a fiskars should work well with this sort of thing. I use a maul and an axe on elm. A maul gets it to bust, and then the axe just slices right through the stringy crap.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Yes, it is elm. And splitting like that it will dry super fast....and will also burn super fast.


If one wants to burn elm, you will quickly find that the best way is to wait until all the bark has fell from the tree before cutting it. Then you can usually split with a splitting maul or whatever. Wait another year or two after the bark has fallen and it splits even easier.

In addition to the splitting, you will find that the elm is a much better wood to burn if you cut the tree after the bark has fallen off because it won't be so stringy after split; it is more solid which makes for a better fire. That stringy stuff burns pretty fast.

As for the comments on splitting, if you have not split much elm then you don't realize that every tree can be different. One tree you get the crap like the OP got and the next splits only half as hard. So for those who have split some and said they have split some in some way, that does not mean you could do all elm the same.

 

[firefighterjake]

Yes, it is elm. And splitting like that it will dry super fast....and will also burn super fast.


If one wants to burn elm, you will quickly find that the best way is to wait until all the bark has fell from the tree before cutting it. Then you can usually split with a splitting maul or whatever. Wait another year or two after the bark has fallen and it splits even easier.

In addition to the splitting, you will find that the elm is a much better wood to burn if you cut the tree after the bark has fallen off because it won't be so stringy after split; it is more solid which makes for a better fire. That stringy stuff burns pretty fast.

As for the comments on splitting, if you have not split much elm then you don't realize that every tree can be different. One tree you get the crap like the OP got and the next splits only half as hard. So for those who have split some and said they have split some in some way, that does not mean you could do all elm the same.

As always . . . I agree 100% with Dennis . . . except of course for his habit of always splitting his elm vertically instead of doing it the right way and splitting it horizontally.

Yeah, elm . . . I occasionally get a piece like that when I'm splitting "fresh" elm vs. the dead-dead bark-has-fallen-off-the-tree elm which as Dennis said can split very cleanly and easily.

As for that piece of art you've split . . . I would save it for the camp fire rather than trying to wedge it into the woodstove myself. . . .

 

[basswidow]

My first year scrounging last year and I took a whole elm tree which gave me about 24 good sized rounds that I needed to split. The rented splitter was 37 tons and it growled and turned all the rounds into bird nests. I had to finish by noodling.

As tough as it was - I still think it burned alright. Like others have said - it's like a split with built in kindlin - fires right up! Dries quick too.

 

[Jags]

No doubt in my military mind - ELM

 

[Danno77]

those elm pictures always crack me up. we should start an "Elm picture page" for those. maybe even make it a sticky. If your mess of elm looks like Lincoln, Mary, or the Pope, then you get extra points.

 

[WES999]

I have some wood that is similar, I had thought is was elm. It is quite stringy like the wood in your pic.
I spilt it with no problem using a rented 13T spltter.

Another thing, it is one of the best burning wood I have used in my stove, I have some of my longest burns using it.
Without a hydraulic splitter I expect it would be a bit of a pain.

 

[BrotherBart]

I have never seen elm. Well till these pics. That stuff looks just like the sweet gum I have cut and split on occasion around here. Hate that knotty, twisted, stringy junk.

 

[Battenkiller]

id pound my wedge all the way in then take my long bar and pound that in. and sometimes that wouldnt even work.

I only tried to split elm once, over 30 years ago. Drove two wedges side-by-side straight through a big round without being able to separate it. That was all I needed to know about splitting elm as far as I was concerned.

Boat stems and ribs used to be made of it because of its resistance to splitting.

 

[Kneerat]

Sycamore splits like that too.