Cant remember - does wood season once cut into rounds for splittint?

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joefrompa

Minister of Fire
Sep 7, 2010
810
SE PA
Hi all,

I can't remember the answer to this simple question:

A neighbor of mine is dropping off ~4 40 foot pine trees he just downed, and he's cut all the pieces into rounds no more than 18" high for me. Nice neighbor.

I'm stacking these right now and going to split them soon, but I also have a variety of elm and other harder woods that I need to split first.

So I'm wondering - will this pine start seasoning cut into rounds like this when exposed to a nice airy/windy section out in the open?

I'm thinking I can probably keep the pine till last and maybe split it up in May. I know this stuff seasons pretty darn fast, especially when split in the hottest part of the year; just wondering if it's really starting to season now.

Joe

P.s. The elm is backbreaking work, so I kinda want to knock it out now. It's been in like 10" thick huge rounds for 6 months, and when I've been splitting it the insides are almost bone white in color, so I think the elm has been seasoning even from sitting out in the winter in big-round form.
 
It will, but not as fast as it would season if split. It's far better to have it sitting bucked to length rather than in log form.

Matt
 
If I read your post right, it doesn't sound like there's any noodling, just cutting into rounds. You do have a good neighbor by the way. Anyway, seasoning starts as soon as that tree hits the ground..but it won't season in a way that a wood burner wants until it is split and stacked.
 
Noodling refers to cutting a round with the grain in order to either 'split' a difficult round, or to make a space for a wedge, etc. I'd get that wood split and stacked soon to avoid the pine getting punky. Cheers!
 
Joe, if you get that pine split in May it probably will burn fine next fall or winter so your plan should work out good. Now get back to splitting that elm. :lol:
 
Elm split beautifully and I found a few tricks to it, but I'll add that sometimes I just found a section or crotch that would. not. split. So I have a couple of large pieces (i.e. will take up 60% of my firebox) that are going to be for overnight burns. Because I couldn't break them.

Trick seemed to be to chop in line with the way the elm split itself from drying. Find those fine lines in the top and chop right into them. They will NOT split in logical lines, but they'll split.
 
Even with wood that normally splits easily,whether by hand or hydraulics,aim for the largest cracks first.
 
Poor use of the word noodling by the way, fixed now in the title.
 
Thistle said:
Even with wood that normally splits easily,whether by hand or hydraulics,aim for the largest cracks first.

Totally agree, however I've found that in big rounds I can peel the edges off like an onion and that works best for me. With ash and most species, this involves splitting to the side of many of the naturally forming cracks. With elm, when you split into the cracks, it immediately veers off in a different direction anyway so it works to peel the sides off anyway.

Hope that makes sense.
 
joefrompa said:
Thistle said:
Even with wood that normally splits easily,whether by hand or hydraulics,aim for the largest cracks first.

Totally agree, however I've found that in big rounds I can peel the edges off like an onion and that works best for me. With ash and most species, this involves splitting to the side of many of the naturally forming cracks. With elm, when you split into the cracks, it immediately veers off in a different direction anyway so it works to peel the sides off anyway.

Hope that makes sense.

Yup. Since I sold my Speeco 20 ton H/V splitter in Dec 2005,its back to manual for me.I remembered from years earlier on most anything over 18" its easier to split off 'plates' all round the perimeter,then attack the core that remains.That's even with straight grained knot-free red oak.White & Bur Oak can be quite stringy,Hickory a bit more so,as they get much over 8-10" diameter.Its weird,you can take a 4' long log,no knots & same diameter at each end,cut it in 3 pieces & each one 'behave' differently when splitting.Grain direction/runout has a lot to do with it I believe.
 
It was amazing how light the dried hemlock splits I made from the tree in the backyard were compared to hard wood.
 
joefrompa said:
Elm split beautifully and I found a few tricks to it, but I'll add that sometimes I just found a section or crotch that would. not. split. So I have a couple of large pieces (i.e. will take up 60% of my firebox) that are going to be for overnight burns. Because I couldn't break them.

Trick seemed to be to chop in line with the way the elm split itself from drying. Find those fine lines in the top and chop right into them. They will NOT split in logical lines, but they'll split.

Arrgh. Trouble is with elm, by the time you've whacked away at it enough to realize you're not going to get anywhere, the fibers have spread out to the point that it takes up twice as much room as it would have if you'd left it alone.

I'm very frustrated by it. It burns nicely, and with more heat than I expected it to, but my gosh, it does seem to be wayyyy more trouble than it's worth, even with a splitter to help.
 
Seasoning occurs when the tree is losing moisture faster than its absorbing it. As soon as you cut it away from the roots, seasoning starts, but because the bark is more or less waterproof, very little moisture is lost in log form. When you buck a log up into rounds it starts seasoning much faster because you've now exposed significantly more of the heartwood to the air, but still it loses moisture very slowly. Real serious seasoning starts happening when you split those rounds and expose as muhc of the heartwood to the air as possible.

Think of it as a sponge. If the sponge is left in a dish of water (living tree) it'll never dry out. If you take it out of that dish and put it in a plastic bag (felled tree left in log form) it will lose moisture, but very, very slowly. Chop up the sponge but leave it in baggies (bucked into rounds) and it'll dry alot faster, but still its going to take awhile because those baggies are keeping in most of the moisture. But if you then take those rounds out of the baggise and cut cut them into pieces and leave them on a sunny windowsill they're going to dry out in no time.
 
gyrfalcon said:
joefrompa said:
Elm split beautifully and I found a few tricks to it, but I'll add that sometimes I just found a section or crotch that would. not. split. So I have a couple of large pieces (i.e. will take up 60% of my firebox) that are going to be for overnight burns. Because I couldn't break them.

Trick seemed to be to chop in line with the way the elm split itself from drying. Find those fine lines in the top and chop right into them. They will NOT split in logical lines, but they'll split.

Arrgh. Trouble is with elm, by the time you've whacked away at it enough to realize you're not going to get anywhere, the fibers have spread out to the point that it takes up twice as much room as it would have if you'd left it alone.

I'm very frustrated by it. It burns nicely, and with more heat than I expected it to, but my gosh, it does seem to be wayyyy more trouble than it's worth, even with a splitter to help.
I just cut up a face cord of green Elm, stacked it in the rounds and will try and split it this fall or next spring as it will split better then I hope. It is better wood than some give it credit for but a pain to split.
 
gyrfalcon said:
joefrompa said:
Elm split beautifully and I found a few tricks to it, but I'll add that sometimes I just found a section or crotch that would. not. split. So I have a couple of large pieces (i.e. will take up 60% of my firebox) that are going to be for overnight burns. Because I couldn't break them.

Trick seemed to be to chop in line with the way the elm split itself from drying. Find those fine lines in the top and chop right into them. They will NOT split in logical lines, but they'll split.

Arrgh. Trouble is with elm, by the time you've whacked away at it enough to realize you're not going to get anywhere, the fibers have spread out to the point that it takes up twice as much room as it would have if you'd left it alone.

I'm very frustrated by it. It burns nicely, and with more heat than I expected it to, but my gosh, it does seem to be wayyyy more trouble than it's worth, even with a splitter to help.

Ah, the voice of reason!!!

Ed
Distributor for “Ode de’ Slipper Elm†sachets
 
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