Couldn't Split!! Anyone??

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andrewdee

Member
Feb 9, 2011
85
Central NJ
Back in June a tree service that provides me with wood as they do not take it. If the property owner doesn,t want it they call me. Great deal! They call me and give me the location of a nice oak they cut and that there was a suprise there with the oak. When I got there they had the oak rounds stacked and sitting on top was this odd round with a wedge sticking in it. Got it home and threw it on the splitter and it wouldn.t split!>>>Fastforward to yesterday 8 months later threw it on the splitter still gave me a hard time but got it done I have split monster rounds knots included this was fairly small but tough!! Anyone know what this is? Paper thin bark that wraps around so does the outside wood about three inches towards the center then it straightens out. Thanks
 

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I can't really see the wood very well in the pictures. Any type of tree can have a few tough rounds. It sounds like the tree grew twisted, which can be the reason it is hard to split.
 
Picture is blurry, but if I had to guess I would say beech.
 
The bark looks like yellow birch. But all the yellow birch I've processed doesn't have grains like that...though it can be stringy.
 
Looks like it could be Yellow Birch. I've had some utterly brutal pieces of it that we nearly impossible to split. They just swallowed the wedges.
 
Maybe a Gum tree they hard to split like that :zip:
 
Looks like red elm. You may have some burl out of it.
 
Twisted, gnarly windblown birch with a soft middle. Who uses a chisel to split wood?
When that happens, It goes to "It's just the right size to burn the way it is" pile. :) Less the rail road spike :lol:
 
bogydave said:
Who uses a chisel to split wood?

I reckon a whole bunch of us use wedges (chisel?) to split wood when necessary. Wedge and Sledge is number three in the lineup behind #1 Fiskars SS and #2 10 pound maul.

By the way. That thing in the picture above looks like a petrified spiral sliced ham, to me.
 
I had to burn a piece of wood to get a wedge back once. That was after having all 3 of my wedges buried in it and my maul stuck. I was lucky to end up leaving just one in that sob.

Wood has a lot in common with people, many are tolerable, some are just plain miserable, others deserve severe and sustained beatings.

pen
 
pen said:
I had to burn a piece of wood to get a wedge back once. That was after having all 3 of my wedges buried in it and my maul stuck. I was lucky to end up leaving just one in that sob.

Wood has a lot in common with people, many are tolerable, some are just plain miserable, others deserve severe and sustained beatings.

pen

very well stated.
 
Kenster said:
bogydave said:
Who uses a chisel to split wood?

I reckon a whole bunch of us use wedges (chisel?) to split wood when necessary. Wedge and Sledge is number three in the lineup behind #1 Fiskars SS and #2 10 pound maul.

By the way. That thing in the picture above looks like a petrified spiral sliced ham, to me.
I put that Ham in the oven and it caught on Fire!!
 
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