Masonry Heater wood splits…

[AKguy0524]

Hey guys, I have a new Tulikivi stove and we are supposed to use wood that is basically what a normal woodstove would use then split again, so large kindling essentially. Just curious for those of you in the same boat, what your methods are for splitting the wood to this point? So far I’ve been using the tire around the splitting log method, but tedious and I have 2 stoves to burn! Does anybody use a gas splitter? I’m curious can they even do small splits?

 

[qwee]

I would think an electric splitter would be a good tool for this. Boss makes several - 16 ton on down to 3 ton(?). Electrics are usually cheaper. But maybe you are off grid? - so gas would be better? The reason why they split the wood down is because they want to get the fire done and close the flue to retain the heat ASAP.

You are burning spruce, birch, poplar, and maybe fir, so you should be fine leaving the pieces a little bigger than if you were burning dense hardwoods. Your wood species will burn faster anyways. If not electric, a tough little gas splitter would do the job. I got one of these used for $400 + $75 for a better Honda engine. It would work well in your area. There are a bunch of these undersized units new for sale nowadays - usually less than $1000 on sale in the lower 48.
Brave/Iron & Oak, Boss, Troy-bilt, Split-fire, Supersplit, Ariens, etc.., are known for making durable log splitters. Not so sure of some of the Chinese made splitters. But the bigger you go and durability isn't as important.

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[begreen]

Yes, gas splitters do small splits as well as large. If the wood is fairly knot free then a 4-way splitting head can knock off smaller splits quickly. Boss makes a 4-way cross head that slips over the existing wedge for this purpose.

 

[John Mc]

Not sure what kind of volume you are doing, but when resplitting wood for kindling, I use a Kindling Cracker. It's fast, simple, and inexpensive. The make 2 sizes, original and XL. The links are on Amazon, but you can find them in a variety of other places online, such as Northern Tool, or i various retailers.
Kindling Cracker Original
Kindling Cracker XL

If I've already split my logs down to "normal" woodstove size, I can resplit into smaller pieces faster than running them back through my log splitter. However, I've just doing a bit for kindling. I'm not running multiple cords of wood through it.

 

[John Lehet]

I had a Tulikivi for about 15 years. One thing I did was use a fair bit of limb wood. I also burned almost exclusively poplar, which burns quick and hot. I was splitting by hand in those days, axe, wedge, maul. I can remember dealing with some big rounds; I guess I just split and split again.

But yes, you're looking for basically a lot of kindling and a few splits that are just a bit larger than normal kindling for any given fire, maybe bigger than that if you need a bigger longer fire sometimes.