Splitting

[Bones]

With the high powered splitters out there today, it's not a problem. My question: which splits easier - seasoned,green, frozen ¿

 

[JustWood]

Frozen for sure. Wood that has been dead on stump for quite a while makes for some easy splitting also.

 

[Lignums]

"There are people who believe that wood is split easiest if it is frozen. The idea is that the pieces are more brittle and will sort of shatter. Surprisingly enough, experimental tests showed very little advantage of splitting general wood. Even more surprising, if most of the wood to be split is full of knots, there is actually substantial advantage of doing that splitting them thawed and not frozen!"

http://mb-soft.com/juca/print/firewood.html


I personally have not seen any advantage of either frozen, green or otherwise. The only thing I noticed is when its that cold out to split wood when it's frozen, my arse usually is too.


Thanks to they who directed me to this web link in the first place also...

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Seasoned splits a little easier than green, but if you split when green it will season much, much faster. I have not noticed that frozen presents any advantage.

 

[babalu87]

I think the one advantage to frozen wood is if it has been bucked up and then frozen it may show cracks on the ends and that is where you want to start wackin it.
I'll never split Pine again unless its frozen

 

[Eric Johnson]

I think frozen makes a big difference. I've split a lot of wood both in the summer and in the dead of winter, and I'll take the dead of winter any day for ease of splitting by hand. It's obvious--at least with the species I use (beech, maple, yellow birch)--you don't get stringy hangups and the wood just flies apart. I'm talking about temps below 10 degrees, F. here, by the way. When you get closer to freezing, it's not such a big difference.

 

[titan]

The hardwoods I'm burning now were all split last winter while frozen.....no question,frozen wood splits much easier and I'd rather be out splitting(by hand) in March as opposed to July.

 

[DriftWood]

I second Eric. I pulled some soft conifers tamarack, spruce or white pine out of the river, wet and green, to spilt into rails for a fence by hand. Could not be done in fall . It split with no problem in winter frozen into 14 foot rails.

 

[Gooserider]

I suspect that it may be a function of the variety of wood as much as it is the seasoning or temperature.

Gooserider

 

[Bones]

I can't remember (senior moment) what tree it is, but you can only split it if it's been frozen for some time.

 

[slofr8]

I do my cutting and splitting (with a maul) in the fall, BUT, I do some winter camping and have a small wood stove for the tent. Cut and split dead dry spruce and, or fir I find on site for fuel. Last winter I cut up and split most of a tree and was left with a few rounds I didn't use. Temps. were single digits. This summer the kids and I set up a tent in the same area and I used the rest of the wood that was left and had a somewhat harder time splitting than before. Same tree. Not real hard but noticeable. So,,,,, based on my limited experience, this would go along with what Erik said.
Dan.

 

[gpcollen1]

I think anything stringy is better when frozen. I base this on some maple i had to split. It gave a nice pop and came apart rather than just sliding apart and having to tear the stringy pieces by hand...

 

[MrGriz]

The biggest difference I see is how cold I am when running the lever To a lesser extent it also dictates how close I stand to the exhaust.

Did I mention that I love my gas splitter?

Seriously, I never paid much attention to temperature, but seasoned definitely splits better than green. They pop apart better and faster than green rounds do.