Its stupid because it took me so long to split. Tree grew a hand full of leaves in the spring of 2011 and then died. bark is peeling. Lots of smaller stuff is ready to burn IMO and some of the larger splits I got today are ready too. I only got about half the tree down and barely got it split.. All together 2 hours invested so far. another 30 min and i'd have it stacked but I'm worn out. Did this after all my other honey do's were done this morning.
Stupid Elm
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Ironwood
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We have two kinds of Elm here White and Red. The Red is not bad splitting while the White is stringy. When our neighbor sold his farm he gave me a pickup load of White Elm that was inside his barn for several years. That stuff burned hot and lasted a long time.
Elm -yeah, that can sure wear you out. Many years ago, I would pound the stuff into submission (took forever) with a maul or sledge/wedges. Now, it gets set aside until a splitter appears (borrow a neighbors') or I noodle the evil stuff. Sure do like like the way elm burns. After maul-splitting elm, ash makes me laugh out loud.
Had some elm that went down in a storm, cut it into rounds and staked it in a single row for the summer, split like a dream that fall, jags that loooks like a nightmare.
My neighbor and I cleaned a fence row up that was full of elm and sycamore. It has got to be the absolutly the hardest splitting wood I have ever dealt with. No way I could split with a hammer thank god for a splitter. Most my splits end up stringy like those in earlier posts. I thought that maybe it would split better frozen. It don't.
Finished up the rest of the tree today. Ended up with a full chord out of it give or take a little. My splitter looked like a mess like yours several times. Thing that saved me is that most of the tree was pretty dry.
Here come the pics.
Here come the pics.
I don't mind elm . . . and I certainly don't mind burning it since it burns pretty well. Of course having a hydraulic splitter makes a big difference as to whether elm is OK or the bane of a wood processor's existence.
On the elm, we wait a bit longer than you did and the splitting goes much, much easier and most of the time it is not stringy like it will be cutting a live tree. That makes it burn much nicer too. On the dryness, yes, the top third or maybe the top half is usually ready to burn but that bottom part can hold a lot of moisture yet even after all the bark falls.
Not really sure you cut the tree like you did and that is not the best way for sure. When that behemoth is chewing through the wood and you are precarious standing like you are, well, that is not a good match. I'd simply cut the tree down before any limbing is done.
Not really sure you cut the tree like you did and that is not the best way for sure. When that behemoth is chewing through the wood and you are precarious standing like you are, well, that is not a good match. I'd simply cut the tree down before any limbing is done.
Pic doesn't show it but there isn't a good way to drop the entire tree. And its 3 feet or so in diameter at the base. I wasn't precarious in the tree. I was sure of footing and had good hand holds.
I find that people who say they don't have much trouble with stringy wood is people who tend to leave certain parts of the tree behind and only bring home the nice straight parts. I've seen the pickups going down the road with a nice stack of rounds and every piece is perfectly round and neat. I ask myself somewhere there is half a tree still there they didn't take. Every tree especially the big ones will have places that are a challenge to split not matter what.
wkpoor said:
I don't have a problem with stringy wood . . . and I take as much as I can . . . which is why my woodstacks are usually pretty ugly looking . . . but of course, as mentioned earlier . . . I have a hydraulic splitter . . . which sometimes makes the stringy wood even more ugly looking than normal . . . I don't care though . . . I'm not looking to win a beauty contest, I'm looking to heat my house on the cheap and even the ugly wood burns great.
firefighterjake said:
I hear ya.Whether cutting on parents property,elsewhere as a scrounge or the occasional paid job,I take everything I can bring home,from 1 1/2" on up to whatever I can split or rip in half with the saw.Dont care what it looks like either,just as long as its sound & not rotten.This winter's been quite mild so far,just this week finally am burning the last of the ugly pieces,scraps from milling etc &,3-5" deadfall branches/saplings.
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