You can't beat hand splitting....sometimes

Man, I'm telling you there's no way any single wedge splitter (kinetic, hydraulic, electric, whatever) beats a maul, a tire, and some beautiful black locust......

So satisfying........

It takes me at least 10 minutes to move all the crap out of the way in the garage just so I can wheel out the splitter. Talk about giving the tortoise a head start.......

Now green knotty spruce/pine, black birch, beech, pin oak.....can't do it without the splitter......

Just love having the option to choose which method I want to use.....And also in the first pic you can see the fiskars sledge hammer that pairs ever so nicely with my Warren-Teed wedge......

 

For Sure. I enjoy hand splitting, just hate killing myself doing it. Split this load of locust this afternoon. Isocore did maybe 1/4 of it. X27 the rest. One log will require noodling

 

I've got 12+ cords of wood css'd. All by hand splitting.

I don't attempt any marathon splitting sessions, as all the wood is for our use, not for sale.

I enjoy it. If I start to tire, there's always tomorrow.

 

thats the only way i split my wood ...... i bought a 28 ton huskee vertical and horizontal wood splitter it turned out to be a really big prissy primadonna

 

Id say your doing good at 70.. I no its much faster but.

 

Wudduya mean 70?

 

I mean 70 years old.

 

I'm not 70. What made you think that?

I'm 44.

 

Sorry..I clicked on your name and it says 70..

 

Ah! That is my standard "fake" birthday year. Heh heh. Sorry that's my fault!

 

I think some species of wood lend to be hand split easier than others. The White Oak I split yesterday was really stringy. I split my wood to 20” and do 8 cords a year. In addition I harvest all my own fire wood usually from tree to stove. Some of the pieces are knotty as can be, some are 48” across, some are both. My Supersplit will easily do a full cord an hour, so I won’t be splitting by hand anytime soon.

 

LordOfTheFlies and mat60...that little exchange gave me a good chuckle this morning!

 

Yes, I often reach for the maul, even though heavy, when I need to do a few pieces. Just makes sense instead of hauling out the splitter. I did something stupid again, what I don't know, and my right arm is really messed up. If I sleep on it during the night I wake up in excruciating pain. My friend told me that I have messed up the rotator cuff and showed me some exercises to do to help it heal.

Happy splitting!

 

Every situation is certainly different. From my point of view after having worked on Wall St. and slamming away at the keys since I got out of school in 1998.....it's been nothing short of miraculous in terms of how much better I feel physically......and thus in turn mentally.....When I'm splitting wood.....I am 100% focused on the task at hand. My mind does not wander and I concentrate and focus on reading the wood and improving each stroke of the maul, more power, more accuracy.... That said splitting in the summer sucks and I won't be doing too much of that again!

 

Yeah last winter was amazing for that....It only snowed once here! I kept getting wood and kept worrying about a huge pile of frozen rounds in my driveway.....so I put the pedal to the metal and just kept c/s/s....and the snow never came!

 

Agreed!!! If your trying to get wood CSS quickly you simply cannot beat a splitter. If your ahead and your at a point where you casually are hoarding or stockpiling wood hand splitting can be great. Keeps you in shape, there is no pressure to get much done, you can take each day or opportunity as it comes to split by hand. I've been getting a bit a maple lately and it fun to split it by hand, I do a little bit when I feel like it as I am finally up to the 3yr plan.

 

Every tree I drop and buck, I grab the Fiskars and give it a test run. I just can't help myself. I try to pick the rounds without knots. Easy splitting wood can make you feel like Hercules, tough splitting wood can make you feel like a weakling.

 

The splitter makes life so easy .


Then every now and again the splitter is not needed.