A day of kindling processing

Made a video from what seemed like a thousand Ring security cam clips of how I process kindling.

Yesterday was a big day for me - I processed the very last of the wood I have. It was a bunch of shorty spruce rounds that I was saving for kindling. I love spruce, pine, red oak, and black locust for kindling.

Here's the description from the video:

I had some shorty spruce rounds that I was saving for kindling. This video is sped up to 10x speed and parts of it are cut out to save on time....but this gives you a good idea of how I process kindling.

First I take the Champion 34-ton hydraulic splitter and make thin wedges out of of the rounds. If there are any knots or nasty pieces I put those aside in the donation pile.

Then I whip out the trusty Fiskars hatchet and split the wedges into kindling by hand. The beginning of the hatchet use starts at the 3:00 mark in real-time and then gets sped up.

All in all I now have 5 IBC totes (275 gallon) full of kindling. 3 are flagged for this year and the two I filled up yesterday will be for winter 2022.

I spent 2 hours on the splitter, then an hour of splitting with the hatchet, then a break, and then another 2 hours of hatchet work. A total of 5 hours and it was 99 degrees yesterday. Brutal.

Last year I used 2 entire bins of kindling.

 

Good work. When we think of firewood we like to think of big splits of stuff like oak. But having a good supply of kindling gets the whole show going quickly on a cold day.

 

Thanks! When I first started using the fireplace I would gather twigs and branches from basic trimming of the trees on the property. That quickly got super annoying since they take up a lot of space unless you break each twig up into tiny pieces.....And they wouldn't get dry in time because I'd start collecting in say October or November or something. Definitely learned the huge benefit of having dry kindling and lots of it ready at a moment's notice.

I thought about it some - not bad that in 5 hours I can make enough kindling to last an entire season. I've also got some chainsaw sawdust waiting to be mixed with some candle wax to act as firestarters once I run out of my batch of fatwood.

On a side note I found out that the Pleasant Hearth kindling that I thought was southern Georgia pine........is in fact sourced and produced in......Honduras. What the? While it works amazingly well (I've been using 2 sticks per day to start the fire in the morning, more if I let the fire die but typically I didn't, at least last year), $75 could probably be spent on other more important things.

 

I used to make kindling. Sometimes sit in the garage on a rainy Fall/Winter day splitting with a little axe and wooden mallet.
I decided it takes a lot less time to do hunter/gather with pine branches that are plentiful here, smashing them with a heavy sledge hammer into kindling size bits and pieces. Two garbage barrels will last quite a while. Not as neat or nice looking as purpose made kindling but works like a charm.

 

I don’t use kindling at all anymore. Dry splits and a fire starter work. Takes a few more minutes to get going but I also don’t have to reload when the kindling burns down starting the process all over.
Fireplace is a different story.

 

I just collect fallen sticks for the little kindling I use each year. I'll pile up thin fallen branches for easy access.

 

Great video! Once the red bull wore off you really slowed down! You are brave doing it on a hot day. Time to get hoarding again.

Most of my kindling is scrounged softwood scraps from lumber/boards etc. Ill pull out my beater chop saw, cut them to lengths as needed, split and bundle em up. We are surrounded by woods and plenty of twigs/branches to be had as well. Ill use that in a pinch for the firepit.

 

Everyone has their own style, very interesting indeed. I remember being frustrated trying to start a fire with wet twigs and newspaper......Those days are way behind me now!

5 hours of work seems like a pretty reasonable time to be set for an entire season. And the not-running-out-in-the-middle-of-a-snowstorm looking for dry kindling is probably the best part.

With the kids going back to school, I won't be burning as much wood but I may burn through more kindling since I'll most likely start a fire in the morning, let it peter out, then rekindle before the kids get home from school.

Now I need to start thinking about getting a stove for the garage!!! Hahahahaha.

 

Great work.. Its nice having plenty of kindling.. Its also nice having a stove in the garage.

 

I’ve a woodstove (wood furnace this year) in the shop. I picked up a DR 5 ton electric splitter that can store vertical against the wall of the shop.

When it’s nasty outside, I turn the shop tv on, open a beer or two and sit there splitting kindling by that wood heater.
One old movie and 4 beers makes a good pile in a tote. Mostly pine, construction lumber, and small rounds.


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Nice! That sounds lovely. My garage is so tiny that I don't even know if I could afford the clearance needed for the stove. As it is I'm constantly battling the space problem. I also have a bit of construction lumber and broken pallet pieces that I've saved for kindling but I gave those away to my neighbor who has been......slacking......in the make-your-own-kindling department (he had his first kid so I know the pain he's going through ).

Valid points. I'll give you a couple of reasons.

1. I don't like to use the splitter any more than I have to. We have a lot of houses packed pretty tightly so while I can legally use it as much as I want, I try not to use it more than I have to. In this case splitting the spruce is very difficult by hand and since I wanted to make wedges out of it, I decided to use it.

2. I like splitting wedges with a hatchet to make kindling. It's a very satisfying process, like actually enjoyable. While it is slightly dangerous, you can see that I wear gloves and keep my left hand very low while holding the wedge being split. This greatly reduces the chances of hitting my hand. I've hit my hand once where it stung a bit. The hatchet is not too sharp either because it doesn't have to be, if I make my wedges thin enough. I also don't have to swing tremendously hard. By the end of that session I was getting more efficient in my strikes and swinging way less hard than at the beginning.

3. Running the splitter costs money and I'd rather spend the gas on something I can't do by hand. For example, running all the debris I clean up through the wood chipper prior to being tossed in the compost. I find I can do it pretty darn fast using a hatchet.

4. I need the exercise so I actually enjoy doing it by hand. I also like practicing my eye-hand coordination. I'm big into any sport that involves hitting a ball with some kind of bat - stickball, tennis, squash, badminton, hurling, etc.

5. I don't like using the splitter in the vertical position because I find it cumbersome to move huge rounds into the proper position. Anything not huge I can lift onto the splitter in horizontal position anyways. I've used it in vertical only once or twice.

6. It's faster to split the wedges by hand than to wait for the splitter. While making wedges is satisfying by itself it's even more satisfying to finish with the hatchet. I like hearing the clink-clink-clink of kindling popping off too. You can't hear anything when running the splitter and it's just not the same.

7. You can't smell the wood when you are using the splitter. All I smell is exhaust. I love the smell of spruce kindling.

 

Hey thats awesome!
I made a ton of kindling from a small pine score (plus all the bits and pieces from splitting). We ran out this spring. It is nice having a bus load on hand. Like you, i hope this few hours work gets us into the next heating season. I have no idea how much we'll use this heating season. If we use most of what we have, storing a couple years worth will require thinking about storage options.

jo191145
Fire starters can replace or reduce the need for kindling?

Sca

 

im not answering for him..but thats what i do too....fatwood starters right to full size splits...maybe a couple smaller splits if they handy.well seasoned wood is not hard to light

 

Same for me. 1/2 a starter block will light full size splits. I would use kindling if I had it to get things roaring faster. I still have a big Loblolly to process, so I may make some kindling to sell and use. Going to sell bundles this fall, so I might as well turn the pine into $ too.

 

Yup use kindling September and April other than those 2 months. I just load on coals.

 

You can answer for me. You hit all the notes Dry and always some smaller pieces to be used. Back in the day when I was always burning one year oak I doubt it would work too well. 2+ years and rubber roofing on top and it lights right up.
One problem I have with it is as I age I like it cooler in the house which means I’m doing more re lights than normal. The soapstone is still throwing enough heat to fool me.
On the flip side of that the stone helps get the re lights going faster as it stores heat (draft)
It’s hard for me to find something to gripe about with wood heat LOL

 

Thanks man! Have I talked about IBC totes to store kindling?? Hahahahahahahahaha

But it lights faster with kindling!

Last winter I did have a need to get the fire going as I would want to warm up the house as soon as possible for the wife before she went to work and before the kids started full remote school. Now that they will be going to physical school I just need to start a quick, hot, but short fire in the morning and then again when the kids return until bedtime.

And remember open fireplace = different lighting than a stove/insert so usually when I have to light I want to as fast as possible. That's why I want to never hear myself say "Dang it I've run out of kindling!"

 

And I highly recommend getting some pine or spruce or black locust shorties for kindling. All 3 dry super fast and light up like matches with the first 2 being aided by their sap content.