I hate elm!

I would burn all the standing dead barkless elm I could get my hands on.

 

I had thought of sharpening mine like that when splitting the elm, but with my luck I'll get cut right away!

 

I agree completely!

 

You’re not supposed to touch the wedge. You kep your hands out of there.

 

I know thar!!!

I was talking about when I flip/move a round to be split. I don't fully retract the ram and on very rare occasions the back of my hand will bump it by accident. Usually as I'm getting a good rhythm going.

 

That shredded wheat wood and your tailgate are like brothers from another mother, separated at birth.

 

The push plate splitter we have is like a knife and cuts elm and hickory it the twisted ash I seem to get a lot of. The H/V moveable wedge splitter seems to shred those rounds much more often.

 

Yeah that's good stuff. Standing barkless elm got me by a few winters before I had a couple of years worth of firewood stashed.

 

They both so ugly I'd hate to see the mother!!!

 

I have a push plate and they still shred, to the point a second round goes behind first to finish the job, pulling fibers apart

I do have high winds though

 

Does the wind help split it?

 

I know a deep freeze does not help. Been there, tried that.

 

Yep. Someone (maybe dad) told me to wait until the dead of winter to split it and it would pop right open. No such thing. It was just as stringy and way too cold to work.

 

It apparently hadn't dried enough. Completely dry doesn't work either.

 

I contend that the higher winds cause more stranding to protect the tree causing it to be harder to split . Why some ash is easy and some not per example

 

I have had ash that popped open just from looking at it and some that put the splitter into low flow for the entire piece.

 

Yes as have I and trees in a hedge row or open area were in latter categories and straight trees from forest (with wind protection and growing straight to sunlight) were the pop open variety IME

 

I agree. We have stringy ash here. A lot more than typically.

Same with the elm. The push plate splitter does sometimes need a second round sent after the first to fully split them. At least the push plate allows that. The H/V splitter with the moveable splitting head on the ram, does not.

 

i have a fixed knife wedge with a spreader right behind it. seldom have any problems with stringy items.The original unit had a wide triangle wedge on the ram , always a problem with stringy items, so much so that it bent the foot plate (2" thick) and deformed the beam by about 3/16"over the 24" travel.