I was hoping to get the pile of hackberry all split this weekend. I ran out of gumption. Had company stop in and got me out of the mood. I need to make whats left of the 20 foot by 36 inch trunk go away now. I got it hacked down to about 5 foot left and tipped it upside down in hopes the concrete in the hollow spot would fall out. Some did. Over the years that hollow spot has filled in with wind blown farm ground and filtered down every crack and rotten spot so badly that I cant make even 1 full saw cut with out dulling a chain. I'm thinking of rolling it out back and tipping it back up and having a summer long Swedish candle. Got some pretty good splits out of the rest so far though. The first truck load hit the over load springs so that tells me I had around 4 tons on it. The second load was probably close to 2 tons. I am hoping that when its all stacked I get around 2 cords or a little more. That green hackberry sure is wet heavy stuff. My arms are stretched so much I didn't have to bend over to tie my boots this morning.
Can you eat away at the outside by cutting part way through to your split length and then splitting it off? I see you have already made some surface cuts on it.
That's kind of what I have been doing. The problem is that the closer I get to the hollow spot the more rotted cracks full of dirt and debris there are. Mostly hidden till you find them with a saw chain. Splitting with a maul and wedge is out of the question as what you are looking at is an upside down trunk. The end sticking up is actually close to where the root crown was. The grain on a hackberry is far from straight on limb wood but much much worse at the stump.
I think you have done enough work on that tree. That was the one that was gifted to you and dropped off in your yard, right? If so, that can be just campfire wood mega Swedish candle. No use dulling anymore chains.
I ran out of steam today myself I had a headache all day so I wasn't hitting it real hard Looks like you did though
