I have a fair number of elms and sweet gums that need to come down. I do all my splitting manually and the elm has been killing me. Sweet gum I let sit in the round for a year and it seems to come apart easier, but the elm if anything is worse. Today I decided to try cutting it to 1 foot lengths for EW loading rather than NS. I can slab it off fairly well now at the shorter length combined with sharpening the edge on my maul. The X25 seems to handle the smaller diameter stuff and is easier to aim accurately for the small stuff. A few times I had to take a wedge to it. My $7 made in India box store wedge was getting pretty peened and I don't have a grinding wheel to dress it (it is too far gone for a file unless I want to spend a day working on it) so I broke out the Gransfors wedge my wife got me for my birthday. I've been admiring it rather than using it. Stupid on my part. There is no comparison. The GB is a much better tool. I have no idea how something as simple as a wedge can be jacked up by trying to make it as cheaply as possible, but there it is. I think the cheapo wedges have a place once the GB gets a round opened up, really any wedge can keep expanding the split- even a wooden one. But the GB definitely digs in and gets going a lot better. It is about the same as the difference between a good axe and a box store Chinese one.
No pictures- the thunderstorms cranked up before I got any. Will get some when it lets up, which the weatherman says may be quite a while!
So far the elm we cut over the winter is splitting really easy. No bark on it at all and relatively light. I could burn it now if we needed it.
I also split by hand and have come to the realization that some elm rounds simply cannot be split. Busted out the sledge and wedges Saturday and gave up after about ten minutes. It is Devil's wood I tell ya. Pure evil.
When I was splitting by hand, which was about 25 years worth I'd give it a few whacks with the monster maul. If that wouldn't do it it got tossed aside until I had a few then I'd cut down through with the saw a few inches and give'em the monster maul again.
If nothing else stack the tough ones aside until you get a decent pile and rent a splitter or run a splitter for hire add on CL. It will be worth the $ to save on the cussing and unnecessary extra swinging imo.
It burns nicely. But splits for chit! I only use hydro's on elm, and it's never a clean split. Stringy gnarly stuff. I've got a nice sized dead standing elm I cut up and hauled to where I can split it a few weeks ago. I just need to take the hydro's to it, then haul it to my house and stack it.
Allot depends where the tree grew & how MN stressed them thru their lifetime. Long & tall & straight grained or bent, twisted & lots of limbs. & some wood when good & dry , pops apart. Birch here splits nice when green, A lot tougher when dry , sometimes pieces go flying.
But it is true. First though, let Mother Nature do some work for you. After the tree is dead, leave it standing. When the bark is at least 75% off, then cut and it splits easy.
Red Elm splits fairly easy compared to White Elm (also known as American Elm), I split 12-18" rounds with a splitting wedge and maul with no real troubles. Elm is ugly to split but if you find it standing dead and without its bark it makes great firewood.
I only cut dead elm, it's always standing, and most has the bark completely off, and a crack in the trunk. Even then, I've yet to have any easy to split and they always test out the hydro splitters might. About half of my wood this past season was american elm. It's great burning wood, just tough to split. This year I will have mostly shagbark and sugar maple, but I already have 1 large elm cut and waiting for me to split and stack, and another smaller 10" elm as well that was close to top off a trailer load.
