Gotta love strings, Will make for running the splitter full cycles but still one of my favorites to burn or mix burn with locust and oak.
Hey Loon, that doesn't look like it was that tough to split. Go for more! This little split pile was mostly elm. Nothing stringy in this batch. As you can see, there is a lot more of it to be split yet.
HaHa!! fooled ya all.There aint no elm around here! On the way over today I happened to find a few nice easy maple and ash trees that needed to come up to the house. And not one cuss word all day. Emma was pretty happy with the no cussing day also.
Just you guys wait. When I get to a GTG, I'll bring a few rounds for any elm virgin to try to hand split. I could heat my house on dead standing elm alone for years, but I won't because it's such a pain to split, and I have tons of sugar maple, beech, and hickory to burn.
The trick with elm is to let it dry enough. Once the bark is falling off, and there is a radial crack running up the trunk, it will give right up to the Fiskars.
Not the stuff I have. Granted I don't have a fiskars, just a generic maul, but it doesn't split easy, even with a radial crack in it and no bark from standing dead for years.
Honestly I don't think the Axe matters that much. I can swing the maul with all my might, 40 times in the heartwood of the elm I cut, and it wouldn't do anything. Even if the fiskars are 20 times better than my maul, splitting this stuff by hand is no fun.
"Elm" itself is a cussword around here. When translated loosely it means "#%£€¥@! I cut them when there is no bark left on them. Tried a Fiskars, maul, and sledge and wedges. Waited until it was below zero temps. And I've still got some rounds that refuse to budge. The ends are all marked up from failed attempts. Every round is different. Some of them are nearly indestructable.
heck Elm is no fun with hydraulics because it's so stringy you can't get it off wedge without a sledgehammer!
As long as you are splitting with hydraulics it isn't that bad. Takes a while though since you have to run most of the spits down all the way.
Pretty sure the 'American elm' that's half dead with the bark still on is the biggest pain with the splitter or maul. The big standing dead ones that weren't too bad to split were layed down years ago and pretty much every elm now is smallish newly dead.
That's exactly it. Even then, running full stroke, sometimes they don't split apart. Going from elm to hickory is a treat, and hickory isn't an easy splitting wood.
I've got one big dead standing elm I'll cut this fall or winter. It's about 38" in diameter. I'll see how that one splits... AFTER I get all my maple, beech, and hickory split and stacked.
Except for the bit of ash these were cussed at tossed aside and will be dealt with another day.I gave up along time ago getting mad at the elm but it sometimes creeps back.
Theres a big dead one on a different property Horkn that I might go get today? But it wants to drop on some good fencing
