Took down a dead elm at the processing site today. It was standing behind the boat rack. I stood on the shed roof next to it...pretty flat roof....and topped it with the pole saw. Then using the 450 Rancher pieced the rest down. The last piece was the only one to connect with the boat rack, so I have a minor repair to do tomorrow. I also trimmed up a bunch of small volunteer trees that were shading a crooked little ash. Figured might as well give it a good chance...until the EAB get it. Here is my haul for the day. Not a lot but it all adds up. I thought I'd give a shot at hand splitting it, and to my surprise it split as easy as most ash! My lucky day! I ended up splitting all of the big stuff, and will stack it up tomorrow. Have a great 4th all!
Nice job schlot, every bit DOES add up! Have a happy and safe 4th of July- and the rest of ya's here on the best forum around-FHC!
I got some wood the electric company cut down near my house, thought it was maple until I split it, its elm, even with hydraulics its a stringy mess.
Got the boat rack fixed then stacked the elm (foreground) and then spent some time bucking, splitting and stacking the birch (white and paper) with my better wood (background).
I hear you man. The elm that came out of my back yard was stringy and a son of freaking gun to split! This stuff was down right decent.
Dennis. They will learn if they split it in the horizontal position it is stringier than splitting it in the vertical position.
Nice job on that elm. I scored a dead elm a few weeks ago that the x 27 bounced off. Absolutely miserable. I will either noodle them or get the wedge out. This split is only about 6" in diameter and took 8 whacks to get that sliver off.
That's looks very familar. On the elm from my house I gave up on the X27 and went to my monster maul. That was the only way I got small to medium sized rounds split up.
Make sure you have a backup wedge to get the first wedge out if you are using it on elm. And a backup backup wedge to get the second one out. A wooden wedge that you can just leave in and burn out later might come in handy when the third wedge gets stuck.
Since I was on a roll from yesterday I bucked some of the elm that came from my house and thought I'd split it up. I thought "Maybe Ive found the secret to splitting elm...maybe I'm ten times stronger and it will split as easy as the tree I just took down" Ha! Mother nature told me who was boss once again. I split about 7 or 8 medium sized stringy rounds then with the heat setting in I called it a day for splitting! I decided to take a look around the grove and cut back a bunch of volunteer shrubs shading several Hackberry and Mulberry trees. Im going to need them to grow big because there about 5 mature elms that are looking pretty sick. Looks like I will have plenty of elm to burn over the next few years.
