If I get 6 or more splits out of a round, the center pieces are always square. I like the way they fit in the Fireview. I use racks for stacking, no time for cribbing ends
I'm down with the t-post brotherhood! Unless I'm stacking it for someone who's bought a cord, I ain't bothering with cribbed ends!
I do it like that Chief except that I have the splitter set up the right way! Horizontal is for sleeping and certain other things but not for splitting wood!
+1 square & rectangle splits are easier to make when splitting vertical . I like them for cross stacking, & loading the stove for longer burns Wonder if they dry faster or slower, faster maybe, with more exposed wood, Birch bark is like cellophane , 3 & 4 sides of the splits exposed should dry better.
I think bogy is on to something... The science is in...No further research needed...Square splits are better. Now...I just can't understand why anyone would split vertical...
I thought Everyone knew : Moisture runs out the bottom end when the round is under compression, just before it splits
this is also why you always position the top if the tree pointing to the sky when splitting, so the water runs out the bottom...
I split as many square shaped pieces as possible - I do crib corners of my pallet stacks and like how the can fill the stove tightly. Still end up with lots of triangles though. Cheers!
an older buddy of mine whose burned wood longer than ive been alive splits like that whenever possible, "blocks" he calls them. Oak and Ash for us are really the only woods suitable for square splits, everything else here along the lake is too twisted and gnarly to do anything but be happy it split at all.
Just keep looking for that perfect piece! Bitternut Hickory is about the best stacking stuff I've run into for cribbing. Plus the BTU value is so good. put the rest of the wood in the middle Everything in this pic is Bitternut
the same guy i mentioned helped me split some rounds from a 70ish year old beech near shore of lake mich. it was so twisted and gnarled that they were impossible to split without noodling/wedging the round in half and then using his splitter.
Chief; I can't be that picky with what I can scrounge!! I don't get very much "straight" grained wood to make into firewood. I'm really not kidding when I say that most of y'all's uglies are my regular burning wood!!! I get lots of box elder, silver maple, and elm.........................not the nicest splitting wood. But I do try to do what you do with my Fiskars X25. Got into some EAB ash recently ...................got lotsa nice square/retangular splits out of them bad boys!!!
