It's been a while since I've been out there...I forget sometimes how spartan the landscape can be as far as trees go. Went into southern MT when I was there and the only trees I saw there were cottonwoods. The only place they were growing was in the runoff ditches. Shade can be a commodity in those parts on a hot day! Lesson learned. Pack an umbrella for prairie dog hunting!
Agreed. I'm spoiled with a huge mix bag of premium stuff in my area so I can pass on it. The stuff I had left hard ash chunks in my stove that wouldn't break up when I shook my grated. Like bricks!
Same situation here where i live mag craft. The elm trees here look exactly like the one in your pics. I could get alot of it if i wanted to, its tough splitting with an ax or maul. I burn about 3/4 cord of elm a year it does have a good burn time compared to softwoods.
Nice work Mag Craft As for elm, yes it can smell a bit when it is still alive but let the wood dry and most of the smell is gone. As for burning, we burn a lot of elm and we like it. I've not noticed an abundance of ash from it and as for burn times, it is good.
Most of my Elm right now is still about 2 years out but when it comes around in the rotation I will have plenty. Thanks Dennis.
Elm puts out really nice yellow flames from the burner tubes. There's so much of it around here dead standing that I can't not cut and burn it. I've seen no real issues of clumping ash or clinkers from burninating it. My wife and I like the smell of burning American elm.
I tried to spit elm one time and only one time with my Fiskars splitting axe. Never again. About 10 swings just to get a crack started. Maybe the ISO core will do the job when I get it next week.
The only way I'll do elm it to wait for it to die and then wait longer, until the bark falls off. Then it splits nicely.
Hydraulics. That's all. I've noticed that even if it's dead standing and the bark has fallen off, it still is not easily split by axe/ maul or other non hydro method.
Don't think I've ever come across any elm, maybe in a log load when I wasn't paying attention, or everything was covered in snow and ice. (My first year was pretty rough. ) Dutch Elm disease did a number on them out here for sure. There's one up the road the town will take down before winter I believe - I've laid claim to it, but claims can be tenuous if I'm not first in line with a few beers for the tree warden.
No Elm or Gum, from what I read here, and being one that splits manually, I'm good with that. Go Sox!! Sent from my SM-T280 using Tapatalk
Good to know. I had an elm taken out of my yard this year and tried to get a short round split right away. Even with wedges it was quite a job on a 12 inch diameter round. Now I will just wait for the bark to fall off of the rest and try again.
Good luck, the elm I was trying to Split was dead standing for years, cometely dry and impossible to split manually .
It might help to wait to make it easier to split. I have not seen that really to make much, if any difference in ease of splitting elm. I simply wait until the bark falls off because it's super clean wood then, and the wood already starts to season while it's standing.
Yours must be different as most of it splits much easier when we let it go until the bark is off before we cut it. Then it usually splits nicely. There always can be a few tough ones though.
