Oh split 'em further for sure. If I had a stove that big I'd have to move out of my house. No this is just getting started for upcoming seasons. I've got a huge Ponderosa down on my property and the rounds are so big I need to quarter them just to stack 'em. Just to give you an idea, the rounds in the pic are the small ones.
I'll sometimes quarter white pine so at least they'll do some seasoning, then finish splitting when it is cooler and/or fits my schedule. But I've had to quarter huge rounds to stack them out of the way for now too. Sometimes rolling them only goes so far towards being helpful.
For sure. I've got this tree setup to buck, roll, quarter, stack. Fortunately it's only about a 70 foot roll and I'm quartering them right in front of where they'll be stacked (did I mention that I love my pickaroon? ). I've learned over the years that the big stuff looks cool in pictures but 16"-18" max is the the ticket.
Big dang rounds man! Yeah that’s sometimes the best way to do it. I had alder the same kind of deal as that cottonwood. Just too heavy to really worry about splitting it small. I quartered or halfed some serious rounds during the spring but after July, they felt like cedar splits. I might be exaggerating a bit but compared to fresh wet cut rounds, giving it a few months are just what it needs to make it manageable again.
It is amazing seeing your pictures and remembering one of the last elm trees I cut. Looks the same after splitting too although I don't have any pictures after they were split! But they look almost identical.
It all depends. As you can see, this tree was dead and only a very small spot or 2 that still had a little bark. If you can wait until that happens with elm, it will usually split easy. Those could have easily been split with an axe or maul, but I use hydraulics because of my old and beat up body. On the other hand, if you cut elm green, it is absolutely terrible to split. If if is is dead but you don't wait for the bark to fall, again, it is bad. If the tree grew out in the open, like in a fence row, all bets are off for it splitting nicely. Elm burns good too. Most of it does not get that big though before it dies.
When I was a kid, I bet 50% of our firewood was red and white elm. All standing dead or already on the ground
Yeah that seems similar to knotty Ponderosa out here. If it's green forget it by hand. After about 6-8 months the bark falls off and it splits nice.
We burned a lot of standing dead elm when I was a kid too. All DED killed. It split pretty easy dead. I remember getting some that was more on the green side that wasn't so easy to split. I found that out the hard way when I had to hand split it as punishment for misbehaving.
Yup. I have several in the woods that I'd like to get out this winter. A couple I may have let go too long though.
