I’ll have to measure when I get my tape measure back from my sister’s place with my saw, but if your estimate is correct, I still have some work left to do this spring. There is probably another .25 cord of red maple split and not stacked or stacked somewhere else, but I was shooting for 2 cord, so I can save as much of my 1.5 cord locust as possible for the years after. More time would squeeze some more btu out of the locust and then give the cord or so of white oak more time as well. Of course, presuming this pandemic wraps up and I am back in the office, that would bring the consumption way down next year, but either way I might as well keep busy stocking up on the RM. Before I get much more RM, I was going to shuffle some locust into my on-deck stacks, move some mixed oak back where the locust was, so I have a place to stack the RM high and in the sun. But I need the ground to dry out some before I do any of that. The uglies were my fall back work, and they are all split up but for one.
I measured and it was 14x5’, so .7 cord and I stacked another face(1/3) yesterday, putting me over 1cord of RM. I don’t know if my 1yr locust is going to be ready for next year.. parts were reading 30%. I did kind of ding up my meter pokey things while splitting next to it so I wonder if it is reading high? I need to take a file to it and try again. buZZsaw BRAD your main stacking area is somewhat shaded, right? What is your take on top covering and drying time as compared to the resource guide?
I’m closing in on 2 cord of maple (including less than a face (1/3) of Norwegian maple “uglies” or crotches and burly pieces from almost two years ago that I couldn’t split. Some weathering made it splittable w just a few soft spots. I am slowing down now that I have moved past the smaller diameter rounds.. though there are still some hiding in back. I’m splitting, and leaving everything over 18” long for the neighbor. The bigger, beefy maple rounds can be stubborn. I’ll start a pile of the super tough ones to noodle.
Another wheelbarrow full and I measured.. at about 1.6 cords so far. I keep thinking I’m closer to two, but haven’t put a full day into the red maple hoard in a while. The good news is I have space for another .4 so should meet my goal in the next couple weeks.
There is still 2-3 cords in rounds, left. I tried to count the rings on the stump and it came out to about 75.
And the drier those rounds get, the harder they are to hand split. I would be tempted to rent a splitter for a weekend and get it over with.
That was the neighbor's plan, but he is starting to get into the hand splitting and exercise. I'm about out of (wife permissible) places to stack. I mean I can go higher in places and continue to double up. There is a second row behind the stack behind the shed that tends to grow mushrooms now that I think about it. I'll probably keep picking away at it. And he will prob get a splitter when he gets sick of looking at all these logs in his back yard. I've never actually used a splitter.
Try getting the rounds wet or split after a rain. It makes a difference. Splitter not that hard to use. If this stubborn old mule can do it so can you!
The neighbor is going to rent a stump grinding thing sometime soon to open up his yard. There are a lot of biggy trunk chunks that look like they had to be noodled just to move them into a pile. Some could get tricky to hand split even fresh. One splitting technique he was showing me, he lay the round on it's side and struck with the ax square in the middle repeatedly. He said that's the way they do back home. I was dubious, but, he was making big splits out of some stubborn rounds that way. The big splits should work out well for his fire pit. The technique might work out on some unsplittable uglies.
