Well yesterday was a bust. Started out the day trying to get a cord of pine put up. By the time I cleaned up the 2 gallons of gas from the snow blower on the garage floor and got the dead battery from leaving the lights on in the car last night which was in the way of the snow blower ...... ...decided to try splitting some blue spruce with the electric splitter in the garage out of the rain. You'd have thought I was trying to split truck tires. This is like trying to split rubber. Rubber full of knots. The few pieces I did get split ( more like shredded ) have some interesting sap pockets. Is spruce like pine in that it tends to split a little easier when it dries out some ? After giving up on it last night and stacking all the rounds out of the way at 9PM in the rain I'm kinda wishing I had just dragged this spruce tree into the swamp and offered it up to the swamp forest gods.
Yes, but lots of knots might not make it split pretty...but it sounds like you already know that. We like to burn spruce for outdoor campfires.
I imagine it would a be a little easier when frozen, but if it's real knotty it'll probably still be tough. May need to borrow a splitter. Hand splitting may yield better results than the electric splitter as well. Are they small knots or large ones? Often times I can split right through smaller knots that are common on softwoods
I've burned a very little spruce and like you billb3, found it to be a bit of a PITA. I felt like rounds up to 6-8" dry pretty quick w/o splitting. Anyone find this to be true or just my limited experience with the stuff?
I burn a lot of spruce. Most of the trees are not yard trees so the branches are not as big. I split by hand. Frozen definitely helps. If the round doesn't crack or show signs of splitting after a couple of hits with the Fiskars, I switch to the wedge and sledge, once the round is open it goes much easier. I find it easier to aim directly at the knot, the split just naturally goes around the knot.
I have a bunch of spruce here that I quit splitting and have resorted to noodling the whole thing. I am about 75 % done. Too many big knots that messes up the splits and those nice squares that I have noodled sure stack nice. Actually with a fast saw and sharp chain it is faster then splitting them.
Spruce can be very hard to split in that it does not split with a pop. Even with a wedge head splitter, the wedge has to go full stroke to break all the sinuous like fibers. This was a good size Sitka Spruce with multiple tops! Lots of noodling! This tree took the better part of 3 days to process, but fun all the same.
I have done my fair share of splitting spruce by hand over the years Spruce is easy if dry just a good hit with the maul Green on the other hand I used a 12 lb sledge and some old style long wedges I had a 25lb sledge once it was nice other then pulling the wedge out of the ground I am not sure why some hate spruce/pine I like it myself to start the fire and for shoulder wood But I won't waste my time on aspen/cottonwood
Well it is all put aside out of the way for now. Except for the one round I can't pick up. Cold spell this week, maybe try again when they are ice cubes. Maybe when they age some more. Cut up a fir tree last Winter and it burns kinda nice so hoping this does too.
Going a little off topic here. Spruce was my favorite tree for making a wooden or log Snorkel for cable log loader. A spruce snorkel would bend where a Fir snorkel would break. These pictures were taken in 1980. The log snorkel gave the log loader another 40' of reach. My two young daughters came along for ride this day!
I much prefer fir over spruce, the fir I got from my neighbors yard is pretty heavy good btu stuff for a softwood, the spruce I've got was a pia to split and wasn't as good as the fir, but I take all wood for free.
I'm fighting the same battle here and will be using all your suggestions... this forum is the best! Since it's free tree service wood, I'm not complaining haha.
I'm not surprised. I used to watch this tree wiggle in a storm like the giggling fat lady jiggles. After watching a split bend right over resisting being split like a rubber gumby I'm not surprised at how flexible these trees are. Glad this is not all I have to burn. So far seems a bit tricky to get split up. Great advice and experiences so far !
