Maybe I should change my name to drvn4maple.. The wife and I went home for the weekend and her dad had dropped and bucked a standing dead sugar for me so all we had to do is load it up. My dad collects fallen sticks from his sugar and silvers then bundles them so we have plenty of kindling. Second pic is what I tossed out of the truck into the splitting area. Last pic is the black locust stack I made today that will fall soon because it's 6' tall..lol..
Locust is great but maple also is very good wood. Good of your father to get that wood together for you.
Indeed. Both of our dads are always helping out. From what I burned last year, I was more impressed with the sugar maple than the red oak. Both were equally three year split and dry and I thought the maple was a better.
Tricks that I have seen and found to keep them upright: Put full length pieces of 1x in your stack to mechanically tie the two individual stacks together. Alternately you can use pieces of rope tied off on pieces of boards to hold the outsides or as I do, take pieces of 1" sling that I once used when climbing and nail them in tight to adjacent pieces of wood. Without a cat I'm not concerned about putting metal into my stove. Providing that what I'm stacking is reasonably straight I can get 7' cubes to stay upright. However if you get some spiral grain crap and all bets are off. I've also had success wrapping a cube with some old 3' garden/rabbit fence, using electrical staples to hold it.
Got some serious BTU's stacked up there. Sugar maple is prime stuff Having some good dry kindling is golden for shoulder seasons
I said the same thing last year but my sugar maple was seasoned two years and the red oak was three years. This year I'm cutting anything but red oak. I got a little white oak that was dead but most is ash and maple.
