Hello brethren of the wood like! Long time lurker and first time poster. We have a wood yard down in my hometown of Bogart that allows you to come get the logs from the trees they cut down. Well, tree service yard if you will. I picked up some rounds of what I've been told is cottonwood and this is by far the most spiraled twisted wood I have ever put my hands on. I'm convinced a wood splitter would self destruct before it split this stuff in half. My X27 and my father in laws welded steel mail just bounce. Going to post some pics and see what you all think. Poplar splits far easier than this.
Welcome James Dean We love pics. What saws are you using and what are you burning wood in? What other kinds of wood are available?
Just about 30 miles north of you. That looks like sweetgum to me . it would give my 27 ton pause . tough stuff , i swear it grows in a spiral
Welcome to the club! Yeah looks can be deceiving huh? They look like nice straight rounds from the outside. I'm not sure on the ID, but I have run into some pretty gnarly poplar. Mine doesn't look like that though (aspen poplar). Some type of gum perhaps?
Thanks for the replies and nice to meet you all! I was mistaken in my post, the first tree that we cut up was a cottonwood and this one does seem to be sweetgum. My father in law is a timber harvester and ID'ed the first one for me, and this one we do believe to be sweetgum, so I stand corrected. His saw is a Husky 450 I think, and the saw that I run occasionally is my dad's saw, which is a Husky 440. The first tree has been split and stacked since about the middle of May and I'm amazed at how dry it is already in this GA weather. I split a small piece of it up to start the fire in my smoker, and there was absolutely no bubbling nor hissing. Now, you'll see in the pic of the stacked wood that the splits are somewhat smaller. 2 reasons for that. One, that wood was somewhat twisted and I split it any way it would go, and the second reason being my fireplace is not a fan of larger splits. It's a small prefab in the place we're currently renting and I'm still blown away by how much heat it throws off...it will literally run you out of the house with a mediocre fire. The main bedroom, right above the living room with said fireplace, will stay extremely comfy and the only time the heat will kick on is several hours after the fire has gone out. I never go to bed with a live fire, the coals get pushed to the middle-back of the fireplace and 2 screens get placed in front of it-we are extremely careful and cautious wood burners. As for other woods, the wood lot usually has stacks of anything and everything. The only thing I've not been able to successfully burn by itself in our fireplace is pine. I brought home some rounds that had been sitting a few months out there and most were dry enough to burn on the spot, but some beetles / larvae had gotten into it and the wood retained rainwater like a sponge. I also have pallets at my disposal and will burn those. They are all clean pallets with no chemical treatment and are all heat treated. My favorites to burn are oak and hickory, but the first tree had to come down due to dying, and my father in law took it down for me. We took turns blocking the trunk and limbs up. In the first pic below, the neatly stacked wood is entirely from the first tree. All I have so far from the rounds I brought home from the wood lot is a twisted mess, a sore back and some hurt pride.
Any wood that is a little punky, has a punky layer or porous from Bugs you have to keep covered, otherwise you might as well just throw it out in the woods
Welcome to the forum James Dean I can see where gum and cottonwood could be confused because the bark does look a lot alike. But the splitting certainly is not alike, or so they say. I've never had the pleasure of trying to split gum but hopefully will not ever get that problem. Punky wood, no matter what type, is nasty and fit mostly for the brush pile. But don't let that turn you off for pine as pine will burn nicely in that fireplace. Burns nicely in stoves too, no matter what the doomsday sayers want you to believe.
Cottonwood splits incredibly easy when it's straight grained. This wood in splitting now is from Satan himself I believe. We've decided our first house will have a wood stove. I love cutting and splitting wood lol I split another piece of that stacked wood open and it's ready to go. I'm talking totally seasoned and dry. I guess cottonwood seasons fast split small lol. Now time to start on the 3 year plan........
Cottonwood does dry fast even if not split small. There is a lot of water in there though so splitting small does no harm.
I tried again today with a sledge and wedge... wedge is an old axe head that will never hold a handle again. On the straightest round mind you. The axe head is now totally buried and refuses to comply with my commands to either split the wood or evacuate the round. Didn't even crack the round. I'm starting to think these will be noodled into quarters. Or thrown in a dumpster, that'll be fine too. My vacation started when I got off work today so me thinks wood splitting and gathering will be on hold for a bit. Going to Daytona to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Ready for some brew on the beach with my lovely wife
Welcome to the family, James Dean! Glad to have you! I'll have to hop on board with the others, that stuff both looks and behaves like some sort of gum. I've never dealt with sweetgum, but I've cut and split tupelo (black gum) and it's almost tough enough that if you were faced with using it and it alone, it could make you quit processing wood altogether!
I agree with the gum comments. I was @ Mike B's a while back and he had some 12"ish rounds of gum and that was the most miserable stuff I ever tried to split. He even had hydro's! It held up progress so much we threw it to the side. I can't imagine trying it by hand.
