Hey All! I have been seeing some comments here lately about the "joys" of splitting elm. I had a load of elm 2 years ago that I wore myself out on and vowed not to touch again. Then just a few weeks ago I was asked to make some discs for table centerpieces for a wedding. Knowing this elm tree was out in the back damaged and that it would make some decent looking cookies I took it down. Then decided I couldn't waste the rest and cut it to length thinking I would try a new approach to splitting it. Here's what I found. Don't aim for the middle, aiming for the middle is for normal wood, elm isn't normal wood. It's held together by hatred for those of us who split by hand. Aim instead off to the side, where that white line has appeared. It splits pretty clean when hit off to the side. Then continue around the center and knock off the other sides. 5 total whacks with an isocore to get to that point, should have been four but I swung like a senator on one of them. Now your left with a square center, if desired you can just leave it as is. The pieces split off the sides split easily, granted they aren't knotty. The square center piece can have the corners knocked off again or you can go for the middle of it and remind yourself of what it is your splitting, which is what I did for this one. As you can see splitting down the middle still gives you that warm welcome that everyone loves about elm, but not quite as bad as the square is smaller than the round. If I didn't like square splits so much I would knock the corners off from the center piece and go on with life, but some things are worth fighting for......maybe Hope this method works for some others who have been experiencing the joy and wonders and hand splitting elm!
Ok, I'll agree it might be good for something: I guarantee you wouldn't have done that to the 2 elm tree's I processed. I have no idea which species elm they were.
Glad you have figured something out but some elm will be hard to split no matter where you try to split it. I split American elm by hand for years and some was easier than others but I would always have a pile that I couldn’t split. I would wait for the coldest day of the year to split them. The harder elm is to split the hotter it burns imo. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I do this even when splitting oak by hand. Easier to crib ends of piles than pie shaped pieces and I like the big square centers for night time blocks.
Here in the Pac NW we burn a lot of Douglas Fir. Many times you will find large rounds from the butt of the tree are all that is left after others have pillaged a log pile. These butt rounds are very fibrous and hard to split with a maul, requiring multiple hits and usually several wedges so a lot of people spurn them. A logger friend of mine showed me how to walk around the edges just like you did. He would use a double bitt axe rather than a maul and just keep clipping off the edges. I do that now with my Fiskars splitting axe when I hand split. It is nice to have nice square blocks from the center to firm up a stack!
Nice! I always go for the middle..well mostly. I'm getting real angry if it doesnt split right away. Its personal then, i should be smarter than that, thanks for the reminder.
That is the right technique regardless of species. Of course, a small log or something easy to split might get a middle split, but the outside-in approach is generally the easiest. I've had some elm split like that and others that don't. You have to use good technique as you have demonstrated to have any chance at all with most of it. But much of it is going to be miserable even wth good technique. Less miserable, but still miserable to split. I say this not to criticize your post, but rather to ensure newbies don't think it is their fault when they don't get similar results.
Had a big red elm this few months ago wore myself out. At that time I only had a axe and learned to split off all the way arnd till u work urself in the middle. Sent from my Coolpad 3310A using Tapatalk
