nice looking load. Dontcha love the smell of it! My score from last week was a 32" BHD pin and i was able to C/S on site. The guy goes to me today "man this wood smells like S$%T". Theres a 2-3 cord mound of splits in his front yard!
Most of my good hardwood is ash that I have access to. There is very little oak for at least a 1 hr drive around me. However I am possibly going to get a couple pin oak that someone's grandpa planted from acorns he picked up from a river bottom years ago. A garage may get built in a year or two and if it happens he said he will let me get them. Being a hand splitter, how is pin oak to hand split?
If it's straight, it's not too bad, but if is anywhere near those knots, you have to noodle it or wedge it, or some combination of the two.
Picture is an update of my "oakee dokee" thread from last Tuesday. This was a 32"BHD pin oak that was dead. Split pretty easy by hand, but had lots of little pin knots that made it a little tougher...plus the size. Had to wedge a few, but fiskars and log blaster did the rest. Had half a truck full of logs that i had to noodle with the chain saw at home. (not my yard pictured)
the homeowner is a 24yr old "kid" who's mother died a few years ago. No father either. Lives there alone. His next door neighbor is a wood hoarding friend of mine who helps him out a lot. I helped him decide on a tree service just to fell the trees and saved him a lot of money. Of course i get all the wood. Gave some to my friend. He gave me another tree which i felled two months ago. He even offered to to let me store some wood there too.
Tree was dead and about 90% of the bark fell off when i split it plus all the noodles and sawdust so the mess is a lot worse. Most of the small branches broke off as well. It lost a big limb in December that took out his wires.