Anyone ever half and quarter big oak rounds like this?

We went from low 40s to 80s in a day. Had last fire couple of days ago.
Have a bunch of big rounds to split and really don't like wrestling with them when they don't split cleanly in half. I tried rolling them on the foot of splitter and the weight of the half rounds really help them to come apart cleanly. Only had one round that I still had to wrestle with.
I halved and quartered around 12 rounds and now will split normally. All red oak.

 

Never done it. I usually noodle it. But if that works thats faster, more handeling but faster

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Oh sure - except manually sledgin' & wedgin' -

A little noodle just to get the wedges in.


A few taps and it'll split where it wants to



Then just the x27 to deal with any strings

 

I have done that too, but no wedges just a maul

 

clemsonfor , MikeInMa I've done both ways in past but this was FAST. Just rolled onto foot and boom 2 halves. Then tilted and flipped half to make a quarter. These rounds have been sitting for a year so I stripped off bark the other day ( 2 green landscape barrels full). They rolled easy to splitter. Now to finish up and do more

 

I halved and quartered them just to be able to move and stack them. I'll get to splitting them to stove size, over time.

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Yes, rather than make the effort to stand it up, just roll it over and attack it from the side. It works with some rounds.

Red oak rounds are usually so easy to pop open with a wedge and heavy hammer of some sort that I often don't even make the effort of rolling them. But then again rolling them is sometimes easier or faster than carrying chunks. Depends too much on the situation for just one standard .


Pine is so inconsistent from one round to the next I just stand them up.

Never had much big maple.

 

I have split large rounds when getting wood out of the woods with my RTV or any method where I was loading by hand. I always ask myself "is it more work to half or quarter or lift the round?" And proceed accordingly!

 

I always noodle mine all they way through, roll them onto a couple of small tree limbs to get them off the ground.

 

I've never tried it that way or even thought about it. When I get my splitter back from my neighbor I think I'll try your technique.

 

I have a 24” bar on my larger saw and I cut everything to 20” length, so I noodle anything I can’t lift. I will occasionally pull out a maul if the pieces have nice straight grain.


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I tried it for the first time the other day when wrestling a good sized mess of a sugar maple crotch. Had to hand split and noodle it in half, then was able to wrestle the halves to the splitter. Twisty mess it was, should have just noodled them. Tried flipping them horizontal, which helped. Wound up with a pile of splits that looked like a bomb went off in the middle, and nearly filled a short bed pickup, tossed in.

 

I thought about doing it on this stump cut the other day, wouldn't half or bust with multiple saw strikes

 

Yup, just did it on a big Ash round tonight...POP!

 

Flip that round to the other side and see if that helps getting it to split.

 

brenndatomu glad it worked for you too
I don't do this too often but with strait grained wood that will roll onto foot of splitter, it's easier than splitting normally for me. The biggest round I can roll onto splitter would be 26 inches. That's with splitter wedge all the way up.
What I like best is the weight of the round helps finish the split. The little stringy bits of oak left connected between the two halfs break quickly as the round opens up and falls to the ground.
Once it's in half I flip it on the flat and split it normally but with the flat against the beam of splitter.

Everyone has little tricks they learn when using a splitter to split wood this is just one to be used when appropriate.
Actually that would probably be a good thread to start , "Tricks and tips to use when splitting wood"

In my splitting area I've only had to noodle a few times. I've used wedges many times and with oak it is quick on the really big rounds.

Gotta say that this splitter has been great. It's a 22 ton with a honda engine and there was only one round that it would not split. It was a big oak round that had 4 big branches coming out. Talk about confused grain pattern. Stopped the wedge no matter how I positioned it. Had to noodle it in half. That eased up grain pressure and it split fine.

 

I never tried it that way, but will with the right wood.

 

Yeah I’ve tried this with pretty large and wet rounds. Weight wise was the main reason to split them into manageable pieces to carry and let dry before splitting again. It is definitely worth splitting a round into quarters or thirds to let a majority of it dry out for a little while. At least the 2-3 year plan will help any new wood coming in to be ready for any additional processing in time if they are just so bulky to begin with.