my problem wit wood that doesn’t split all way especially elm in vertical splitter was getting scrap off wedge. A lot of elm dying here to Dutch elm disease Few more years will be ash as EAB has now been verified in state
That's my experience as well. Some splits easier than others, especially the Siberian elm. That was easy. American Elm, it doesn't seem to matter. I split it all regardless. If it's really ugly, it's going in the fire pit.
Bingo.. push through, push plate, pass through... All the same thing and all so much better than the other style which are usually horizontal/ vertical...
Just look at The Wood Wolverine 's pics. Granted, those are extreme cases. Typically the elm splits like 3/4 of the way. Those with a push through splitter, you just load another piece and it will split it.
I bolted some flat bar to the splitter foot, so blade goes thru wood. It works great for elm and stringy hickory.
Your elm by you is nasty stuff. It's nowhere near that here, except for really knotty sections. I just cut around those and leave the chunks for the fire pit, or for the chunky monkey pile.
In the very first picture in the thread the stuff on the left of splitter i read Backwoods Savage say awhile back that splitting around the heartwood works alright and i will see later today if that will be the ticket. Plus thinking of putting in a 2x10 behind the stringy crap against the wall of splitter which is kinda like Jeff showed in his picture. Gotta try something as i have 4 monsters on the property that would do us at least 2 years but never touched as i know how much of a pain they are.
OK, nothing i did seemed to help so i got the angle grinder out and sharpend this small spud bar which so far is the best way of dealing with the strings. Its not aggrevating at all.
Gotcha Ralphie and it helps to have a young lad down the road doing the grunt work for a few extra bucks as i'm not allowed to.
