I had a handful of maple logs that I debarked over a year ago when I was handling with my grapple. These pieces are dry as can be and burn great. I should hit with the MM tonight for conversation sake. I have considered debarking large logs to accelerate drying. Anyone ever mess with this at all? My assumption is drying time will not offset the time to debark. Thoughts?
I have never tried it. I sometimes debark some of the cottonwood splits I am about to burn only because the bark is really thick and it does not burn all that great. Other wise I just split and stack and let it dry. With the 3 year plan in place it really does not matter if I debark to dry it faster because it will have 3 years to dry no matter what.
There's 2 times I typically lose bark: when it's been on the ground for a while, or when it's been drying out for a while. Another other thing is, "over a year" is typically plenty of time for maple to dry. Did the bark fall off when you were handling it, or did you remove it intentionally? My thoughts are, we'd need a lot more data to prove this experiment conclusively. My guess is that different species would be affected differently. Birch, for instance, due to the watertight bark, doesn't really dry much at all until it's split or if the bark is "unzipped". I doubt it would have much effect in maple.
If the bark is already coming off, I'll pull the really loose stuff, but I won't spend a whole lot of time on it. I have gooder things to do. Soft Maple will dry pretty darn well in a year without doing anything other than splitting. As I'm moving the wood from stacks to shed, more is usually falling off as well. By the time it goes into the house/stove, there might be a little more coming off too.
I've heard of some debarking all their wood but as it usually turns out, most do it just so there is not so much mess when they bring wood into the house. Sure, wood should dry faster with the bark off but I'd have to be really hard up before I'd even consider it. If the bark falls off, it is okay but if not, it will burn along with the wood. Shoot, I've known some folks to save any bark that came off and burn it all in the stove! Not sure I'd do that either. Once again, if you get on the 3 year plan, there should be no worries and no need to debark.
Yeah, on the three year plan I find the bark is mostly falling off or off. Most of it ends up on or near the skids under the stacks and I'll rake it up sometimes and dump it on the trail in the woods. Some of my stacks are in the woods so it can just as well stay on the ground there, but anything on the patio or deck I gotta clean up. I have found it helps to make an effort to be seen cleaning up too.
When you have dead Elm, the bark just wants to come off. When I'm splitting, some of the little pieces and bark that falls off (not just Elm) it is raked up and put in milk crates to sit under cover for a year or so. I've got about 10 crates, I bring em' up to the porch as needed where the wood is stored to use as fire starter/ kindling it works really well for me. I've been doing it that way for decades. A hand full of that lights right up and gets the fire going. Any excess bark/sawdust type stuff I spread on the trail to neighbors house through the woods.
I would say 20% of the pieces i have are bark free as it either falls off, or is an inside split. I have a few pieces in the garage from the same time, some with bark on, some with bark off. I will try not to forget to check this with the MM tonight to see if there is any difference.
We have so much bark now I have been wondering what to do with it. Id say it falls right off about 75% of the wood I split.
Most of what I have been splitting lately has been losing most or all of its' bark when being split. Locust is especially good for shedding bark when it's been down for a year or two. I have a huge pile, probably more than a cubic yard, sitting next to my wood shed. I won't go out of my way to remove bark from logs though. I don't feel that it helps in the drying process very much, although I haven't tested anything to find out, just casual observation.
For me, it all depends on when it falls off. If it comes off in the woods, there it stays. If it comes off after its been stacked, it usually goes into the stove. If it comes off when I'm splitting, it gets tossed into a pile; and then every so often when I clean up my processing area, it gets hauled out to the lowest spots on my trails. I find even a thin layer of bark laid over a mud hole can give me just enough traction to get past it with a load of wood.
You bet! I burn a lot of Maple, very abundant here, after a good full year of drying it usually falls off! I pile it in a Big box for starting and the fire pit. I don't cover my wood while drying, only when it's in the wood shack and ready for the winter season. If it's still on the log, in the stove it goes. To Piggy back on Backwoods Savage, after 3 years.... no worries!
I was going to mention locust as well. After awhile the bark comes off in huge sections. It stinks and is usually wet.
If you remove bark so that the sapwood dries faster do you also remove the sapwood so the heartwood dries faster ? Bark supposedly has the same BTU value as the wood it is attached to +/-10% so why lose BTU ? I'm not going around picking up those crumbly mess makers for heat cuz it's not worth the effort but I'm not spending the time slicing them off either. The only two reasons I can think of is birch that isn't getting split and it would seem less work to just keep those small unsplit rounds out of the rain and wood like eastern white pine that can get borers under the bark, especially logs not cut or split.
If you split old stuff that has been laying around for a while like I do it more or less debarks itself. I always though of it a just making a mess where my rounds are piled.
I don't make an extra effort to remove bark since it's all starting outside to feed the owb, but I do have a fair bit of poplar, willow, and pine that likes to give up bark in large sheets. I lay them down around my stacks for easier weed whacking in summer.
