In loving memory of Kenis D. Keathley 6/4/81 - 3/27/22 Loving father, husband, brother, friend and firewood hoarder Rest in peace, Dexterday

Hardest Wood to Split?

Discussion in 'The Wood Pile' started by Nordic Splitter, Dec 10, 2016.

  1. FatBoy85

    FatBoy85

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    I don’t have pictures of the wood because I let some of them rot and it was hardly worth continuing: A very knotted spruce, Winged Elm, Leyland Cypress and some standing dead madrona. I’ve been lucky with most wood. I will include some white birch but most of the stuff was very straight limbs, very manageable with the maul. However trunk was just marbled with limb knots and maul bounced off very easily on some pieces and those rounds were 20+“ across!

    Basically the birch is why I have my splitter today! Glad I bought it, the woods I had before wouldn’t have sat like they did.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2020
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  2. Aje1967

    Aje1967

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    Elm.
    However I had bad luck with open grown cherry once. I have hydraulics so it was not too hard but ended up with bunches of stringy elm-like "splits". Mess.
    My brother and buddy got a giant honey locust once and it was so bad that they ended up putting quite a bit of it in the burn pile. Just got sick of fighting it. So while elm, and I guess sweet gum, are evil, sometimes even good wood can be problematic.
     
  3. The Wood Wolverine

    The Wood Wolverine

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    I'm really really confused with this reply. I started out burning firewood w/ 16 cord of apple, and I've processed a metric chit ton since. Apple is no where near elm or gum IME. This mountain is 100% apple, not much stringy at all.
    DSC03944.JPG
    Vs.
    IMG_0274.JPG


    Mind if I quote that in my sig? :yes:
     
  4. Gpsfool

    Gpsfool

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    Elm and some cottonwood although I’ve had cottonwood that was easy too - weird.
     
  5. FatBoy85

    FatBoy85

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    Can’t even begin to stress on how true this is. I’ve got a bunch of plum out in the back that was a standing dead blow-over. It’s dried out so it’s ridiculously hard so I’m hoping it will cut ok on me. I might require a lot of little splits because my intentions for this stuff is bbq wood. When I did get a round off of one of the logs, it split like a DNA strand. Curved through the whole split. Apple does this too sometimes. Now I’m worried about burning out my saw on this stuff when I do get to process it. Last time I did, chain hung down and that was the end of that...
     
  6. Sluggo

    Sluggo

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    Sweet gum. Pulling the stumps is a huge chore also. Roots to China.
     
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  7. Kris_S

    Kris_S

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    Here’s what I have, 12lb maul has only gotten me so far. Next door neighbor had it taken down and dropped off, which was very nice, but I need to cut a lot of it down to a usable size for us.

    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  8. buZZsaw BRAD

    buZZsaw BRAD

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    Great way to describe it! Noodle time!
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2020
  9. buZZsaw BRAD

    buZZsaw BRAD

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    Doesnt look like black locust so it must be honey. Have you ever tried noodling? Good candidates for it.
    Thanks for the pics!
     
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  10. Kris_S

    Kris_S

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    Not yet, but I’m going to have to.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
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  11. buZZsaw BRAD

    buZZsaw BRAD

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    i enjoy hand splitting but hate killing myself doing it. I split what i can "easily" and will noodle the rest for the most part. Some nice wood to be had in those.
     
  12. Felter

    Felter Banned

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    ya that is all honey locust. its a crotch though so it will be tougher. IME, honey locust is about as hard to split as ash. maybe a lil tougher. but its a dream compared to cottonwood and cottonwood is easy compared to gum. I've hand split cottonwood, in below zero weather as long as you split with the grain it actually splits fairly easy. until you find a hidden crotch, then its tough. also on a 20 inch round I would end up with an 8 inch dia. center that was unsplit-able.
     
  13. FatBoy85

    FatBoy85

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    Haha maybe! I wonder if getting a one man cross cut saw would work, really the rounds wouldn’t need to be big in terms of thickness just manageable to be split. It isn’t tough to split by my hydraulics! :p

    Just the chainsaw that was struggling. I will have to admit I had that saw resting from a previous job so it hadn’t been worked on yet. I might open up a thread about cutting the wood and using my New LogOx on it!
     
  14. NortheastAl

    NortheastAl

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    No problem! :thumbs:
     
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  15. RGrant

    RGrant

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    Any chance you got that LogOx thread going? I've been looking at them online and think I'd like to pull the trigger on it. Have been looking around to get a good review on it.
     
  16. Knothead

    Knothead

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    I tried one time to split a bois-d'arc (bodark, osage-orange) tree that fell in a hurricane....never again.....it was exceedingly hard! Sometimes "Free" wood is not worth the price you end up paying for it......just my $0.02

    Stock photos ....not mine.
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Horse apple from a Bois d arc tree
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2020
  17. metalcuttr

    metalcuttr

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    Don't know if anyone has mentioned Madrone yet. When fresh it can be ridiculously easy but let it season and it can become an unmanageable (without hydraulics) pain! There are a lot of really knotty Firs out there that almost bog down my 35 ton splitter. I have a friend who had a Fir Wolf tree taken down on his property that fought the splitter from start to finish. The machine labored and the splits came out hairy, misshapen uglies!
     
  18. FatBoy85

    FatBoy85

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    Honestly I’ve only used it a handful of times to test a couple rounds, some were good sized about 8-10 inches in diameter but a little long for walking the whole thing to lift it somewhere. Others were just gargantuan rounds and that’s not really feasible. But I can tell you this, lots of us go on log scrounges that can be really cumbersome to move them for cutting so this thing would definitely do the work. Lifts the log up for you and cut away! Carrying logs/rounds isn’t a big deal to me but perhaps for someone who can’t bend down all the way to lift it in a truck or trailer, toy 4 wheeler bed or the like, this is perfect to give ease of work so you’re not tiring yourself out. Built to Last, this is for certain. My applications for getting this thing to work for me aren’t exhaustive, you choose what whatever works for you. I like it a lot for the few times Ive used it and will use it more in the future.
     
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  19. FatBoy85

    FatBoy85

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    Fir Wolf Tree? First I’ve heard of that and sounds like a nightmare but hope it burned well for him!
     
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  20. RGrant

    RGrant

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    I ordered one. Thanks!
     
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