My neighbor had a tree service take this down yesterday and this is what they left behind for me. He said it was maple but I am not sure. There are some huge pieces on top of the pile that are bigger than anything I have ever broken down before. It looks like about 4-5 truckloads for me.
Looks like maple to me, too. Looks more like silver maple than red maple, but I haven't seen silver maple for a long time. They are about the same BTU-wise, IMO, so get it split - it dries fairly fast.
I had some wood given to me a few months back that was standing dead and really hard and gnarly. The guy that gave it to me said it was rock maple. The two look very different so that's why I was unsure.
I think rock maple is just another name for sugar maple which is also often called just hard maple. Supposedly up there BTU-wise with oaks. I've never had any unless it was mixed in with some mixed hardwood that I bought back when I bought firewood.
Yeah, this looks like some stuff that I stumbled upon the other day and Silver Maple was what we finally decided it was. I tried to split it with a mauler and lets just say that the log won. Luckily, hydraulic splitter is coming in the mail today, so hopefully it can help me out!
This is picture of the stuff the guy told me was rock maple. It was what finally made me say screw this I need a log splitter. Even in the splitter it splits hard and snaps into pieces sometime. Nasty to split but burns nice.
Nice! I opted to go with a manual, hydraulic one because it went on sale earlier this week and I am also not working on the scale that most on this board are. Hopefully it will be worth it. We don't have a fire place, but a few of my buddies do, so I offer to find free logs and then they come help me split them while we smoke meat and drink beer - obviously in that order! I keep a "rake" from the haul for the smoker of course!
JeffC that looks like Norway maple. Splits pretty easy by hand if you keep one end moist. Store logs vertical otherwise it will check and be tougher, unless you have a splitter, then its easy!
Agreed - definitely looks like Norway from here. The rock maple looks like a yard tree. Not surprised it made you go hydraulic! We have a lot of sugar maple lining the roads here, and it can be a bear to split after growing up all twisted inside.
That's Norway maple, and it's great firewood. I've burned tons of it over the years. It's somewhere between red maple and sugar maple in terms of BTU's, good stuff.....
I have most of it cleared except for these 5 large pieces and the logs they are laying on. I have never tackled pieces this big before and I am not sure how to go at them. I thought of dragging my splitter over to them but it could be more trouble than its worth and I am not sure it will crack them open if they are that size. I may just need to get my hands on a better saw. I am working with an older 16" Husqvarna 51 that's struggling. I also have a 18" husqvarna 445 that's in better shape I just need to replace a part on it that's on its way.
I am going to grab a couple today. I have grenade type wedge also but it just keeps bouncing right out.
My trusty 51 atop of some split sugar maple and paper birch...my favorite wood combination for heating in our neck of the woods. I think I bought this saw in 1991 or so. It always works and has a nice weight and power ratio for a lot of different jobs.
You guys are hard core with this hand splitting. I actually tried splitting silver maple with only one maul once. That was a bad idea. Never again. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
