Does anybody find certain species of wood to be easier to split either green or dry? I typically like to split wood as soon as it’s cut for 2 reasons. 1 so I only have to stack it one time and 2 so it can start to dry ASAP. I find maple, ash, and walnut split about the same green or dry. Mulberry splits better dry Box Elder splits better green and is a PIA! To try to split green Elm doesn’t split.
I split a lot of elm dry. Standing dead elm is my staple wood. If & when I get it live or green I’ll buck it into rounds and split it in a year or two. The bark will fall right off then too. Not a lot of experience with other woods. But green hackberry is kinda a pain to split. Standing dead ash is nice when I can get it.
Easier to split when green: apple, black locust, yellow birch, red maple, cedar, cherry. Easier to split when dried for awhile: red oak, pine. Just my opinion.
'Elm doesn’t split' Have 3 very large dead Elms on the property and they are still standing for this reason Dakota.
Contrary to the "elm don't split" crowd, I'm a bit like Sandhillbilly. The difference is I wait until the tree is not only dead but the bark is almost all off before cutting. The wood is hard then and most times if you need it the top half or 2/3 of the tree will be ready to burn right after cutting. In addition,lots of that elm can even be split by hand. It is a great burning firewood.
It’s the exact opposite for White Birtch! You want to cut it down when it starts looking sick! You want to buck and split it the very next day. The third day stack it and maybe it will be ok!
Cant speak on splitting black locust when its green, as mine has been mostly barkless and down for a while, or standing dead. Splits easy for me. Sounds like bowling pins falling.
I noticed apple splits much better the greener it is. I cut one down back in early April and split most of it by hand within a couple days. Not the easiest splitting stuff, lots of crotches/limbs etc. but I got through it. I decided to have a go at it a couple weeks ago with the remaining rounds. Totally different animal. I'm convinced that over the summer, granite gremlins from New Hampshire have slowly been changing the cell structure of the wood while I sleep. They were probably laughing at me through the trees as I struck blow after blow until I gave up and left it alone. The heat didn't help I'm sure. I have a splitter coming this week so I'll let the hydraulics have the final say, probably in the cooler weather.
In December through probably February I took out a BUNCH of living cottonwoods. See my “if it was anything but cottonwood” post. I saved a pretty good size pile of logs. In March I bucked a bunch of it into rounds and stacked them. Last weekend I took home a dozen to split. The ends are very checked and most of the bark falls right off as soon as the splitter hits it. But it’s still plenty wet and stringy inside. I’ll probably get some more split up when it starts cooling off in a month or so. But I think I’ll wait until it freezes to do most of it
Yep, try as I might I wasn't able to pop those gnarly pieces open. That's some dense, heavy wood that I'm hoping will provide some good heat. I'm definitely looking forward to getting my splitter though; I've got a growing pile of knotty blue spruce and a mountain of 30" red oak rounds I'm going to run through it first.
One wood that, when dry, I would not even attempt without a hydraulic splitter. That is Madrone. The gnarlies are horrible even green. Larger Fir butts seem to split easier after a couple months curing imo.
I completely agree. I wait until the bark is falling off before I split elm. I’ve never had any trouble with it when I do that. Burns great too. Side note: Cottonwood splits relatively easy when green. But is like splitting reinforced concrete when dry.
