Spruce stupidity:-/

Usually I tend to not be too snobby, and by shear dumb luck have not worked on spruce. I try to look for trees that are croaked or storm damaged and the vast majority around here are ash, cottonwood, and boxelder. A guy I worked with a while back had a heart attack and had a storm take a tree out in his yard, a spruce. I'm a hand splitter so when is my best time to split, right now or wait for colder weather and let the rounds dry a bit? To top it off neighbor down the road saw me and offered a 4 year standing dead spruce, how will the wood have aged, how it split being dead, or just politely decline?

 

Here is the spruce I am helping with.

 

It is gonna suck. That is all you can do....noodle, and embrace the suck. I love to burn spruce. It crackles, and smells like Christmas to me. But splitting by hand? Brutal. Knots go clean through. 40 below doesnt seem to help much for me. Dries fast as a sponge in my summer climate

It will be less stringy if you wait, but it is good to get is split. Goes punky fairly fast if bark stays on

 

Any chance you could borrow a splitter for a few hours? I also have a 6 ton dr electric. It splits 24 inch spruce fine. Fir is another matter

 

What makes fir different?

 

It is a more dense wood, heavier, and with a thicker bark that reminds me more of a water proof cast. The knots aren't as big of a pain in my opinion. Fir knots, while larger don't necessarily go to the center like stringy spruce. Fir is worth it, if you can get it.

 

Spruce is fun......not. Or, knot.

Let's not (knot?) forget the sap. That's fun too. Wear clothes you'll just keep wearing to work on Spruce. They'll be able to stand on their own in the corner after you're done.

 

I think that's French for "too much sapcrap on my hands".

 

That's interesting about the sap pockets. I'm only talking about engelmann. I've cut some of that Colorado blue spruce too. It seems about the same. Biggest problem for me is the ants. Lordy. No fun packing big rounds. The ones that stay kinda pop in the stove when burning. Makes me cheery as seeing an A-10 attack

 

Good to know. I wish this place was around when I first sunk my bar into a pine in june, in south carolina. The sap swamped my bar almost instantly.

 

I burn plenty of Black and Red Spruce that comes as slabs off the sawmill, or as scraps from logging operations. It is great for kindling for a fire, but suffering old snotballs, it sucks at hand splitting. "Just the embrace the suck", is sound advice!

Back aways; the pitch from Spruce was collected and used as Gum. In fact a factory was up in Monson Maine where they produced spruce gum for some 50 years before pure sugar gums came out. It was something like 50,000 pounds of spruce gum per year!

Pitch from White Fir was also collected. It was used in Word War Two for the making of bomb sights. At the time, it was the only "epoxy" that was crystal clear that could adhere to glass. Due to the lack of men who were needed for War, teenage girls went around and collected the Fir Sap.

A factory for Spruce Distillates was set up in Woodsville, NH but did not last long due to high production costs and ethanol easier to get elsewhere. The idea was resurrected again by the University of Maine about 10 years ago when the price of fuel was high and everyone was scrambling for ethanol souses top put into fuel. The idea has since been put on hold.

 

I might politely decline. Unless you have a lot of time and patience.

 

I burn mostly spruce and split all by hand, although most of the trees are forest trees and not nearly as knotty as the yard tree in your pic. I find it easier to spilt if the rounds sit for several months first and when they are frozen. I almost always have to wedge and sledge the round first. I don't have any trouble heating my house with the heat it puts out, it doesn't coal as much as hard woods and so you can have more of a continuous hot fire.

 

A friend brought down a blue spruce and a doug fir years ago, I took the wood from them and tried splitting out in the woods at my parents. Didn’t yet have a place of my own so much nor a splitter. The maul I had kept burying itself in but the knots were damm near impossible to get through. I got lucky when I’d hit a part of the grain were straight and no knots were there or maybe near the bottom to finish the split. Most of it is still in rounds and have the splitter over here at my parents. The downside is that the bark has all these dried sap balls from anytime the tree tried repairing itself, injury or branch snapped off in the wind. So when it burns, it’s just black smoke as the sap catches fire . Guess I’ll try to get it it done but maybe go back to this being stove wood if It gets dry enough... hope you get something figured out from replies here. Just thought I’d leave it to rot, might be halfway there. The ants found homes in the rounds quick.

 

I am really starting to think that this tree may become our camping fire pit wood from all the various comments. May just be easier to stack under cover and let it dry for next year campfires in the rounds. My only other thought is maybe do more cutting and try for only 10-12 inch long rounds instead of standard 18-20 inch. Would that help pop the all the way through knots apart any easier?

 

sounds like you got a good plan with the camp firewood idea. One thing that could be a negative is if you’re drying anything somewhere close to the fire, might the fire pop out a few embers? Food for thought but your idea still good. The more I noticed that wood was best that way if I knew it was open fire not mesh enclosure but still happens.

 

I hand split as well and while I've never split Spruce I've split tons of knotty Ponderosa Pine and Doug Fir. I also split Oak and let me tell you that when you get into twisted knotty pine it rivals hardwood in splitting difficulty. If it's not dry (6-8 months minimum) don't bother unless you're masochistic. You have to be a bit more methodical with this knotty stuff. I try and go around the knots if I can but sometimes you just have to take what the wood gives you. I have some odd pieces in my stacks because the knot told me no.