chopping and spliting wood

[Frank01]

That is usually how it worked when I was a kid, so the answer is both, dried on the ends and green in the middle! Seriously, some wood splits easier green, some bone dry. Some frozen solid. Some wood is not easy to split at all. We burned pretty much every part of the tree, so splitting was a part of it only.

Well, just start the thread cause in a farm that is close to us, they took some Mango trees out. Mango is not a very common wood here but, I read it was good for fire. So, I took my axe and by lunch time, will pass and chop a 8 foot long branch or part of the trunc and put it on the truck. Save a good amount and I just trim it into 14"-18" pieces that will be split with a maul. We have a brick oven and we use it almost every week. I can buy mezquite but,have lot more fun using wood that is available in the valley

Thanks a lot for all the answers, learning a lot with you guys

Best for this 2016

 

[BG_Farmer]

Well, just start the thread cause in a farm that is close to us, they took some Mango trees out. Mango is not a very common wood here but, I read it was good for fire. So, I took my axe and by lunch time, will pass and chop a 8 foot long branch or part of the trunc and put it on the truck. Save a good amount and I just trim it into 14"-18" pieces that will be split with a maul. We have a brick oven and we use it almost every week. I can buy mezquite but,have lot more fun using wood that is available in the valley

Thanks a lot for all the answers, learning a lot with you guys

Best for this 2016

That is fine way to do it. The logs won't dry as fast as the rounds, so you can do some experiments with dry and green. I cut black locust for posts and supports, for example, and cut the rest to manageable length. When I get enough, I buck it up all at once and give it to a friend with outdoor furnace. It doesn't dry quickly at all in log lengths, which makes it easier to cut.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Black locust sure does make good burning, too. Fast growing, dries fast, and burns hot. The fact that it's an overgrown legume is a nice bonus, too.

 

[Operator1975]

That's a lot of wood!. Either you lived in a castle at the time or collectively we need to standardize the definition of "cord". In Canada there are 'stove' cords (12" X 4' x 8'), 'face' cords (16" X 4' X 8'), 'full' or true cords ( 4' X 4' X 8') and 'bush' cords (4' X 4' X 8' of unsplit logs). Within all of the major Canadian cities "face" cord has become the standard of measurement for buying firewood, and newspaper ads only ever say "cord" anymore, without the prefix. But for the $75-125 cost of cut/split/hardwood these days guaranteed you will not be taking delivery of a 4 foot high pile stacked in a stepside long box domestic pickup truck box such as was done for many, many, years.

3000+ sq ft house, 2 main levels, and an old coal furnace. Older house, really not that well insulated. Lost a lot of heat just in the vent work. Usually went thru about 12 cords, some years 10, some higher. Most I ever remember was 20 cords - we always had 22-24 cut, that way you were always a year ahead - and that year we had just over 2 cords left. We always measured cords 4x4x8. Had two pole buildings, and then the trailer on the tractor. Burned wood usually from October thru till April. I was usually in charge of getting the fire going when I got home from school if it was out, and then putting in the night log, which would usually burn all night. We could fit an 18" long, by 14" wide SOB in the pit. And trust me, those split better DRY. The old Sotz Monster Maul would do the trick, green or dry.

 

[Square_peg]

....... also try and split sycamore when it's dry without using a stick of dynamite

I feel your pain. I few years ago I ran through a bunch of London Plane, a Sycamore hybrid. Tough coarse interlocking grain. That stuff makes Elm seem easy to split. But gawd it burns like a dream. Hot, silent with almost no ash. You can light it with a match. Makes the best wooden mallets, too. It can't split.

I carved a really nice wood bowl out of a fork of London Plane.

 

[Square_peg]

I don't know what you mean by "stringy" wood. Naturally after a log is split there might be a few shards holding the two pieces together, but it is child's play to pull the two pieces apart or cut them apart with a swipe of the maul or axe.

See previous post about London Plane.

All the wood I mentioned splits very easily green, Maple, Beech, Ash, Cherry and Apple. Of course it helps if it is free of knots, but one or two knots is no problem at all if you know what you are doing. Yes you do get some very knotty pieces, but a maul can pretty much knock anything apart with a little effort as long as someone with experience is holding it.

As far as tricks go, splitting more than one piece of wood etc., I am 6'3" tall and have weighed over 200 pounds for decades. When you couple that with experience and a nice heavy maul I suppose a lot of things are easier than they might be for short or small men, oh well.

Beech is the nicest splitting hard wood I know of, and Ash is second. Maple is easy if there are not a lot of knots. Cherry and Apple are dense woods that are a little harder to split, but not enough to worry about at all.

The wood you fell, cut to length and split is usually stacked then left to sit a year before use. Green wood makes creosote buildup in the flue. Lots of people had chimney fires back in the 1970s when the first energy-crunch hit and wood stoves became trendy. These were mostly people that burned green or soft junk woods, and who did not let a new fire roar a few minutes each time with the damper wide open to keep the flue burned clean.

The rest of your post I agree with. A big guy with some experience can knock the crap out of most wood. I will favor a large axe over a maul in most cases. And where the large axe fails I'll will likely turn to a sledge and wedges. There is very little wood in my area that won't split with a good 5 pound axe but will split with an 8 pound maul. But if I get a bunch of that wood then I turn to the maul. Splitting technique has to be adapted to your local wood.

 

[gben]

I will favor a large axe over a maul in most cases. And where the large axe fails I'll will likely turn to a sledge and wedges.

When I was too young to swing an axe or maul I did use wedges and a small sledge, but that was sure a lot of work.

If someone is big enough to swing a maul for a day then it is a huge advantage, the weight and width of the maul make it work much better than a lighter and slimmer axe ever could.

The other advantage of a maul is you do not have to swing it as fast to do the same work, and I think that helps accuracy a lot. After so many hundreds or thousands of splits you of course get very good at guessing what is needed to split something, and when you have a lot to do then you sure do not swing any harder than you have to.

On Lake Erie last year it was zero or below(Fahrenheit) for two months, and well below freezing for much of the winter, it reminded me of the 60s and 70s. Where I grew up in the snow belt by I-90 it was normal to get 200 inches of snow each year too. So we were never outside felling trees or splitting wood then, we would get it all done from spring until fall. A lot of the country has much, much milder winters and I am sure lots of people could work through it.

This winter I hope to put a new handle on the very maul I used 40 years ago and get it into regular use this year again. If I get a chance I will make a video of how to split with it efficiently and safely and do the tricks I mentioned, that would be a pleasure.

 

[Square_peg]

I would never swing a maul when an axe could do the work just as well with less effort. I go to the maul when I have to but I'd rather use a large axe. And the axe deals with knots better than a maul does.

After so many hundreds or thousands of splits you of course get very good at guessing what is needed to split something, and when you have a lot to do then you sure do not swing any harder than you have to.

Yeah, there is real pleasure in judging just how much force is need to split a given piece of wood. And it's best not to use more force than necessary - no need to beat the crap out of your splitting block. I got a buddy who likes to swing for the moon with every strike. He's hell on hafts and splitting blocks.

On some very hard woods like Elm or London Plane the maul will just bounce right off of it - even after 5 blows at the same spot with the LP. You're wasting energy doing that. Better to get a wedge with a slightly concave grind. It will stick on the first blow and all energy goes into the split. A 3 or 4 pound single jack is all you need to drive the wedge through. Never even break a sweat.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

That's why I like my 5.5lb maul. It's only a little heavier than the axes a lot of folks use for splitting, but lighter than most mauls out there. The geometry comes down to a near zero-taper, so it gets easy penetration with a lot of spreading force. A lot of mauls have too steep a contrast between the taper of the bit and the angle of the edge and would do well to be blended in using the contact wheel on a belt grinder.

 

[gben]

That's why I like my 5.5lb maul. It's only a little heavier than the axes a lot of folks use for splitting, but lighter than most mauls out there. The geometry comes down to a near zero-taper, so it gets easy penetration with a lot of spreading force. A lot of mauls have too steep a contrast between the taper of the bit and the angle of the edge and would do well to be blended in using the contact wheel on a belt grinder.

I agree about the lighter maul.

The maul I have used for over 40 years is a 6# Craftsman that is forged steel, probably made for Sears by Kelly as it looks just like ones in the 60s Kelly catalog I have. It is a very streamlined shape that goes through air as well as it goes through wood I am sure. It has the same eye as a single-bit axe, and in fact I put a standard 36" single-bit handle on it recently.

In the Kelly catalog mauls were available with either a single-bit axe eye or a round eye like a hammer would take. I am glad I have an axe-eye maul as it seems like the handle would be stronger for it's use.

 

[gben]

One dime, one try. I was out at the old man's using his 6-pound maul and I said something to him about my accuracy splitting, this was probably 15-20 years ago. I pulled a dime out of my pocket and set it on top of a 16" long maple log and hit just about dead center first try. It was lucky to find the dime after the split because often the end of the maul goes down into the dirt a bit....