John_Mc
Elite Member
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2001
- Messages
- 4,056
- Location
- Monkton, Vermont
- Tractor
- NH TC33D Modified with belly pan, limb risers & FOPS. Honda Pioneer 520 & antique Coot UTV
Back in April of 2017 I took a maple tree from a friend. It fell on his house, and I helped him remove it. We tried to cut it in 16-18" thick rounds. Some of the rounds were well over 36" diameter, as I couldn't cut through them with my 18" saw and I had to quarter them.
This piece was 31" in diameter. I rolled it up onto the splitter by hand and halved it. Then quartered it. Then split the quarters, etc...
I ended up with 58 pieces of firewood from that 1 round.
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About 10 years before that, I took a couple maples that fell in another friend's house. I think they were around 42" diameter and I got something like 102 pieces from that one round.
Anyhow, they were soft maples. They burned really fast and only lasted about 4 hours in my wood stove VS 10-11 hours when I use locust. But they were nice on days where I just wanted to take the chill off the house.
I used to enjoy tackling stuff like that. These days, if it's over 24" diameter, and it's not good enough for a saw log, it likely stays in the woods to rot. Just more trouble than it's worth to split up, even with the hydraulic lift on my splitter.