Most wood in a cord: Split or in the round?

[vtsnowedin]

To get the most wood for your money when buying firewood, buy it 'in the round'. A measured cord of rounds will produce a full cord of splits and some left over (about 10%)

For those who doubt that here is a simple experiment. Take a tapered carrot and a box lid. Slice the carrot up into "rounds" and pack as many as you can single lay in the box lid. Dump out, split in halfs and try to put them all back in (single layer). You'll have some left over. To carry it further, dump out the "half splits" and split them. Put the 'quarter splts' back in the lid. Again you'll hve some left over.

For those who think they can load in rounds and then add splits in hte "holes" - eyeball your next load - you'll find that, unless the rounds are HUGE, there will only be a hole or two big enough to tak anything more than a piece of kindling.

Harry K

No your example is wrong. A single layer of splits will only be half as thick as the layer of rounds is. You have to consider all three dimensions.
Saw logs are still scaled individually as they go by the board foot. It is pulp wood for paper mills that is sold by the cord or used to be . they are going to grind it up anyway. Anybody can measure a cord in the woods where scales are only at the mills and are now much more common then they once were.. An old law on a cord read" A stack of wood with the limbs clipped close neatly ranked and stacked four feet wide by four feet high and eight feet long shall be a cord." No leaving nots sticking out two inches creating an air space between the sticks. When I was a kid some mills only wanted poplar or spurce with the bark peeled off it. A lot of work doing that and a short season in the spring when you can do it.

 

[clemsonfor]

When did that change. Last time I worked in a mill...um....1953 every log was scaled as it arrived. Lots of disagreements about the scaler using rubber scales, etc.

Makes sense that it would change, cut out the cost of hiring a scaler and the time he spends at it.


Harry K

Oh i dont know? I think since at least the 80s or 90s all wood here in SC, LEGALLY has to be bought and sold by the TON. NOt sure of all states but i am pretty sure that all 50 states have a per TON requirement?

I do know some small mills still hand scale, but i think that they get around this by converting the Bdft into tons and then paying out tons to the owner or logger? I dont know cause i dont deal with any of these?

 

[clemsonfor]

No your example is wrong. A single layer of splits will only be half as thick as the layer of rounds is. You have to consider all three dimensions.
Saw logs are still scaled individually as they go by the board foot. It is pulp wood for paper mills that is sold by the cord or used to be . they are going to grind it up anyway. Anybody can measure a cord in the woods where scales are only at the mills and are now much more common then they once were.. An old law on a cord read" A stack of wood with the limbs clipped close neatly ranked and stacked four feet wide by four feet high and eight feet long shall be a cord." No leaving nots sticking out two inches creating an air space between the sticks. When I was a kid some mills only wanted poplar or spurce with the bark peeled off it. A lot of work doing that and a short season in the spring when you can do it.

Maybe where you live but here in SC they have to be BOUGHT by the ton. If you insist i can place some copies of scale tickets from a saw mill, one large West Fraiser (huge big company) mill and one from a local Small business mill, and then another small business mill all have weights on them. Inbound weight, outbount weight and the Net of the wood.

 

[CurlyDave]

I remember reading that back when Abe Lincoln was cutting and splitting wood, a cord was 4' x 4' x 8' "stacked tightly enough so that a squirrel could get through, but the cat chasing him could not".

There is a very analogous problem often encountered in industry, which can be stated: "If I have a container full of granules (sand, gravel, wood chips, etc) what percentage of the total volume is actually occupied by the material." This is called the "packing fraction" and for most materials it is ~61%. The granules have to be small in comparison with the container, but packing fraction is remarkably consistent. A dump truck full of bowling balls will have the same packing fraction as a quart bottle full of BBs.

The packing fraction will be slightly larger for granules of greatly different sizes, but the effect is not huge.

For a cord of wood, the most actual wood will be in a cord of rounds. Split pieces occupy more volume. You can see this for yourself, by measuring the diameter of a log, splitting it, putting it back together as best you can, and measuring again. Splitting and re-assembling always increases volume because the split sides will not fit back together perfectly.

 

[vtsnowedin]

Oh i dont know? I think since at least the 80s or 90s all wood here in SC, LEGALLY has to be bought and sold by the TON. NOt sure of all states but i am pretty sure that all 50 states have a per TON requirement?

I do know some small mills still hand scale, but i think that they get around this by converting the Bdft into tons and then paying out tons to the owner or logger? I dont know cause i dont deal with any of these?

I sold some just this year by the BF international scale. A few years ago I had an ice storm wipe out a couple of acres of maples. The veneer logs went to the mill for as much as $800 per log and the logger put $30,000 worth on one TT load. I still have the load tickets and every log is listed.

 

[joshuabardwell]

My understanding has always been that, although a cord is technically a content-agnostic unit of volume, a "cord of wood" was assumed to be split, loosely stacked wood. "Loosely stacked" means that it is stacked, but no specific effort is made to puzzle-piece the wood together to remove air gaps. This is relevant because air gaps are desirable to allow faster seasoning. I have never tested, but I've read that there's about 70-90 actual cubic feed of wood in a nominal 128-cubic-foot cord. The rest is air.

 

[clemsonfor]

I sold some just this year by the BF international scale. A few years ago I had an ice storm wipe out a couple of acres of maples. The veneer logs went to the mill for as much as $800 per log and the logger put $30,000 worth on one TT load. I still have the load tickets and every log is listed.

What state are you in? I only know my state and the area of georgia i deal with, and we dont have a quantity of veneer logs worth sending in these parts? We do have a guy that buys pine logs, big oversize ones, he pays double the local rate for wood and sends a truck for it and hauls it himself. He is taking it to like NC or VA i have been told. Not sure what its for or where it goes? I first was told fine furnature, but why Pine? Then told like veneer, again i was like "with PINE", now the latest story is that it gets sawed into cants and packed in shipping containers to send over seas?? If he is not drying the stuff in a kiln before crating it when they open in its gonna be one black moldy mess when it gets where its going!! He is really cryptic, but again he pays well, and its by the ton??

 

[vtsnowedin]

My father talked of selling cord-wood delivered for $10.00 a cord in 1927. One customer would split some sticks down to kindling size and drive them into the pile trying to get a "Solid" cord of wood.
He also taught me the Vermont rule for scaling saw logs.
"Multiply the tip diameter in inches times half the diameter in inches for every twelve feet of log. "
This gives for example on a twelve foot log 12 " through at the tip 12X6X1= 72 board feet. If the log was only eight feet long it would be 12x6 x2/3 = 48 BF and a 16 footer would be 12x6x(4/3)=96BF.
This rule is a bit more generous then International scale. That scale deducts more for the saw kerfs lost to sawdust while sawing out the log. The Vermont rule is not legally recognised anywhere, but if your using a portable band-saw mill it will come out very close for your own use. .

 

[dmccarty]

When was learning about the timber business at the end of the last century, :laughing:, the various markets bought timber by various measures. The more valuable saw logs for lumber were sold/bought by one of the scale measurements. Pulp wood was/is sold by weight though I seem to remember reading that it could be sold by the cord.

When we sold our timber, it was measured in MBF aka THOUSAND Board Feet. I forgot which scale we used but it was stated in the sale contract. Our timber was mature pine and hardwood so it went to a mill for lumber. The small pine trees from thinning are sold for chipping and I those were sold by the ton/cord. We don't have any paper mills here so the chipped wood goes to manufactured wood products.

Later,
Dan

 

[vtsnowedin]

What state are you in? I only know my state and the area of georgia i deal with, and we dont have a quantity of veneer logs worth sending in these parts? We do have a guy that buys pine logs, big oversize ones, he pays double the local rate for wood and sends a truck for it and hauls it himself. He is taking it to like NC or VA i have been told. Not sure what its for or where it goes? I first was told fine furnature, but why Pine? Then told like veneer, again i was like "with PINE", now the latest story is that it gets sawed into cants and packed in shipping containers to send over seas?? If he is not drying the stuff in a kiln before crating it when they open in its gonna be one black moldy mess when it gets where its going!! He is really cryptic, but again he pays well, and its by the ton??

I'm in Vermont, hence the VT in vtsnowedin. Back when the market was up they were sorting out the best of the best veneer logs and shipping them to Japan as raw logs. There is a lot of wood sold by weight up here today, chips to power plants and pulp to paper mills etc. but the old rules are still in place for those who need them and saw logs vary so much in grade and size that no one would buy or sell them by weight.