Splitting wood by hand

dieselcrawler · Mar 6, 2016

Thanks for keeping dad in your thoughts. Positive thinking is a very powerful force.

He has always eaten healthy, and used homeopathic methods of healing.

PhysAssist · Mar 7, 2016

dieselcrawler said:
Thanks for keeping dad in your thoughts. Positive thinking is a very powerful force.

He has always eaten healthy, and used homeopathic methods of healing.

Hi DC,

De nada (it's nothing).

I lost my old man last August, a few months after he was dx with renal (kidney) cancer, then got a diabetic foot infection and eded up in the hospital, where the antibitotics given to kill the foot infection, also killed his remaining kidney function, so he went home on hospice and passed a couple of days later.

I didn't always see eye to eye with him or his methods and behavior, but I always respected him and his commitment to the service of God, country, and all the various and sundry he considered to be his family and friends, and I do miss him, and regret times we missed being together.

Hi again Rich,

Thank you for your service!

It sounds like you have solid ideas about what it means to be a man and to raise one.

Take care,
Thomas

motownbrowne · Mar 7, 2016

Here's hoping your Dad pulls through, Greg.

I have used one of those all steel affairs plenty in my life. Actually I still own one and it's doing it's job very well: my BIL asked to borrow a splitting maul maybe a year and a half ago. I figure there's two ways this can end up, one, he breaks my decent 6lb American maul, or two he never returns what I give him, at least not for a long time. So...I gave him the steel affair. He can't break it, and if he never gives it back I'm totally happy with that.

Here's a couple pics of some Ash I split last fall. Ash is pretty easy splitting wood, which makes the job more fun. I generally spilt right on the ground, but in most cases I don't even stand the rounds up. I swing the maul kind of like a golf club and rely on hitting it with a sharp edge moving fast enough to split the round rather than send it flying. It's fun for me and very fast.

Before:

After:

These rounds (with a few exceptions) have not been handled. I skidded the log here with the tractor, picked it up with the forks, bucked it into rounds and spilt them where they lay. I basically didn't bend over more that six or eight times to do this. I was working quickly, but the reason I took the photos was so I could see the time stamps on them. From rounds to splits (and I split them small) took (drumroll please.....) 18 minutes. This was with my Gransfors Bruks, but I could do the same thing with the X27.

dmccarty · Mar 7, 2016

JFoy said:
Question is, do you find it easier to split wood when green, after a season, or when it's clearly dry?

motownbrowne said:
I think it depends on the species. Usually I think green is best, and it dries much faster after splitting.
...

What MotownBrowne said. It depends. Red oak seems to be the easiest wood I have to split and the second best to burn. I do have some hickory that is the best to burn but it will flat out wear you out splitting. I have what I think is a white oak species that rots quickly, it gets sponge like if wet but if you let it dry a bit, it is easy to split and burns ok. I have had some of what I think is the white oak that was older but not wet that was a real PITA to split. Most of the wood I burn has been taken down by momma nature so it can be iffy in burn quality and it makes it hard to figure out what species of wood I am messing with. Red oak is easy. The rest can be a best guess.

Still splitting with my original Fiskar. :thumbsup:

Later,
Dan

turnkey4099 · Mar 7, 2016

I kept seeing reports on the x25 but couldn't see me buying such a short tool. X27 came out and I bought inthe same year. What a tool! First coupld splits and I said "this cannot be doing what I am seeing" Been using it on 8-12 cords/yr ever sincemostly black locust - fairlyi easy splitting and willow.

I have a splitter but it only sees the rejects (knots/forks, etc) from the manual splitting sessions. That splitting and stacking is what keeps me going, coming up on 81 and try to put in at least an hour a day when weather permits. Just finished a few hours ago the pile of willow rounds from last years harvest - going tomorrow to the wood patch to clean up the spots where I burned brush piles dueing the winter.

Harry K

PhysAssist · Mar 7, 2016

turnkey4099 said:
I kept seeing reports on the x25 but couldn't see me buying such a short tool. X27 came out and I bought inthe same year. What a tool! First coupld splits and I said "this cannot be doing what I am seeing" Been using it on 8-12 cords/yr ever sincemostly black locust - fairlyi easy splitting and willow.

I have a splitter but it only sees the rejects (knots/forks, etc) from the manual splitting sessions. That splitting and stacking is what keeps me going, coming up on 81 and try to put in at least an hour a day when weather permits. Just finished a few hours ago the pile of willow rounds from last years harvest - going tomorrow to the wood patch to clean up the spots where I burned brush piles dueing the winter.

Harry K