firewood season splitting large oak

[farmbif]

ive got about a stack of 30 or so trees to buck and split and among them a few very large oak trees 36" or larger at the base. these are the largest ive ever tackled with my 30+ year old 5hp splitter. im not sure how to tackle some of these. the rounds are almost too heavy to move. I'm going to have to move the splitter to the rounds or cut them at least in half. I'm entering hernia territory with this stuff. got the woodshed just about full with about 4 cords now it's time to stack on pallets. ive found there is a certain sense of satisfaction having shed full of split and dry firewood and keep cutting splitting and stacking to stay ahead of the game

[country gent]

We modified a old wood splitter for an older neighbor with a small jib crane on the end. He oulf run an eye bolt in the side or the bigger pieces and use the hoist to pick them up and swing in place. We also added a bigger (wider) table to it. Made it mush easier for him to use. A hand full of screw in eyes he could get 8-10chunks ready split them take a break and start over

[MrWolf]

Do you have an atv/utility with a winch? I used a deer carrier to lift fencing and such until I got my Kubota. Believe they lift like 300lbs. Good luck and be careful. Watch that back.

[steve urquell]

Cut the wood shorter, noodle it if necessary, wear a back brace while doing the work.

[1903.colt]

I live in northern Minnesota Burn give or take 12 cord a season ,I only burn split 3 years in the rack . My splitter is horizontal - vertical , my subjective opinion is do what you have to do Oak is a premium .

[Der Gebirgsjager]

I've been splitting firewood off and on most of my life, using handtools. Splitting maul, sledge hammer, wedges---as needed. About 2 years ago I somehow ruptured a disc in my lower back. It has slowly been improving with the help of a spinal cortisone injection and now there is very little pain. But I finally did what I should have done 25 years ago and bought a wood splitter. Nice machine that can be vertical or horizontal. It came in a crate and required some assembly, which took a day, then two trips to town to buy fluids (hydraulic, engine oil, non-ethanol gasoline) and it was ready to go. Meanwhile, I started splitting the pile of rounds behind the house the old way, which comprised about 1/8th of the total, because the splitter has vinyl tires. It had rained quite a bit recently making the ground soft and hard to roll the tires through, and I'm still taking it easy on the back. Then my son-in-law showed up and started the woodsplitter around the front of the house where the largest pile was located, and worked steadily for two days. Now I have two large stacked, tarped piles, more than enough for the coming winter, and I never got to use the wood splitter at all! My $1k toy that I assembled! Now it's in the shop waiting for next summer. As things go, a fellow came around who had newly moved to the area and who needed some money, so I engaged him to go around the property and cut down dead trees. There are 14 of them waiting to be cut up into rounds for next Summer's activities.

319830 319831 319832

This is all lodge pole pine, which besides aspen, is about the only tree that grows here at this elevation. The aspen is o.k., but burns too quickly. I envy you your oak firewood, which I used in the past at other locations, and which tends to burn longer and hotter. Another great firewood is madrone, which I've also used in the past before moving here. Any way you go, you can't beat wood heat.

DG

[MaryB]

Use that oak to grill steaks! Burn down to coals then cook steak over them... I used to use it in the wood fired BBQ pit...won competitions against guys burning charcoal or pellets. You cannot beat the flavor of a hardwood fire!

[ascast]

cut them short, like half length-your splitter will take them flat, not pretty but they fit in stove OR jib crane with ice tongs or zip strap around wood OR tall pole with simple lever like 10 foot 4x4 with tongs OR rig splitter so ram is on side and roll chunks up to it OR get a 30 pack and a couple young buddies with cute giggly girl friends to work the controls

[.429&H110]

Must put in a plug for wool sawyer pants, they really will turn a chainsaw, please don't test them.
Safety glasses and a thick nitrile apron, Hearmuffs, gloves that fit, plenty of water, not beer.
Figure out all your costs, and you will find that wood really isn't cheap, even with free trees.
What killed my project was delivery, per mile on a pickup with trailer, going seven miles.

In NH I had huge beech and a Didier 5Hp, the Didier was just a beam on tires, low to the ground. On a hillside I dug a slot in the ground, buried the hitch until just the wedge was sticking up at grade. Now I could roll the rounds down the hill onto the buried beam. Helpful that nowhere in NH is flat. I had no way to move a three ton beech trunk, so the splitter went to the trees. The beech were hollow, no good for flooring and widowmakers on each one, stinkers to fell, best firewood, burned clean, needed 8 cords for my furnace. Every summer.

My dad produced what he called a "hog hook" a D handle to a sharpened hook,
I think you can buy them, dad made them from barstock with a torch.
(Low budget operation...I split for a 28" furnace grate, figured each stick cost a nickle, delivered.)
(I was making firewood because I had kids instead of money)
The kids each had their own personalized hook, the hook helps pick up splits, jab it in the butt.
Made some longer hooks of rebar, were made to pull brush with the Cub Cadet.

That hook really saved my fingers. Hook in one hand hatchet in other.
Put the hatchet blade in the crack and twist, cut any strings, hook in the crack, pull. Again.
You can pick up and turn wood with a hatchet smack to the butt.
Save your fingers for better things.
Beech made great hatchet handles. Made two unbreakable beech peavy.

(Beech is tough stuff, I left one stump up a foot, ripped down into it with the Stihl and made a lifetime supply of felling wedges and hammer handles, soaked in oil the beech wedges could be sledge hammered full swing into a back cut of a hollow 40" tree to tip the thing over, cool beans. The hollow beech had no hinge to steer them, was dicey on some of them with their huge crowns and dead spikes, they would split or twist. I did not want a hung up tree of that size. Fun thing was beech nuts fell everywhere very roastable, the deer were right there on them too. Silly does. That 40 acre woodlot still has old dying beech, came right back from the roots, a beech thicket, still a deeryard. Deer are roastable, too.)

My daughter is the only one I ever trusted to operate the lever, started short sessions at age three.
She is why I still have ten fingers. Girls are better at paying close attention, than bored distractable boys.
Boys are better at loading truck, on a good sunny morning, if fed well.
That's how I spent my summer vacations...I could actually get $100 a cord in those days.

[Minerat]

I got a couple of hay hooks and welded the shankes to the D handle so they can take the abuse. Been using them to move wood for 10 years now. Even moving big rounds. Lighter than pulp hooks but sure save the back and hands. Even for moving split wood into the rack in the garage. We've got a 25 ton splitter that can be pivoted to vertical for really big rounds. We only have pine so even 16" x36" can be lifted to the bed when horizontal.

[Bazoo]

For wood that is large in diameter, I usually nip away at the edges with my Fiskars Splitting Axe. I've also cut it with the chainsaw in half or 1/4s so I can manage it.

[Alstep]

I gave up with wood about 15 years ago. Just got too much for these old bones. Used to cut & split about 10 cords a year. But I keep a pile in reserve just in case.
Switched to coal. Only handle it once, and the ashes are great on icey driveway.

[alfadan]

Hope your not planning to burn it this year or even next year. Wood in the rounds does not season and even split oak can take 2 or 3 years.

[Wayne Smith]

If you have an extra chainsaw blade sharpen it for ripping and rip those in half or quarters before putting them on the splitter. Probably the cheapest and quickest way to handle them. If you cut wood for firewood you have extra chains for your chainsaw. Keeping one sharpened for ripping is not a bad idea anyway. I turn wood for bowls, so my chain is sharpened for ripping.

[georgerkahn]

ive got about a stack of 30 or so trees to buck and split and among them a few very large oak trees 36" or larger at the base. these are the largest ive ever tackled with my 30+ year old 5hp splitter. im not sure how to tackle some of these. the rounds are almost too heavy to move. I'm going to have to move the splitter to the rounds or cut them at least in half. I'm entering hernia territory with this stuff. got the woodshed just about full with about 4 cords now it's time to stack on pallets. ive found there is a certain sense of satisfaction having shed full of split and dry firewood and keep cutting splitting and stacking to stay ahead of the game

I concur greatly vis having wood to stay ahead of the cold. Being "almost cripple" with my bad leg, the wood detail necessitates my getting off my derrier and doing a bit of exercise as well! I took down an old apple tree (greatest burning wood, 'cept it needs dry about two years before it burns at prime) and just finished the bucking, splitting, and stacking detail last week. Natural gas forced air is "main" furnace, but it is rarely used. With an oil tank or Propane tank outdoors you are at only your mercy to keep said tanks full. What happens should the (supply) natural gas line break??? I now have about 10 1/2 face cord ready to go -- including the new 2+ cord I got from this apple tree which, God willing, I shan't need until next winter. Here's a picture of my pile from the apple, and a large piece in the LandPride grapple on my wee Kubota BX25D tractor. Wood heats one three times, as they say: 1st as you cut it; 2nd as you buck, split, and stack it; and, finally when you burn it! :)319845 319846

[panhed65]

been heating with wood for over 50 of my 75 years, used to be all split by maul, but a few years ago I got my splitter, makes it much easier. most of what I cut is white oak. as was mentioned, when they get too big for me to handle, I partially cut and then split by hand. works for me.
Barry

[farmer66]

I use a vertical 32 ton Craftsman splitter. Wood is red oak from trees that have died or fallen on my property. Largest diameter has been about 50 inch. I use a cordless drill to drill a vertical hole about on the center of gravity, then screw in a 3/4 inch eyebolt, then use the gin pole on my old tractor and move the wood under the splitter. The pole is so springy it is easy to move the wood around under the wedge. I repeat on the half pieces on the big ones. It goes pretty quick after you get used to it. I bought wood this year for the first time at 75 years old.

[alfadan]

I've split big rounds in 2 or three pieces by drilling a 7/8" hole and blasting them with pyrodex! Maybe not the most civilized method, but fun!

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Just like you, I have no lift type thing for my splitter, and my Splitter is only horizontal.
SO...
when I get logs chunks that are too heavy for lifting, I'll rip them into quarters. If they are knot-free oak, sometimes you can split them with a maul and wedge...sometimes, I'll make a cut with the chainsaw a couple inches deep to make the maul splitting easier.

Two years ago, I agreed to take some hard Maple...the tree was taken down and mostly cut up by the guy who cut the tree down, but for some reason he didn't want the wood. The chunks were too large to lift/roll, and they weren't round. So I had to cut them into quarters so I could load them into my trailer. That dang hard maple was a twisty one, toughest stuff I ever ripped. I needed to sharpen the chain often. It was a boulevard tree (in town) near a busy intersection, so I'm thinking it had 50 years of road salt/sand plowed into the bark?

[Three44s]

As the back gets weaker, the mind needs to get stronger!

I drool over the ingenuity that some of the folks that post on U Tube about handling firewood..

We use a home made wood hydraulic splitter that I further rebuilt by adding a new beam for the cylinder mounts on.

I wanted a taller mast so we could split wooden fence posts with.

Our splitter runs horizontal or vertical. For firewood we run vertical but I am considering running the cylinder in the upper holes and splitting wood at the waist high level on a raised table. The rounds would be lifted up with a hydraulic side arm.

Three44s

[MaryB]

My dad burned wood for 10 years, and I burned it too when I moved out. We would drop dead elms. One we dropped took cutting from both sides with a 48 inch bar to notch it and for the back cut. When it dropped it popped cabinets open in the houses up on top of the bluff. That one tree was enough wood for a friend and myself(we had back to back trailer houses) for an entire winter.

Splitting was a pain, cut in 16" rounds using a vertical splitter was still heavy hard work! Get a crack started, wedge it, spin the round, repeat until we went all the way around. It would start falling apart usually after halfway. Some needed persuading with a splitting maul and more wedges.

Now I buy my wood in 40 pound bags LOL pellets!

[dverna]

Firewood...done it every way possible...when I was younger.

I now use a firewood processor. If the log is too large it is put aside. When I get enough large logs, I will sell them to folks with bandsaw mills. Or have a guy with a BSM come and cut the logs up for lumber.

My equipment will handle up to 12" logs easily and up to 14" if they are not twisted. It will cut, split and bag a face cord every hour working alone.

IMO there is a point of diminishing return when it comes to the effort and equipment needed to make firewood. If you want to handle 100% of everything you come across it is wise to rethink your process. You might have a lot less work handling 98% of the logs you get. Out of 20 loggers cords (logger cord = 48"x96"x102") I had 12 logs I put aside.

[Wag]

In my mid teens, my grandfather would take us out every fall and cut down all the dead trees on the ranch. As I recall he had a couple hundred acres in the hills of Missouri that were forested with a lot of hardwood. So, we'd go out in the fall, cut 23 trees for each household for a total of 46 trees. Of assorted sizes, of course, but ultimately, we had enough for his home and ours for the winter. We always cut two years in advance so we'd burn the wood we cut the prior winter.

Anyhoo, we just used what we called a splittin' hammer which I later learned was a maul, but grandpa showed us how to select the "right" one at the store. Convex head and oval insert for the wood handle. Makes a difference.

We did it all by hand and it was actually fun to compete with each other. My brothers and I, that is. We just worked it all in the forest where a splitter was never going to be able to go. I'm not sure I couldn't do it now but it would be a lot slower!

Grandpa's wood craft was nothing short of amazing. He knew how to do everything.

--Wag--

[white eagle]

Use that oak to grill steaks! Burn down to coals then cook steak over them... I used to use it in the wood fired BBQ pit...won competitions against guys burning charcoal or pellets. You cannot beat the flavor of a hardwood fire!

oh man now yer talkin
been splitting wood for years like most of you
I used to sell it on the side (never again) I have a 27 ton horizontal /vertical splitter and hasn't met a oak it couldn't split and I have had some knarly stuff
I only burn for deer season but have about a cord and a half ready, sure put's out the heat

[MaryB]

oh man now yer talkin
been splitting wood for years like most of you
I used to sell it on the side (never again) I have a 27 ton horizontal /vertical splitter and hasn't met a oak it couldn't split and I have had some knarly stuff
I only burn for deer season but have about a cord and a half ready, sure put's out the heat

Try a gnarly old twisted red elm... that stuff was impossible to split. We broke a tractor PTO driven vertical splitter main beam on one... I hollered to back off and my friend said "it can handle it" as I dove for cover... the I beam shattered and sent shrapnel flying. He had to get a piece pulled out of his bicep... I had some stick in the wood pile I dove behind... I have never seen an I beam bend like that!

[William Yanda]

A vertical splitter helps. My SIL found a log tongs/grapple that he utilized with his loader to handle some large chunks last year. Took most of the strain out of handling the large chunks of cherry.

[ioon44]

I have some 36" oak to split today, I am going to try using a wedge to split them in half and then use my 20 ton splitter.

Hard work for a 73 year old no matter how I go about it.

[super6]

A bob cat skid steer can be your friend! And there are attachments to split wood! Its only money, Cant take it with you. LOL.

[DougGuy]

When I lived in Virginia I lived in a house that used to be the RR Depot. Used to sit right by the tracks and all it had for heat was a BIG Gatling wood stove, so the years I lived there I had split wood delivered as I was working WAY too many hours at the paper mill to chop wood.

I found hickory to burn the hottest and last the longest, I could come home after a 12hr shift and with hickory all I had to do was stir the embers and start the fire again. Oak would have burned completely and gone out.

Upside of burning hickory? After stacking the split wood I collected a feed sack and a half of hickory chips that I am still using today for the grill!!

[MarkP]

319964

Either noodle them in 1/4's with a chainsaw or split with a maul around the circumference as shown in the pictures.

[farmbif]

what I had been doing with the stack of logs is dragging one or 2 at a time with chain pulled by tractor next to the splitter and just bucking and rolling the rounds. but I got to thinking and ive got an old pallet jack that long ago gave up the ghost. im going to cut and weld on it and turn it into a 3 point pallet lift to attach to the tractor. I can cut these big rounds off so they flop right onto the pallet forks and with tractor power place them right at the splitter. at least thats the plan for now. I dont have any fancy new tractors with pallet forks on a loader or anything like a skid steer, just a bunch of almost antique farm equipment that still works pretty good. just for fun I might cut a round off and go at the edges with an axe and see what happens. the trees have been dead for 2 years now. ive had other obligations I have to get out of the way before tackling these head on.

[country gent]

Put a flat platform on it and some edges drop rounds on it and set it to height of splitter then slide or roll over onto splitter an old pallet modified would work well you could cut several rounds and then split them

[alfadan]

Do you have a hydraulic toplink? It would be a pain to keep forks level on the 3 point with a regular toplink.

[Ed K]

I gave up with wood about 15 years ago. Just got too much for these old bones. Used to cut & split about 10 cords a year. But I keep a pile in reserve just in case.
Switched to coal. Only handle it once, and the ashes are great on icey driveway.

There's a fellow in town on 150 acres that's still producing 20-30 4x4x8 cord every year - much of which is for sale. He began many years ago cutting to 48" and splitting with a wedge to be later bucked to 16" when dry. Even though he's now using a hydraulic splitter he still splits 48" logs and he is 89 years old. Hard work to be sure but his health is still really good!

[ebb]

There is a New Zealander that posts on You Tube as Marty T. he made a device that hooks to the ram that pulls the round up to the spot where it gets split. It was kinda simple with some cable and a few pulleys. I am sure you can find it just search for Marty T and go the through his videos on firewood and log splitting. He fun to watch and a good mechanic.

[Iowa Fox]

Try a gnarly old twisted red elm... that stuff was impossible to split. We broke a tractor PTO driven vertical splitter main beam on one... I hollered to back off and my friend said "it can handle it" as I dove for cover... the I beam shattered and sent shrapnel flying. He had to get a piece pulled out of his bicep... I had some stick in the wood pile I dove behind... I have never seen an I beam bend like that!

You can beat Red Elm. You don't have to split it, burns hot with a blue flame without smudgy smoke. Sadly its all gone around here.

If I had good solid oak 36" at the base I'd lay into it with a portable band saw for lumber. Furniture made from quarter saw-en oak is hard to beat.

[Three44s]

My wife wanted a "house tractor". A fellow who works for us on the ranch and I tried to encourage her into an older larger tractor, 2 wheel drive and chain it up for snow plowing our drive way. Put a good used loader on it and call it a day.

She wanted new and 4 wheel drive and a loader. Long story shortened, she settled on a M4 -071 Kubota with just about all the bells and whistles!

The two expensive attachments she opted for was a hydraulic angle snow/dirt blade and a rock and root grapple, all skid steer attach front mount.

The grapple loads our logs in the mountains and on the last load unloads them back home. We put a set of full size log bunks on a goose neck equipment trailer and bring the logs in around 25 feet long except for some heavy buttons cuts and other odds and ends.

On the ranch we have oak to burn along with the lodge pole we gather in the mountains. The tractor brings the logs right to the splitter, holds them at any height we wish to cut them off from. Brings rounds closer to the splitter when needed.

We will have to burn wood ten lifetimes to justify the cost but the security of our own heat and the countless other things we do with the tractor and related equipment make it worthwhile. We have a lot of fences infesed with wild rose and other brush to maintain and that grapple gets real handy there!

Three44s