firewood season splitting large oak

[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]

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