Here is morgan working on the stuff from Bub's place. We got Cherry, Hard Maple, and one of my favorites (to burn, not split), Yellow Birch. It is really dense wood that burns hot and leaves a good coal bed, but it is a bear to split. We are getting pretty good at it, though. Morgan just got a good hit on a piece of Maple. That, right there, is satisfaction! Seeing the wood split instead of just absorb the blow or only partially crack.
Morgan grunting through the power arc with an 8-pound maul looking to show a piece of Yellow Birch who is boss.
OK. Let's try from this side.
OK, only about a face cord to go.
4 comments:
Now THAT is a lot of wood! I've collected some wood from the sides of the street (remember Gustav!) because we have a fireplace too now. Also I had a fire outside in the yard tonight (halloween) so the at was fun. How does oak and pecan compare to cherry and birch?
I think that they are both probably better. Generally speaking, the slower growing the tree, the denser the wood. Softwoods (evergreens) grow really fast, but there is almost nothing to them. Hardwoods (deciduous trees) grow more slowly (and produce no pitch), but there is a spectrum. There is a table that you can easily find online that compared species in regards to BTU/pound, pounds/cord, ease of splitting, and so on. It is pretty interesting. I think that there are more slow growing, dense hardwoods in the south.
Ok, the other day (I had picked up a bunch of HEAVY logs from the side of the road; pecan, oak, etc) I bought an axe so that I could split some wood for our Halloween fire (ala Morgan). Well it took me about 30 minutes of back breaking effort to get it split! I even had a splitting wedge thingy. HOW did morgan split that big log with one whack? What gives? Pictures of my wood pile are coming. BTW check out the link I"m gonna try to send you (greg) if I can find it. I saw this photo in National Geographic the other day....talk about a lot of logs!
An axe is used to chop wood (cut across the grain). You would chop a tree down with an axe or cut it into lengths. It is nearly useless for splitting. You need a wedge-and-sledge or a maul (which is a wedge-shaped sledge). You stand the bucked (cut to length with flat ends) log on end and hit it with the maul with great force and it will split. If you are going to buy a maul, get the heaviest one that you can handle. They make them in weights up to 8 lbs. You can easily handle an 8-pounder with a little practice. That is what Morgan is using in the pic. One other thing; don't stand the log on something soft, like wet or spongy ground. When you hit it with the maul, you don't want the log to be able to absorb the energy by sinking a little into the ground. A chopping block (a short piece of larger diameter wood) is ideal to stand it on. That way, when you hit it squarely with the maul, splitting is the only way for the energy to be dispersed.
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