Worst Wood to Split by Hand?

[Mike PA]

I'm going to go with gum. I wack it with the Fiskars and I'm lucky if it sticks. When I'm not lucky, the wood spits it back out. Swear I can hear it laughing...

Splitting gum with a splitter is tough, also. I'm lucky that I don't find many large gum trees as a 15" round can nearly stall a splitter. It doesn't split as much as it tears. Hard to make good stacks out of split gum. Dries quickly, though, as it has 3-4 times more surface area exposed.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Elm--Tough and not so Tough

I once stuck three wedges into an elm round. Hidden crotch swallowed all three of them. I said to myself, "P__s on it." Guess that's why they call it p__s elm.

However, I also with TreeCo that some elm is not that tough to split. It depends on how long it has dried, where the round came from on the tree, which elm species it is, and a host of other factors.

 

[stackwood]

lol

:deadhorse: ELM ELM , and any knotted wood!!!

 

[discounthunter]

sweet gum. i would say live oak ,but you said straight grained,ive never seen a piece og straight grained live oak,lol

 

[Nosmo]

Dead or Dying Elms

I still say Elm but I don't have much choice in the wood I can gather up. There are a lot of dying or dead Elms in my part of the state.

I've read that Elm was used to make wagon wheels and spokes because the grain is twisted. I don't mind using it in the stove after it has seasoned.

Nosmo

 

[Labman]

In my experience it goes

1. Elm
2. Shagbark hickory
3. Beech

In my experience, nothing is in the same ball park as elm, nothing. I have done maple including silver maple, ash, hedge, box elder, choke cherry, mulberry, oak, apple, peach, and some others I don't remember or never identified.

Some of the nicest stuff I ever split was beech. I was doing 3' rounds with a full size ax. I could consistently quarter it with 3 blows of the ax. It was nice straight grain without any big knots.

 

[ronsetoe]

cottonwood!!

 

[Cambium]

Elm by hand. Need 2 or 3 wedges at least.

 

[Plankton]

In my experience, nothing is in the same ball park as elm, nothing. I have done maple including silver maple, ash, hedge, box elder, choke cherry, mulberry, oak, apple, peach, and some others I don't remember or never identified.

Some of the nicest stuff I ever split was beech. I was doing 3' rounds with a full size ax. I could consistently quarter it with 3 blows of the ax. It was nice straight grain without any big knots.

For sure there is some nice beech. The reason I threw that on there is I just spent the day prior to that splitting nasty twisted beech with a maul.

But your right Elm is a league of it s own in horrible.

 

[fields_mj]

Elm by hand. Need 2 or 3 wedges at least.

There's no way I would attempt to split something that big by hand, even if it wasn't elm. I'd at least noodle it in half first. I've cut a lot of ash and white oak that size in the past 2 years, and I've decided that I just don't have the time or energy to spend whacking on stuff that size anymore. I had been using my 036 to noodle it, then pop it apart with a maul or wedge. Now I just let my 064 eat it I noodled some 18" rounds (22" long) last night and timed a couple of the cuts. They took between 45 sec and a full min depending on the operator and the size of the wood. Much easier than that old maul.

 

[Swamp Yankee]

my worse experience was with a load of dried willow a guy gave me. It was as light as balsa wood but that stringy stuff would not come apart! I put out way more BTU's trying to split it than I got back by burning it.:hmm3grin2orange:

Elm is bad also but at least there is some heat in it.

Willow is nasty.

Willow is indeed some very nasty stuff. Kinda like an elm lite. All the work with 1/2 the BTUs.

Take Care

 

[wvlogger]

Beech i know were serveral full cords are but can not split the stuff. Oh well maybe when i hit the lotto and get my M817 five ton i will cut it all and rent a splitter

 

[Troy G]

Green Elm and Green Cottonwood is a PITA even with the Timberwolf TW-P1.

 

[turnkey4099]

Willow is nasty.

Willow is indeed some very nasty stuff. Kinda like an elm lite. All the work with 1/2 the BTUs.

Take Care

Must be different species. The stuff I cut splits like a dream (except crotches/knots) green. A bit tought dry but still no problem. If let go long enugh to begin getting "punky" any wood will be a problem.

Harry K

 

[Junkrunner]

1.) Any Gum
2). American Elm
3). Sycamore

Yep, sycamore is a bear. I call it "rocket wood" when splitting dryed sycamore, with my hydraulic splitter.
I gave-up trying to split it, by hand.

Green, it is painfully slow.

 

[wigglesworth]

Elm and shagbark hickory are the toughest to split around here. I hate Elm so much, I usually leave it in the woods. It's just not worth the effort. Shagbark just burns too good to leave it be. Looking back, I now know where this constant neck pain comes from.

 

[StihlyinEly]

Of all the woods I have ever split, American elm is the worst. Stringy and nearly impossible to split by hand.

 

[spudulike]

Willow - where boughs come off the main trunk - the stuff is like hard rubber and doesnt burn well - the wood kills you when splitting it with an axe - almost impossible - a wedge isn't much better!

Spud

 

[cjnspecial]

Live Oak is the worst down here. It's dang near impossible to split with a maul and is notorious for bending hydraulic splitters.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Both elm and cottonwood split much easier if you let them dry in the round for about four months. When that is through, the elm is still tough but managable. The cottonwood is then surprisingly easy and not stringy at all.

On the otyher hand, some species of wood get worse to split as it seasons. Bradford and Cleveland pear are good examples of that. When seasoned in the round, these fruitwoods harden up so much that they will literally explode like a cherry bomb when the splitter finally breaks through.

I just split some sycamore last month. It is really tough stuff. You need a power splitter for most of it. Tough as nails.

I, too, have also heard horror stories about live oak and watched some men working with it in Florida about 20 years ago. It is miserable to split.