I have a huge beech tree to cut up that fell in Sandy. I never delt with beech before. I was wondering how it splits and season time. Oh and does the wood stay good for long time or does it get punky.
Thanks, Tom
Thanks, Tom
Lots of knots, hand splitting is more difficult than oak or birch.
Lots of knots, hand splitting is more difficult than oak or birch.
How do you think this one would split?:msp_biggrin:
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38 in. dbh, 90 ft tall, around 35 ft. to the major fork (just measured it last Thanksgiving). That's a full twist in the lower trunk. Tree is at my Dad's place in CT - he isn't planning on cutting it any time soon though.
Yes easy to split and season.
Disagree, with easy to split.
Beech does not grow straight and is tough to split by hand. Not the hardest, but harder than oak.
beech is great. but if its not under cover you can have problems fairly quick
Great also but harder to split. In my experience, it lasts a LONG time even in direct contact with the ground. Also, I have some tops that I go into for kindling that took three whole years to get to the easy snap point.
I have a 7 ton electric splitter. Do you think that will be strong enough. I have split oak, Maple, crab apple,and honey locust on it. Never messed with beech. Tree is one big tree with 2 other 14" trees growing out of it. But it is really straight tree about 60 ft.
You are gonna do either way, so it doesnt matter!
Do you normally hand split to get rounds smaller to use that smaller splitter? Sounds like youll need to do that with the big beech.
It just depends on the tree. We have a lot of beech and some of them can be split by hand while some have a "wavy" grain that with bounce out wedges. These trees are in the same woods and can be side by side. We had a straight log with no knots that was over 3 ft in diameter that had to have a saw cut just to start out slimmest tapered wedges. Just no rhyme or reason to it. Great wood to burn and BTU's is great. Sitting on the ground it sponges up fairly fast so get on it.
Standing dead sometimes is a crapshoot too. You can have sections in the logs that are good and then some doady sections. I just do some cuts to see if it's worth messing with. The tops always seem to break out then the rot from there.
Here's the biggest one we had. Ike took the top out 20 ft up. One limb was over 3 ft and the other was 4 ft. Trunk was over 5 ft in diameter and that IS a full size Dodge next to it. Over 13 cord from one tree.
i'm in the process of splitting a 24" base beech and 3 white oak trees that came down during hurricane sandy and last years irene. i'm just about all done with the beech but have probably a cord left to split of the white oak. overall, i have about 3 cords split and stacked.
now with regards to splitting the beech, i did the entire thing by hand and i was amazed how easy it was to split.
now this wood is going to be for the 2014/15 burning season. i've never had this much beech before so how will it be seasoning with the white oak? i know theres been some talk about it getting punky and getting insect. what makes the beech attract insects over anything else?
oh, i'm in northern NJ and the wood is stacked on pallats with at least 6 hrs of sun.
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