advice for splitting beech...

[carvinmark]

Have been burning wood as my main heat source for awhile now. Like freemind, my favourite wood is elm. Dead fence row elm with the bark falling off is an aphrodesiac ( spell check ) Beach is my second favourite. never had a problem with low btu while burning and not much ash.

:agree2:

Welcome to AS Axe Man.
I would add oak to the list of good btu's. I burned mostly all Beach last year with great results. The Beech was killing me trying to split so I got a splitter and it is much easier now. Never going back to swinging the maul unless I have to, I have two discs messed up so I can hardly split by hand.

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

I've worked a lot with Beech and it vary's tree to tree on the toughness to split. Some will split easy and others will be what I call wavy grain and be very tough. When splitting 3 foot plus diameter logs some trees require the ringing method of chunking it up with the grain. Some knot free chunks will even stall our splitter if you don't. I always wanted to see one of the forum "studs" who say they don't need a splitter bang the brains out on one of those trees. They WILL humble you.

Beech is great wood to me. We have 50 acres of it and cutr the dead/falling stuff every year.

 

[flotek]

beech is premo firewood burns long and hot -as good as red oak

 

[indiansprings]

Sounds like a son of a beech to split, must be like blackjack or seasoned hedge.

 

[MJR]

Forget the maul, put some fuel in that saw and do it the easy way.

 

[sesmith]

Beech is great burning wood. Needs to be seasoned, though, including your dead tree for it to burn well. Technique is usually more important than brute force with wood splitting. Unfortunately, with beech you usually need both. I've split more than my share of the stuff. I've been burning mostly beech for the last few years (6+ full cords/ year, 24" length). It seems to split easier when frozen, though still not easy. My monster maul got used way more than I liked. As was already mentioned start on the outside and work your way in on the larger rounds. I finally got a little smarter this year and got a splitter for my tractor. Split 7 cords in a weekend this year...much faster than hand splitting the stuff.

 

[clearance]

If it ain't clear I like to leave it in the bush. But if I have big nasty pieces I saw it up sideways with my 395.