Buried Treasure/ Wood ID

[luneburg]

Locust

Heated exclusively with Locust for over 5 years in Upstate N.Y and it varies in appearance with age and conditions but that I would venture to say is definitely Locust .
Was the warmest 5 winters in that old farmhouse.

 

[4seasons]

I've used locust for firewood, and found it to be outstanding for making heat and some of the easiest stuff I've ever split. So easy, in fact, that you can split it just as fast with a maul as with a mechanical splitter.

I split everything with a maul. But locust is like hickory on the stringy scale. Not as bad as elm or gum though. I am curious what other woods you are splitting that make locust seem easy to split. The other wood that I cut (white oak, red oak, beech) all pop open on the first swing at sizes under 16 in rounds as long as I'm not busting a crotch. Locust is the only thing that I have ever hit a straight grained 12 in round dead center with an 8 lb maul and it just bounce off barely making a dent. Luckily it grows straight as an arrow so I have never had to fight a twisted crotch apart but that is the only easy part about splitting it. While I know there are much harder to split woods out there (sycamore, gum, elm) I put it right below hickory on the hard to split scale with a slight edge to hickory because it tends to have more twist and crotches to have to bust.

 

[chuckwood]

I split everything with a maul. But locust is like hickory on the stringy scale. Not as bad as elm or gum though. I am curious what other woods you are splitting that make locust seem easy to split. The other wood that I cut (white oak, red oak, beech) all pop open on the first swing at sizes under 16 in rounds as long as I'm not busting a crotch. Locust is the only thing that I have ever hit a straight grained 12 in round dead center with an 8 lb maul and it just bounce off barely making a dent. .

Perhaps I just got lucky with my locust. Mine split just as easy as red oak. I didn't notice any stringy stuff at all. My experience has been limited to just 3 trees, but they were big ones.

 

[luneburg]

agree

Agree with you 4seasons is pretty darn stringy when green but as with most wood becomes a heck of a lot easier to split once it is seasoned . Most of what i used or harvested was standing dead so it was rock hard , petrified bone wood if you will, so it was pretty easy to split. Had 2 locust groves at about ten acres a piece, so plenty of dead wood to harvest but Oh Lord was the P.I. Rampant throughout the groves .

 

[branchbuzzer]

There is a wide variation in the type of forms and growing sites of locust trees, and that's probably why some of you are finding it easy to split and some difficult. I've seen trees that split without any strings at all ( the grain will almost look like ash ) and some that split with lots of strings similar to hickory. I actually find the bigger trunks easier than the smaller ones, but again, this is 'knot' always true. I've also had many that have been dead a long time be hard to split, so letting it sit isn't a guarantee for ez splits.