My First... and likely my last...

[AIM]

I actually like those knotty gnarly pieces. They SEEM like they last longer and maybe burn a bit hotter than a straight grained piece. I don't know,,, maybe the wood fibers are denser in the crotches than in the straight???
Or maybe I am simply imagining things???

I can't make a nice stack to save my ass anyhow so twisted stuff doesn't really matter to me.

 

[Whitespider]

BTW, you make me feel like a MUCH better stacker today. 90% of what I see in your basket would have made it into my stacks.

Actually you're seeing the best of the uglys in that picture, the ones behind and underneath are a lot worse.
The madder I got, the more pieces I started throwing in the ugly pile!

 

[ShaneLogs]

Those uglys look like they would make for a nice time in the fire pit.

[/QUOTE]

 

[3fordasho]

Few years back my son in law hooked me up with a knarly old hard maple trunk that sat at his dads place. I think it was too big and tough for them to get to the fire pit. I cut it up with the 6401 and brought it home. The lower section split pretty good but up higher where it branched off it wasn't pretty. I still come across those splits in my stash and remember that trunk.. also think a better name for the wood is rock maple. feels and sounds like rocks when I touch or clink them together. Weight of the splits reminds me of rock too. I would be happy to find more

 

[haveawoody]

Whitespider,

If you have ever burnt shag bark hickory it's near identical in coals and BTU.
I would say better coals than Oak and slightly less BTU than white oaks.

For me i like to cut and split sugar maple right away or frozen solid, dead or semi dry stuff is always tougher to split on sugar maple IMO.

With your splitting troubles i bet you have the nasty cousin of sugar maple, curly maple.
Same or just a tiny bit better BTU but much tougher to split or more like wrestling/split .

 

[Whitespider]

… dead or semi dry stuff is always tougher to split on sugar maple IMO.
With your splitting troubles i bet you have the nasty cousin of sugar maple, curly maple.

Your post reminded me of something that could be contributing to the splitting difficulties. This tree has been down a while, it was felled in March of 2011, but I didn’t get around to bucking it until January of this year (2012)… it’s been down for around 14 months, and was laying bucked for the last 3 months of that!

I don’t believe its curly maple (I’m not even sure that’s a species of maple, more a description of the grain figure), but it probably ain’t a true Sugar Maple (acer saccharum) either… more likely in my area it’s a Black Maple (acer nigrum), which is a very close relative to the Sugar (often called Black Sugar Maple or Rock Maple), and most people can’t tell one from the other anyway (they hybridize also). We have more Black Maple than Sugar Maple in my county, but drive just a couple counties east and the Sugar becomes more common. The Black Maple is tapped for syrup making just like the Sugar Maple, and produces the same high-quality syrup. I believe the wood from Black Maple is considered to be just a tiny bit stronger/harder than Sugar Maple… but not by much.

 

[stihly dan]

I would not be able to enjoy the fire pit knowing how much work was gleaming at me. At least in the stove I can appreciate that I was gaining something from busting my hump.
I tried making stacks like yours. Lasted about an hour, couldn't take it anymore. I don't know how you do it, evan your trailer is stacked purdy.

 

[Fifelaker]

I would not be able to enjoy the fire pit knowing how much work was gleaming at me. At least in the stove I can appreciate that I was gaining something from busting my hump.
I tried making stacks like yours. Lasted about an hour, couldn't take it anymore. I don't know how you do it, evan your trailer is stacked purdy.

Me too. I go through wood like a wino goes through booze. If my stacks make it till I burn it I have success.

 

[CTYank]

I quite sure they are denser than a straight grained piece. There is a special joy in watching them burn through the glass doors. I've noticed they also have a slightly different flame pattern with jets and streams of burning gasses being emitted. :smile:

Yep, they are the best pieces. Sometimes a PARTIAL noodling is all it takes for the maul to finish them off.
Less actual noodling cutting -> less wood turned into noodles.

Those knotty pieces are the sort I toss in at bedtime in January.

 

[haveawoody]

Whitespider,

Ahh i bet that's it then.
Your probably right at that painful split semi dry sugar maple, and black maple just a tad more difficult than sugar.


Dito for the curly maple, I've cut a few that are so twisted and odd inside it really looks like it's a different species.
I've been told that is curly maple but i have my doubts it's a true species either.

Even though yours was a pain to split when the winter returns it will make you glad you got it
King of the coaling wood.

 

[Whitespider]

I tried making stacks like yours. ... I don't know how you do it...

L-O-L... Stackin' ain't difficult or time consuming, at least it ain't for me... goes pretty fast. My granddad and my dad always stacked firewood in straight, clean stacks... it's how I've done it for as long as I can remember. Ya' haf'ta get the first two/three bottom rows straight and tight, then as ya' work up ya' try and "lock" some (doesn't haf'ta be all) of the splits together... so ya' can't even wiggle them. At the same time ya' look down the face of the stack (from the top down), so ya' keep it plumb (if ya' start with a leaning or crooked stack it'll never stand over time).

I showed my wife how to do it last spring, and in just a couple weeks she was stackin' darn near as fast as me. My 4-year-old helps me stack some... he's figured it out, but spends a lot of time finding just the right spot for his chosen split. That's OK with me, that he takes some time to get his splits "locked" in tight, because that way I don't have to... I can just fast-stack.

I won't lie to ya' though... once-in-a-while, as the stuff shrinks and settles, a short section of a stack will start to lean and I'll whack those pieces back into plumb with a three-pound hammer... after that it'll usually stand near forever. And spring time, as the frost goes out'a the ground, ya' might get a section starting to lean also. On one of my stacks the frost sort'a blew-out the back end this year, one of the fence posts is leaning way out and I may haf'ta brace it a bit if we keep getting all this rain; Luckily, it'll be one of the first stacks moved into the house this fall and won't haf'ta withstand another frost cycle. I call the hammer work "stack maintenance"... it don't take all that long (maybe 10 minutes, once a month) and it's a lot less work than re-stacking. Actually I find that long stacks stand better than short stacks... being sort'a "locked" together, the long plumb-standing sections tend to hold any short-sectional leans from going too far or falling over.

 

[logbutcher]

Build It...they will Come

Spidy, with all your leisure time and wealth :msp_tongue:, get off the stick and build.

Enough whining about "stacks". Real woodbutchers use woodsheds.

Build it and they will come.:hmm3grin2orange:

 

[Whitespider]

Got no use, or no need, for a woodshed.
My "woodshed" is my basement... in the fall I can toss a whole winters worth downstairs within just a few feet of the furnace.
Why the hell would I want to walk out to a woodshed in the middle of January??

 

[logbutcher]

Build It

Got no use, or no need, for a woodshed.
My "woodshed" is my basement... in the fall I can toss a whole winters worth downstairs within just a few feet of the furnace.
Why the hell would I want to walk out to a woodshed in the middle of January??

Then why have all those OCD stacks like a parade ground formation ? :msp_ohmy:

And how large did you say the Spidy basement is ? A "whole winters worth" in one room ? Curious minds want to know how ?:hmm3grin2orange:

Walking out to a wood shed in the middle of January is excellent for the mind, for the body, for Iowa. It gets you out in the open air....

Here it is done every morning in December, January, February, and part of March, maybe April, often May, sometimes June. Other months vary with need. It's healthy to get out of the basement. Why damn, I just came back from filling the two stove racks. Stihl chilly here with temps in the low 40's and rain. My righteousness is killing. :hmm3grin2orange:

 

[greendohn]

I love my wood-shed. it sits next to the OWB.
but "spidy has got it goin' on with the basement storage/wood furnace set up, and his "ocd" wood stackin' is the bomb!! looks much better than a big pile and seasons better too.

Whitespider,,,are you sure you aint using a transit and plumb-bob on them stacks-o-firewood??

 

[Dale]

"Anyway, I won’t be doing any more splitting for a few days. Friday night we got drenched with a real honest-to-goodness gully-washer. Saturday afternoon I sunk the loaded trailer up to the axle in soft ground… tried winching the little tractor and trailer out’a the mud and ended up with the trailer jammed tight into a Box Elder. Managed to get the tree cut away without slicing open the tire, but it required sticking the bar right down into the mud. Finished winching the rig out, but going that direction required driving into a lower (wetter) area of the woodlot. I needed to use the winch 3 more times to get the load up and out’a the low place. It took over 5 hours to split and haul that load into the yard. I got all the equipment back up to the shop just as a second round of storms hit, and the down-pour it gave us made the Friday night storm look like a sprinkle. Now I have small rivers and ponds all about the woodlot and the yard sloshes underfoot. Provided we don’t get anymore rain it should dry out enough by next weekend… but I won’t be in there this week fur-sure!
I don’t have a picture of the muddy-mess load (I was too angry and worn-out to think about the camera), but to give you an idea it was one like this…"



You probably could have saved yourself time and aggrevation by just unloading the wood outta that trailer and pullin her empty. Man, that ugly little tractor must be a workhorse.

 

[Whitespider]

And how large did you say the Spidy basement is ? A "whole winters worth" in one room ?

The old coal storage room... 12x12x8 (easy 7 cord with room to walk in and open the shoot if needed).
I can stack another 2 cord or more just outside the coal room next to the (unused gas) furnace, and another cord behind it.
I toss it all down the coal shoot, beginning in mid-to-late September. I toss a load or two in and stack at my leisure... toss another load or two in... keep right on tossing even after we start burnin'... So by October end I can easily have tossed 10 cord down there if I think I'll be needing it. Depends on how much standing-dead elm and (so called) "shoulder season" wood I cut in the fall... If'n I burned strictly oak I doubt I'd need 10 cord.

 

[owbguy]

10 cords of firewood in your basement. :jawdrop:

 

[jrider]

The old coal storage room... 12x12x8 (easy 7 cord with room to walk in and open the shoot if needed).
I can stack another 2 cord or more just outside the coal room next to the (unused gas) furnace, and another cord behind it.
I toss it all down the coal shoot, beginning in mid-to-late September. I toss a load or two in and stack at my leisure... toss another load or two in... keep right on tossing even after we start burnin'... So by October end I can easily have tossed 10 cord down there if I think I'll be needing it. Depends on how much standing-dead elm and (so called) "shoulder season" wood I cut in the fall... If'n I burned strictly oak I doubt I'd need 10 cord.

So you stack all that wood twice just to avoid going outside in the middle of winter?

 

[logbutcher]

So you stack all that wood twice just to avoid going outside in the middle of winter?

:help::help::help: