sweet gum

[mo.woodtick]

is it worth a sh*t to burn never burned any and its all over the farm that i am cutting on is the smaller stuff easier to split or does it all suck thanks for any input

 

[jrider]

It's ok at best for firewood. It splits like a mother. I try to avoid it unless it's small enough in diameter to fit in the OWB

 

[Fred Wright]

Gum is the devil to split. We used to CS&S a gum tree for shoulder season every year. The limbs seemed to split a little cleaner than rounds from the main stem for some reason. We'd leave the the rounds to set a couple months before splitting. It loses a lot of water weight over time; the cellular structure deteriorates and it splits easier.

Burns up quickly and leaves a lot of ash. Those aspects and comparatively low heat output are why many firewood cutters avoid the stuff.

If you have a lot of it and a good hydro splitter, I don't see why not. Like my old FIL used to say, when it's what you got it's what you burn.

 

[zogger]

Medium firewood, sucks to split, I noodle most of mine. As soon as the piece is small enough to fit in the stove, that's it.

 

[Babaganoosh]

Don't listen to these guys. It's called sweet gum because it's so sweet to process and use as firewood. Easy to split, easy to stack and dry in 6 months. Process all you can. Probably won't even need a splitter.