# Nothing easy about splitting Pine



## johnsopi (Nov 25, 2008)

Rented a 22 ton splitter to get the wood done that I gather this year. The Pine wood has given 
the splitter more problems then anything esle. This is the 1st time I've had any real amount of Pine
the peices with all the branches are tough.
All so 30 in base piece of Oak are a pain to split. I like running the saw much better then splitting!


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## CowboyAndy (Nov 25, 2008)

of everyting I have cut and split so far, I have found pine and white birch the hardest. Sugar maple and yellow birch the easiest.

But, I still like splitting better than running the saw. There is something about the sound a piece makes as it splits open...


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## smokinj (Nov 25, 2008)

Splitting cutting loading unloading nothing easy in the whole process,but i find it better than paying the work out clubs memership!


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## Adios Pantalones (Nov 25, 2008)

I split 40" long pieces of pine, 16-20" around with a maul and wedge.  It's weird- it does nothing and shows no cracks, then boom- it's split.

Now that I have the 33 ton splittah- I put them in sideways.  Pine hasn't given me any issues with the splittah.  Doesn't slow down one bit.


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## Bubbavh (Nov 25, 2008)

If it's wet, pine is a pain in the arse to split by hand.  The axe just sticks and the juices flow!


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## johnsopi (Nov 26, 2008)

Some of the Pine was easy, but the ones with with all the branch were a nightmare.
I'm done splitting for the year.


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## InTheRockies (Nov 26, 2008)

I split all my wood by hand and most of it's pine.  Pine can be a pain since it tends to have lots of knots.  You know you've got a knotty piece once you start whacking at it with a maul and it doesn't split easily.  Some of the fingers of the knots can be really long, too--makes me wonder if carpenters got the idea for finger joints from having to split firewood.


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## Rizzy (Nov 26, 2008)

I split my ponderosa and jack pine with an 8 pound mal. When seasoned; if there's no knots or crotches it splits really easy, I can usually get a 24" piece in half with one swing. As was said before unseasoned or knotty wood is a b!tch, I got one piece with 2 wedges stuck in it.  Pine kind of spoils me..........I got some eucalyptus recently, whole different story


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## CowboyAndy (Nov 26, 2008)

I agree that pine without alot of knots splits like butter, but hit one and look out...


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## mattinpa (Nov 26, 2008)

I cut some dead looking hemlock the other day.  About 18" diameter.  Grabbed my 8 pound maul, swung, and bounced back a couple of feet.  I was not expecting that!  I was expecting it to split easy.  Man was I wrong.  Gonna have to let that stuff freeze or dry out before messing with it again.


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## billb3 (Nov 26, 2008)

I've had some nasty knotty pieces that I've  taken the chain saw to, cutting out the section with knots, splitting the straight grained piece easily like it should and then beating the crap out of the thin section with knots.

If there weren't too many branches in the circle of knots, one can usually find the sweet spot where it will split easily. Some are just plain  nast contortions of Nature's lack of conformity.


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## Summertime (Nov 26, 2008)

I found that maple I split was very stringy and horrible to split! I hope it burns good though..


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## myzamboni (Nov 27, 2008)

Bubbavh said:
			
		

> If it's wet, pine is a pain in the arse to split by hand.  The axe just sticks and the juices flow!



That's why my axe stays in the shed and I use a maul.  Wet pine splits EASY with a 8lb maul.


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## CowboyAndy (Nov 27, 2008)

Summertime said:
			
		

> I found that maple I split was very stringy and horrible to split! I hope it burns good though..



I've found the smaller the maple, the stringier it seems to be.


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## Bubbavh (Nov 27, 2008)

myzamboni said:
			
		

> Bubbavh said:
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I have one of those big box store electric splitters I use for pine.  It works great on it!  I stick it up on my trailer (so I don't have to split on my knees) and split away.  It's also great for making smaller splits for starters and kindling when my brush piles run out!


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## Duetech (Nov 27, 2008)

With a splitter or maul/wedges split from the root end. Halve the round so that the split goes between the knots. Split the halves in wedges from the root end between knots or right through the center of the knot as they will split lengthwise if you get them down the center. You'll have a bunch of wedges that stack well. For pieces that have knots you can't separate come to the forum. There are lots of people here that want free wood. Just grin like they're your best friend. After all they just did you a favor and you should be appreciative. Isn't that what Grandma always use to say? Young people just never appreciate anything? Snicker...snicker...


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## Danno77 (Dec 17, 2008)

wanted to find a thread to complain about pine (well kinda complain, i guess).

Man was that stuff hard to split. I've never burnt or split pine before (well, at least never burnt it in my fireplace other than lumber pieces).

SPLITTING (some exaggeration for effect):
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it went like this: swing with splitter -bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, *curse*curse*curse*, flip round upside down, bounce, bounce, bounce, *curse*, flip round over again, use really sharp axe- whack and pry the stupid axe out for 2 minutes, back to the splitter, bounce, bounce, crack, whew that was a lot of work. Split some walnut so I remind myself that it's not supposed to be that hard, then REPEAT!

Lesson learned the hard way. Split pine when it's very cold, works 10 times better. <20F for several days and a quick session with the splitter made the pine as easy as the walnut. 


BURNING:
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Catches fire in an instant, burns VERY hot and VERY fast. I have a wood "holder" next to the hearth that holds generally about a days worth of wood if I'm not trying to make us sweat. With pine I'd estimate that I went through that about 3x as fast. I know there've been links recently with information on BTUs per pound and whatnot, or amount of BTUs per cord, but geesh, it's a lot of work for such a short burn time.


OVERVIEW:
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This pine was free. I enjoy splitting wood. Pine lights easy. I will discontinue my usage of pine for general burning and delegate it the responsibility of starting fires from kindling or by throwing a couple of splits on hot coals. I will only split it if it's been really cold for a few days.


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## Bubbavh (Dec 17, 2008)

If I had another source of free wood that wasn't pine, I'd probably wouldn't burn much of it either.  It's a lot of work but then again so is heating with wood!  I like to split it a little bit bigger then I do with other hard woods gives a little longer burn time.  I also can choke it down a little faster then hardwoods because it goes up like a volcano! This also will lengthen your burn time with it.  It's also better used on warmer days for flash fires, and also great for kindling.  I like to put down a split or 2 of hardwood then fill the rest of the box with med. then small splits of pine, toss some paper pretzels on top and that puppy is roaring in 5 minutes.

You'll find a way to use it up.  Pine is not as bad as you think,  it just takes some getting used to.


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## Danno77 (Dec 17, 2008)

Bubbavh said:
			
		

> You'll find a way to use it up.  Pine is not as bad as you think,  it just takes some getting used to.


Most definitely, I will use it! I keep hearing scroungers talking about not even messing with it but I'm the type of person who picks up a penny when I see it on the ground. I guess rich people probably don't worry about pennies.


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## Adios Pantalones (Dec 17, 2008)

CowboyAndy said:
			
		

> I agree that pine without alot of knots splits like butter, but hit one and look out...



How, exactly, does butter split?


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## Danno77 (Dec 17, 2008)

Adios Pantalones said:
			
		

> How, exactly, does butter split?


a lot like margarine.


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## smokinj (Dec 17, 2008)

Adios Pantalones said:
			
		

> CowboyAndy said:
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dont sure, but pick up 3/4 cord of pine yesterday that pine tar is bad stuff dont know if I want to splitt it!


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## Bubbavh (Dec 17, 2008)

Let it sit for a few months before you split it...  give that tar a chance to harden up.  That stuff (tar) will petrify your gloves!


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## smokinj (Dec 17, 2008)

Bubbavh said:
			
		

> Let it sit for a few months before you split it...  give that tar a chance to harden up.  That stuff (tar) will petrify your gloves!


Yep just found that out!


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## CowboyAndy (Dec 17, 2008)

Adios Pantalones said:
			
		

> CowboyAndy said:
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Easily.

IF it has NO knots.

I split some 20" rounds a few times with the hydrolic splitter, then split then into small 2x4 pieces with the hatchet. It was easy.


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## Adios Pantalones (Dec 17, 2008)

LOL- not much splits too hard with a hydraulic splitter.

where does one even buy a 20" round of butter?


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## smokinj (Dec 17, 2008)

Adios Pantalones said:
			
		

> LOL- not much splits too hard with a hydraulic splitter.
> 
> where does one even buy a 20" round of butter?


lol, lot of dairy farms around here!


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## CowboyAndy (Dec 17, 2008)

Adios Pantalones said:
			
		

> LOL- not much splits too hard with a hydraulic splitter.
> 
> where does one even buy a 20" round of butter?



COSTCO


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## GunSeth (May 22, 2009)

I have a bunch of pine rounds that a neighbor gave me a few months ago from a tree that fell down last fall.  I plan on splittin' 'em soon with my Fiskars axe.  Do I need to worry about my new axe getting all sticky?  Should I use my ugly stepchild axe instead?


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## Slow1 (May 22, 2009)

I had my first pine splitting experience a couple weeks ago.  Using my nice Fiskars...

The wood was fairly green - but the sap is mostly in the bark so although my gloves got messy and some landed on the handle it wasn't really such a big deal.

Straight pieces without knots were easy to split for the most part - even the larger (21+" long by 16+ round) rounds I could take apart.  I rather enjoyed making these into boards by squaring them up first then splitting the rectangle down to size - that straight grain was great for this and boy does this stack pretty!.  Now for the knots... There is one piece that I have set aside and don't know what I'm going to do with it.  I was hitting it over and over again - basically making pine mulch chips out of it.  The top of it is all eaten away now and you can see where the knots flow inside but it doesn't want to split!  I think I'll end up taking a wedge to it (I just started playing with the wedge/sledge approach) and see what happens.

Overall - straight pieces are a lot of fun.  Knotty ones get to be real work, but are still fun too - I think it is because the pine (at least the variety that I was working) grows with four branches all at the same point in the trunk (sort of N/S/E/W) and thus the knots are all together.  

This was free - only cost me the time and bother to haul, split, and stack so I'm happy enough.  I look forward to burning it when the time comes - will have to shorten some of these pieces but will deal with it then, after the sap is dry.


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## TreePapa (May 22, 2009)

I've had some pine that just didn't want to split. Well, most of it will split with the rented 20 ton h/v splitter in vert. mode ... but sometimes its more like tearing the wood apart than splitting it. Seems to me that the grain on some pine is all twisted and knarly, and other pine has fairly straight grain. If there are no knots, the straightness (or lack of same) of the grain seems to make the the difference.

With the ax, maul, or other manual implements, sometimes I can pound at the pine all I want and the implement will either bounce off or get stuck, but now split the wood. But other times (or rather, other batches of wood or when I've let the same batch season for six months or so), all it takes is one or two good wacks. And some "soft" straight grained white pine will practically split if it sees the ax anywhere in the nieghborhood.

Peace,
- Sequoia


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## skinnykid (May 22, 2009)

have split pine with maul and splittah, nothing tough about it.
Branches and all.

I have a bunch of hemlock, when very wet it expands and the juices squirt out like crazy, but still pretty easy.


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## WidowMaker (Jun 11, 2009)

The Chimney fires will generally keep ya warm for a couple days....  :>)


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## Cluttermagnet (Jun 11, 2009)

I've cut and split various Pine, Spruce, and Hemlock around here which were deadwood or nearly dead- various trees mostly from our yard which were not up to the climate and gave up. They all split very easily, in warm weather. So I've decided I will collect the occasional small amounts of 'Pine'. I'm sticking mainly with Oak, Cherry, Locust, Maple, etc. that I've been very successful with. The Pine does indeed burn very hot. I like it mainly for small kindling and smaller 3-5in starter splits.


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