# Why is this pine so hard to split? Why why why?..



## Corriewf (Oct 7, 2010)

Been trying to get this pine tree split that is laying across my yard and every piece is giving me a hard time...Poplar or Pine, my maul just sinks into it instead of going through...

Do I have to wait until the termites eat it to punk to split it?

*sad face*


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## TreePointer (Oct 7, 2010)

I've run into some old Scots pine that was a real workout to split.  It was in a windbreak and had grown with a twisted grain.  On some rounds, the twist was as much as I've seen in American elm.


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## Corriewf (Oct 7, 2010)

Man I feel like giving up... I don't like a wood to beat me, but it's pine. I think maybe the outside rings are dead and have soaked up rain or something... I hit it and my maul just sunk in with some liquid oozing out. It's already been out there for a couple months. What should I do?


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## Bubbavh (Oct 7, 2010)

Without a splitter... some pine just isn't worth the trouble!!


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## sgt7546 (Oct 7, 2010)

I was given maybe half of face cord of pine that I wanted to use for campfire wood.
It took me longer to split that than it does a full cord of non-pine wood.
I ended up using a sledge and two wedges to get the job done....but I will never never never accept pine rounds again.


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## Bspring (Oct 7, 2010)

Been there, done that and gave up.


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## iskiatomic (Oct 7, 2010)

Pine or Hemlock?  Hemlock has many more knots to get thru.


KC


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## loon (Oct 7, 2010)

:cheese: 

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/29408/#310090


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## Corriewf (Oct 7, 2010)

Geesh guys, your suppose to call me a wuss and inspire me.... Damn, now I feel like quitting...


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## SpeakEasy (Oct 8, 2010)

I was ready to give up on a load of pine. Instead, I cut it into very short (10"?) rounds. When it was in such short rounds the splitting problem was solved. 
-Speak


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## Backwoods Savage (Oct 8, 2010)

Corriewf said:
			
		

> Geesh guys, your suppose to call me a wuss and inspire me.... Damn, now I feel like quitting...




Put a few chunks in your freezer for a few days.  :lol:  That will make the wood harder and easier to split.


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## thewoodlands (Oct 8, 2010)

Corriewf said:
			
		

> Been trying to get this pine tree split that is laying across my yard and every piece is giving me a hard time...Poplar or Pine, my maul just sinks into it instead of going through...
> 
> Do I have to wait until the termites eat it to punk to split it?
> 
> *sad face*



http://www.woodheat.org/firewood/splitting.htm

Zap


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## Corriewf (Oct 8, 2010)

Backwoods Savage" date=" said:
			
		

> Corriewf" date=" said:
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Damn...why do I keep getting stuck with all this wood that's hard to split? I was rolling along so well for a while, but lately I'm stuck.

Wish I had the money for a splitter, but that would take the fun out it.


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## formula_pilot (Oct 8, 2010)

Corriewf said:
			
		

> Been trying to get this pine tree split that is laying across my yard and every piece is giving me a hard time...Poplar or Pine, my maul just sinks into it instead of going through...
> 
> Do I have to wait until the termites eat it to punk to split it?
> 
> *sad face*



I feel your pain. This spring I split some pine and hemlock by hand,   and it was like the branches had grown into to the inside of the round.   I would have the whole thing split, except a darn branch (knot) would still be holding it together. I had to pry them apart or cut  the "internal branch" with the sharp Fiskars, and there would be this dark stub of branch sticking out of the split that made stacking "creative".  Now dry,  the suff is as light as a feather. Turned out to be a lot of work for lightweight wood.  The conifers out West can be different. I spent a week in a cabin in Montana this spring. The wood we burned in the stove came from the mountains, and burned a surprisingly long time compared to the pine here in the east. It was also much denser. Not sure what species, but it was some kind of conifer, not a hardwood.


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## bogydave (Oct 8, 2010)

Here we split spruce when it get around -10°f.
Flies apart.
I got a splitter now, but it was allot easier when real cold.
After it dries though, burn it whatever size it is.
The bigger ones with no limbs or knots should split, unless
 it's twisted, then burn it as camp fire wood if it don't fit in the stove.
Can always noodle it.


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## precaud (Oct 8, 2010)

Let it dry for a year and then split it. Makes a huge difference.


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## Corriewf (Oct 8, 2010)

Hey zap,

Thanks! Hey check out this instructional video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee6Raji8ojc


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## Corriewf (Oct 8, 2010)

I wish I could wait a while to split it but the termites are getting to it. It is also blocking my lawn tractor in. I hate to throw away wood unless it's rotten and I hate noodling. The rounds are only a couple feet wide. I like to try and hold off noodling unless it three feet or more.  What sucks is that I have two more poplars to bring down as well. I have split many different types of wood so far and that poplar was the worse. It was even hard to cut with the saw. It's like the grain is going the wrong way....

I sometimes wonder how the older folks here still split some of this tougher stuff by hand. I often wonder if a day will come that I won't be able to do the heavy wood work anymore.


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## gzecc (Oct 8, 2010)

Ive said it before on this forum. If I only had (NJ)pine to burn, I wouldn't burn wood.


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## Wingman (Oct 8, 2010)

I took down a 60' 30" round base pine last spring. I was able to split ~1/2 by hand then the other 1/2 had to be done by splitter which mangled a fair amount of it.  Anything that had the knot was impossible to split.  I did get about 2 cords of wood, but boy, did it take a long, long time to finish it.


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## Lumber-Jack (Oct 8, 2010)

Corriewf said:
			
		

> Been trying to get this pine tree split that is laying across my yard and every piece is giving me a hard time...Poplar or Pine, my maul just sinks into it instead of going through...
> 
> Do I have to wait until the termites eat it to punk to split it?
> 
> *sad face*


Quite being a wus, our pine is so easy to split my kids do all the splitting.


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## Beowulf (Oct 8, 2010)

One of several 60' pines we took down due to borers this year was much worse than the others to split.  The thing about branches being embedded about 6 inches deep into the trunk made it kind of tough to do by hand.  Most of the rounds are now forming a decorative border on our back driveway and feeding the legions of termites!  If I did not have access to about all the oak I could ever want, I would worry more about it, but this particular tree is more trouble than the btu's merit.


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## quercus_kelloggii (Oct 8, 2010)

I sweated through hand splitting a bunch of ponderosa pine rounds I had scrounged.  Some were easy, oddly enough the smaller diameter "top" portions were a complete female dog.  Twisted grain messes.  Frustrating to be splitting 20" rounds no problem, then get dogged down by the 8 or 10" rounds!  But I split them all.  Sweat equity.  I'm going for Douglas-fir over ponderosa pine from here on out however.  Soooooo easy to split...


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## Corriewf (Oct 8, 2010)

Carbon_Liberator" date=" said:
			
		

> Corriewf" date=" said:
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That's some nice looking pine! Can't wait until my son is old enough.  

I do notice that once I get it split in half, the rest splits fine. It just takes about 10 freaking swings to get it in half. This tree was about 60 foot tall as well so maybe it's the knots. Looks like this weekend is gonna be full of fun for me.


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## Wood Duck (Oct 8, 2010)

I've split some White and Pitch pine from the forest, where they grow a trunk without many branches, and they split easily. Pines from someones front yard, where they have a ton of branches the whole way up the trunk, can be a pain the butt to split. Even small branches seem to go all the way to the middle of conifers.


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## northernontario (Oct 8, 2010)

Corriewf said:
			
		

> I do notice that once I get it split in half, the rest splits fine. It just takes about 10 freaking swings to get it in half.



Sounds like the perfect opportunity to noodle them partway through; go 1/2 way through each round, then use hand-power to split the other half.  I've been noodling some big yellow birch because the rounds are too heavy to lift onto the splitter.  Noodle 2/3 of the way through, then start noodling the quarter sections... 3 hits gets four quarters.


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## Skier76 (Oct 8, 2010)

I scrounged some pine last summer. Splitting it after I picked it up was a bear. I had a number of rounds that were too long for my stove. So, I left them in round form until I bought a saw this past summer. I cut them down to sise and used the Fiskars. Some that had a lot of internal knots were still tough, but everything split much much easier. 

If you have the space and time, leave them in rounds and let them sit for awhile. I'm thinking if you feel up to some mid winter splitting, they'll pop apart. Or just wait until next summer.


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## billb3 (Oct 8, 2010)

with the white pine here, I save a couple of the branches and when the bark has changed from green to red  the trunk rounds will be a bit easier to split.
I also use  the straighter branches to use as rails to keep the rounds off the ground . 

And split in January / February when it is frozen/cold.
Doesn't help with the darned knots, but the  wood doesn't grab the splitting maul/axe  like when it is green.


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## Corriewf (Oct 8, 2010)

See I just cant stand letting work sit there. I already been waiting all summer cause it was too hot. Now im ready for business. Thr bark is falling off thsi pine and by the time its cold enough, I hope to be working on tree number 3 or 4 after this... Im going all deep for 2013 baby!

Damn pine devil wood....


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## Adios Pantalones (Oct 8, 2010)

Use a wedge for that first split.  They have a mess of knots all at one level- PITA


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## quercus_kelloggii (Oct 8, 2010)

> I do notice that once I get it split in half, the rest splits fine. It just takes about 10 freaking swings to get it in half.



That was not my experience w/ the pipo i was splitting.  I would have to wack them 10 times no matter how much it was split.  Was some twisted wood for sure.  No fun.  I'll burn it and it will warm the house... the black oak was easier to split!


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## Corriewf (Oct 8, 2010)

quercus_kelloggii said:
			
		

> > I do notice that once I get it split in half, the rest splits fine. It just takes about 10 freaking swings to get it in half.
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> That was not my experience w/ the pipo i was splitting.  I would have to wack them 10 times no matter how much it was split.  Was some twisted wood for sure.  No fun.  I'll burn it and it will warm the house... the black oak was easier to split!



Welllll I have to put a decent amount of force into it where as I normally have to let the eight pound maul do tge work.

You think pine is worth all this.


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## ISeeDeadBTUs (Oct 8, 2010)

Better question . . .why are you splitting it? Put it in the fire and grab a beer in one hand an' yer ole lady in the other ;-)


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## quercus_kelloggii (Oct 8, 2010)

I think of it as sweat equity.  It was 'free' just my labor getting it and processing.  Of course the wood permit i bought for the national forest was only 30 bucks for two cords, so free pine isn't really all that amazing.  I like burning it for shoulder seasons.  However, this is the first year I got a firewood permit for the forest.  And I have brought home and processed 1.5 cords of black oak (preferred) and some doug-fir (burns really really well and WAY easy to split and seasons really fast) and some incense-cedar (smells good and good starter wood, also very easy to split).

So all that said and done, I don't think I'm going to go for free pine anymore, unless it is way easy.  I'm turning towards, for softwoods, doug-fir as a nice firewood.  Puts out descent BTU too from what I've read.

I hand split all my wood w/ a 8# maul and I enjoy it mostly.  Those small challenging twisted pine rounds suck, but they don't beat me


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## quercus_kelloggii (Oct 8, 2010)

Also... I don't really like how the pine bark comes off while I split... it is messy and I throw it into a garbage can, tap it down w/ the maul to compact it, and dump it.  And the termites... don't care for those either.  The doug-fir bark seems to mostly stay on, is much thinner and doug-fir smells nice (xmas tree smell) too.  It is lighter too (less moister to start out with??)


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## Corriewf (Oct 8, 2010)

ISeeDeadBTUs said:
			
		

> Better question . . .why are you splitting it? Put it in the fire and grab a beer in one hand an' yer ole lady in the other ;-)



cause one arm is not enough to get around her...


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## Corriewf (Oct 8, 2010)

quercus_kelloggii said:
			
		

> Also... I don't really like how the pine bark comes off while I split... it is messy and I throw it into a garbage can, tap it down w/ the maul to compact it, and dump it.  And the termites... don't care for those either.  The doug-fir bark seems to mostly stay on, is much thinner and doug-fir smells nice (xmas tree smell) too.  It is lighter too (less moister to start out with??)



Yeah we use those for xmas trees around here.. the problem with this wood is that its coming from... I cant turn myself down.


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## ISeeDeadBTUs (Oct 8, 2010)

Corriewf said:
			
		

> cause one arm is not enough to get around her...



If you gotz pine rounds THAT big . . .oh! Wait . . . you wern't talking about the firewood . . .


How 'bout them Yankees??


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## sapratt (Oct 8, 2010)

I got some pine from my dad that was cut up 2 yrs ago and it split nice.  Maybe it needs to dry some more.


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## Corriewf (Oct 8, 2010)

Well I went out there like a big fat feline cat and noodled it all. I cut it some and then split it all in half with the maul. Tomorrow I will finish it. 

Another witch of a b with this wood is that my saw kept getting clogged noodling. The chips were sticking togethet so much that it got stopped up alot.I will never do pine again unless its on my property.


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## fire_man (Oct 8, 2010)

Corriewf said:
			
		

> I wish I could wait a while to split it but the termites are getting to it. It is also blocking my lawn tractor in. I hate to throw away wood unless it's rotten and I hate noodling. The rounds are only a couple feet wide. I like to try and hold off noodling unless it three feet or more.  What sucks is that I have two more poplars to bring down as well. I have split many different types of wood so far and that poplar was the worse. It was even hard to cut with the saw. It's like the grain is going the wrong way....
> 
> I sometimes wonder how the older folks here still split some of this tougher stuff by hand. I often wonder if a day will come that I won't be able to do the heavy wood work anymore.



The worst wood I ever split was a 4ft diameter Cottonwood Tree. Every stinking stringy piece required the splitter's ram to fully extend, and even then I needed a hatchet to break apart. Folks in the old days would have frozen if Cottonwood is all they could burn.


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## Captain Hornet (Oct 8, 2010)

I once in a while burn pine and noticed some is hard to split.  So I use a sledge and wedges and it'll bust right open for you.  It dries better when it has been split so you're right by splitting it now.  Sledge and wedges well work fine for you.  I don't have a hydraulic splitter and really don't want one.  David


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## Corriewf (Oct 8, 2010)

fire_man said:
			
		

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Oh hell yeah I agree! Poplar is horrible! I still have some 3 foot wide rounds I have not touched in 8 months. It was so bad the saw could harely cut it. I dont know how they did some of this stuff a hundred years ago.


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## ROBERT F (Oct 9, 2010)

Split 10 full cords of pine last year.  Burning it this year.  every piece I pick up will remind me exactly why i got a splitter for the 20 cords I did this year!!  pine by hand? not any more


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## Lumber-Jack (Oct 9, 2010)

Corriewf said:
			
		

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I'll tell you how they did it a hundred years ago, they simply had a lot more time on their hands that's how. Back in the old days they didn't have to run back inside and post their every move and thought on the internet, now get out there and get er DONE _ (just kidding)_

Frankly I don't and wouldn't cut green pine, or poplar, or any green wood for that mater, anymore. I just don't have the room to store it while it seasons, and I have easy access to pre-seasoned standing dead lodgepole pine that splits pretty easy. If that supply ever gets depleted (not in my life time) then I guess my heat pump will start kicking in more often and my electric bill will be a little higher, oh well...   I like gathering and burning wood, but I ain't gona fight with it, no way.


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