Drying thin cookies instead of splitting?

[dougstove]

Hi; I do not (yet) have a splitter and my Fiskars and I have trouble with crinkled grain in yellow birch.
I am thinking of cutting thin cookies (~3-4" length; 4-12" diameter) of yellow birch, to dry without splitting. What are the drawbacks? Handling? cheers Doug

 

[CincyBurner]

Drawbacks: Wasting fuel (chain saw & firewood) and time. Also, depositing bar oil on site.
A lot more handling of wood, and depending where you cut more cleanup.

How about hand splitting ? I'll let others chime in on difficulty of splitting yellow birch. I've split some river birch (real tough) but not yellow birch.

 

[Wisco Shepherd]

For the cost of my time/fuel/chain/saw wear I'd be scrounging for a splitter even a day rental.

 

[dougstove]

So running a splitter is cheaper than running a chainsaw? I have only used hand tools so far; just thinking of an Echo electric chainsaw.

 

[hearthon]

Rent a splitter for a day and be done with it, I have a 9 ton electric and it pretty much goes through anything.

 

[peakbagger]

My friends used to work for a dowel mill. They bought mostly white and some yellow birch logs. They chopped the ends off the logs to get rid of the worst of the end checking. They called the cookies "lilypads". The employees could haul off the pads for free. They hauled them home and usually put them in bins. They dried pretty quick and it was part of their firewood supply. I personally thought they were more work than regular firewood. That said, someone else was paying the power bill to cut them. My guess is cutting cookies would eat up a lot more gas than cutting log length and splitting.

 

[dougstove]

Thanks all.

 

[Wisco Shepherd]

So running a splitter is cheaper than running a chainsaw? I have only used hand tools so far; just thinking of an Echo electric chainsaw.

For me it just comes down to asking the right machine to do what it wants to so as opposed to asking an electric saw to make cookie after cookie. My saw is not professional grade so while it's great at bucking up a cord of 16 inch logs in one go I wouldn't ask it to do a cord of cookies.

 

[Southwestpaburner]

I get white oak cookies from a whiskey barrel making place they come in 1-1/2 to 3-4 thickness I absolutely love them but wouldn’t cut them myself to much time , I can fit over a half cord in my 8 ft bed F 250 - the cost 25.00$ if I was closer to the place I’d sell my chainsaw

 

[stoveliker]

If I end up with cookies, I keep them. On top of the stack, 4-5" thick oak cookies drying two years here. I do test them by splitting them in half after drying. Then I burn those halved with the flat face down, i.e. a half round hill oriented north-south. I add splits e-w behind and in front.

However, I won't make cookies. Too much hassle in cutting, storing, and loading .