Wood I.D. PLEASE!

[wood-fan-atic]

Man, this is THE HARDEST splitting rounds I have ever had!! Even 12" rounds that are maybe 14-15 inches long can take a shot from my 8lb. maul and laugh at it. Really tight and twisted. I THOUGHT I saw the leaves from a Bradford Pear on the lawn when I scrounged these from the tree guys, but I never imagined that a pear tree could be so hard to split. Very fragrent, too. Smells like a fresh salad. Is it a pear? If anybody will know, it'll be you guys. ;-P

 

[PA. Woodsman]

Looks like Pear to me-that is one nasty piece though! I love the stuff; dries pretty quickly, burns nicely. Have fun!

 

[Captain Hornet]

I have split quite a bit of Bradford pear and it looks and splits just like what you have. It well split easier if you give it a couple of months before trying to really split it. It dries fairly quick and you'll find it's really good heat. Super good wood to burn. David

 

[Wood Duck]

I think it is pear. THe ones I have split seemed about average in toughness, but it is hard to find a clear round to judge by. Almost the whole tree is knots and crotches when they grow out in the open like most Bradford Pears.

 

[gzecc]

Looks curley

 

[wood-fan-atic]

EVERY piece is as hard to split as the next one! They are VERY fresh,though, so l'll wait a bit b/f trying to split again. P.S.- I live in the 'burbs, and Bradford Pears have been the curb tree of choice for about 15 years, here. They grow pretty fast. :cheese: Thanks,all.

 

[krex1010]

I have about a cord of Bradford pear waiting to be split, I never split it before but agterseeing the thread I believe I will be borrowing my father in laws splitter for that session!

 

[Bubbavh]

Looks like pear on the outside. Seems to be very similar to maple on the inside. Never had any pear before... have 2 of them in the back yard, but no intention of burning them unless they break!
Nice score!

 

[chumby]

When we lived in Maryland our entire neighborhood was dotted with them. Certainly looks like a BP based on your efforts to split. I had a maul back then and found that a chainsaw does a fine job of "splitting" a round in half. Burns hot when dry. I only had to deal with the rounds once and passed on several other chances due to the PIA factor. I vividly recall have little trouble splitting a cord of silver maple and putting off what was maybe a quarter cord of BP. We would take hundreds of pounds a year off ours, usually in the form of big limbs, and you would hardly notice. The neighbors that didn't regularly remove a lot of mass risked having half a tree in their lawn (or on a car!).

 

[fallsfire36]

Very dense wood...nice stuff.

 

[Wood Duck]

I split the large wood from about 6 or 8 Bradford Pears last fall and found it to be about average difficulty to split. Maybe I got lucky. There is more than one variety of 'Bradford Pear' so maybe that makes the difference. I found some of them had very orange wood, others had lighter, yellow wood like the one in this post. I didn't notice any difference in splitability between the two. They are very common on lawns and not very sturdy in the wind and snow, so I expect to be splitting more in the future. I did all of mine by hand with a Fiskars and an 8 lb maul. 6 or 8 Bradford Pears