Wood score! (Tickled pink)

[Shari]

Shari, you made a great deal! By the pictures it looks like all soft maple. What you will recall about soft maple is that it dries fairly fast so it should be ready to burn by fall. It splits easy, so (I know, you aren't too handy there) you can do it with an axe.

When you burn this wood, you will find it burns hot and a little faster than other hardwoods such as oak, ash, etc. This also gives you another benefit. Because it splits easy, it is also great for making kindling. Because it burns hot and fast, that is why it is good for kindling.

I'd suggest you get a couple more loads!

Congratulations.

I just reinstalled the rebuilt cylinder on our old Didier log splitter and now will be replacing the spider so I should be set as far as splitting it. The only problem I have right now is we just went through a winter thaw here and the ground is so soft that if I split it right now I would make a real mess of our yard hauling it to the back to stack it. We have a winter storm coming tonight/tomorrow so maybe the ground will freeze up enough to split & stack in the same day.

Shari

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I agree Shari. It sounds as though it might get a little more messy these next few days. Around here some of the frost is out and I certainly would not want to go driving across the lawn! lol btw, with the snowfall, the ground won't freeze. The snow will act as an insulator. But who knows? Maybe it will melt very soon and then turn cold enough to freeze up again. Actually, the frost went out here but yesterday I found plenty of frost in spots. Also at one county garage they have found that the frost is 42" down. That means some mighty muddy roads for quite some time this Spring plus lots of potholes.

That log splitter should do you a very nice job. Just one little warning on using it. If you do like I do, that is, make some kindling with the splitter, you must be careful. The reason is sometimes you will make a split and the wood will suddenly snap and some might go flying. Yes, I've been hit in the shins a few times. Stings but that's all. But I wouldn't want someone else standing around when I do it.

What I do is pick a very straight piece with no knots. I'll take a slab off of each side so all the bark is off. Then I'll make a split every inch, so that when done I have a bunch of 1" by whatever sizes. Then I'll usually put 2 or 3 of those on the block and hold with my left hand while using the right on the handle. You usually don't have to do much other than touch the wood and it will split right apart. You can make a pastel of kindling in a very short time that way. Works like a charm.

 

[Shari]

After I got the cylinder back on I did a test cut just to make sure it was working. Here's a pic of our splitter before I made the last connection and a photo of the trial split. The round is about 18" dia. x about 20" long. Thanks for the tip on making kindling (I'm am NOT good with a axe or hatchet!). This is silver maple so it should make great kindling.

Shari

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Looks like that splits just as easy as red maple. Should be very nice. Glad you got the splitter going again too.

I see you have some of that fresh white stuff too. Hope the storm missed you though. What you see in your picture is all we got overnight, so their big buildup on the big storm was more of hollering Wolf! But, they say more is coming. We'll see.