Worst wood to split

[stephiedoll]

I know elm can be a pain, but it's funny how easy some of the Siberian elm split, just like maple. Just got done with an ash that was a pain in the ___. I've been able to get and split 4 + cords of elm and will take all I can get.

 

[Ashful]

Sycamore sucks. About as bad as green American elm.

Never tried dead sycamore, as I don't think I've ever seen one, but I'll concur on the standing dead elm. Always splits easy for me.

I've only split one sycamore, dead by more than a year (Irene blow down). It split fairly easy on the Huskee 22-ton.

 

[Fred Wright]

Tussled with some gnarly red maple today, healed over crotch wood like I've never seen before. Those blocks fought all the way through.

Sweetgum is the worst I've had for splitting, if it splits at all. Gum has a high resin content with twisty, interlocking grain.

I remember my BIL years ago, buried two wedges in a gum round and it still wouldn't part. He had to burn the round in the fire pit to get his wedges back. Dad was laughing at him, ticked him off even more.

 

[Ambient]

This property had too many of something I can't imagine anyone bothering with, the Box Elder aka California Maple. It is soaking wet seemingly forever, after a few years it might be dry enough to burn or still smolder. There's no real choleric value to it. It is a bear to split. It grows like a weed, even if uprooted or a broken branch will reroot and grow.

Splitting wood in the winter is a great activity, and the wood seems to split nicer, just not this cursed thing.

 

[jeff_t]

I know elm can be a pain, but it's funny how easy some of the Siberian elm split, just like maple. Just got done with an ash that was a pain in the ___. I've been able to get and split 4 + cords of elm and will take all I can get.

Siberian elm has always been pretty easy to split for me. While it is really wet, it dries fairly fast and might be ready to burn in a year, though better after two. My problem with it is the tremendous amount of light, fluffy ash it leaves. That actually makes it sort of okay for shoulder seasons, as it really insulates the coals.

I've only split one sycamore, dead by more than a year (Irene blow down). It split fairly easy on the Huskee 22-ton.

I haven't split any sycamore in a long time, but it was always a hairy mess. Good to know it can get better.

 

[Boardroom]

I will throw in my vote for elm. We always differentiate between swamp elm and fence line elm. The fence line stuff is impossible.

 

[dougstove]

Yellow Birch can have almost a corrugated grain, zig-zagging. But it is the best, hottest wood I can routinely get.

 

[firefighterjake]

Elm

 

[Babaganoosh]

Haven't had the chance to split elm yet but sweet gum isn't very sweet to split. Royal pain in the as$

 

[Jon_E]

Have not split much elm and never a gum, so I can't comment on those. The worst woods I have had to split in the past few years, have been white pine and aspen. Small, telephone-pole pines are fine and pop easily. It's when you get a gnarly old yard tree with a hundred branches that the stuff basically tears apart. The splitter wedge just cuts through the knots and branches like a knife and I'm left with stuff I can't even stack. The aspen was an anomaly. 24" diameter tree that looked like someone had taken hold of the top of the tree and twisted it a full rotation. It really had almost 360 degrees of twist from the bottom to the top. Every single piece fought my Timberwolf splitter right to the point I had to hack them apart with a hatchet or recut them with a chainsaw.

And neither tree was worth the time and effort to fight it.

 

[Jags]

American Elm. Sometimes the word "split" is not properly applied...

 

[David.Ervin]

Elm with any sort of knot or twist to it. If it weren't for hydraulics, I wouldn't even bother. With the x27, it'll split open just enough to swallow the head of the axe and not give it back.

 

[melloyello]

Sweet Gum and Dogwood. Gum is just stringy and I don't even attempt without the splitter. Dogwood appears to grow in a spiral and I won't attempt it with an axe either.

 

[Pennsyltucky Chris]

Elm. Hands down. Although I've had some problems with gnarly walnut, Elm always causes major problems.

 

[Longstreet]

The correct answer cannot be sweet gum because you don't split it. You tear it into burnable sizes.

 

[johneh]

Elm the one and only reason I bought a splitter

 

[Rebelduckman]

That's not always true.

I concur

 

[sen166]

Elm is the most labor intensive wood I've ever split. Just found this out recently after getting some from fence rows/edges of the wood lot; really stringy, twisted up stuff. Can't knock it when it's free though!

 

[Mag Craft]

Elm and spruce. Spruce always has a thousand branches on the trunk. I usually will noodle spruce but will try and split elm.

 

[HItz]

Yard grown Norway Maples. I get these all the time and the grain is wavy all the way through the rounds, especially the big rounds at the bottom of the tree. You can split little pieces off with a Fiskars, but forget opening up a big round without power tools.

 

[leonardo]

sourgum is the worst i have come up against.

 

[Oakwood5]

Picked up some sweet gum about a month ago. Had to run an 8" piece threw the splitter 6-7 times just the split/rip it in half. This was a test piece to see what I was dealing with. By far the biggest pain in the a$$ wood I've ever come across.

 

[Ashful]

Was splitting more white oak yesterday, and decided that has to be high on this list. It's the heaviest wood I've ever handled, exacerbated by the fact that they're usually pretty big rounds. Not a single round popped open without some hatchet work after the splitter had run full course, so not as stringy as elm, but a major, very heavy, PITA.

It does pay back for its trouble in BTUs and burn times, but that's a few years out.

 

[chazcarr]

Yeah, sometimes I have to bring out the really big splitter.

 

[lindnova]

Elm - fresh is very tough - the toughest wood I run into. I agree a year after the bark falls off elm is nearly standing dry and will split fairly easy with a hydraulic splitter.

I cut a lot of box elder and it cuts ok, dries fast, and splits ok. Not sure why so many people have trouble with it. No more difficult than silver maple. Only problem I have had is letting it sit in rounds too long - it will mold under the bark and smell. I cut field edge trees and use the better stuff for firewood. The crotches are hard to split, but that is true with any tree. Hollow spots dull chains, but that is true with any tree.

Boxelder is a nuisance and grows like a weed. I hate it and wouldn't burn it if I wasn't cutting down anyway. It does burn ok, just fast.