Comment by helterskelter
1 day ago
There's a surprising amount of technique and knowledge that goes into splitting firewood. It isn't rocket science, but I know a 75 year old who can chop wood faster than any young guy who works out at the gym.
1 day ago
There's a surprising amount of technique and knowledge that goes into splitting firewood. It isn't rocket science, but I know a 75 year old who can chop wood faster than any young guy who works out at the gym.
I had to take down two absolutely enormous Douglas Fir trees on my property (> 36" base), and asked them to leave the wood rounds for me. I knew it was going to be a lot of wood, but even then, I was not prepared. I spent about a fair bit of my free time over the next 1-2 months just out there slowly working my way through the pile, and you're absolutely right - you get substantially better at it. For me, it looked something like this:
Stage 1: At first, I could chop essentially nothing, probably 60+ minutes per round as I mostly puzzled about how to make progress and got lucky from time to time with a round that split easily (fortunately, I had a nice splitting axe)
Stage 2: Then I bought some splitting wedges, and I used a handheld sledgehammer to drive them in to what I thought were the weak spots, and then ultimately pried open the log, to pieces that I could split more readily.
Stage 3: I bought a massive demolition sledge hammer (essentially a two-handed battle hammer) and used that to drive the wedges in after getting them started, and made a bit more progress on actually splitting the rounds.
Stage 4: After doing this countless times, you just a knack for reading the wood, and where it will / won't split. I reverted back to using just the splitting axe, since if you hit the wood in the right spots, it really just splits on its own.
Here's where I ended up, if it helps any of you:
- Start by establishing the fracture line that will be used to split the round in half. I would eyeball any existing line on the round towards the center, and use the axe head to mark a line, away from any knots , from the center to the edge. These two center-to-edge didn't necessarily need to be inline. They could be slightly offset, like hands on a clock.
- With moderate force, just repeatedly strike that line, working from the center outwards. You'd be shocked out how quickly repeated strikes widen the line, and eventually the wood's own weight almost causes it to fall apart.
- Recursively do this with the two halves: Draw the line from (what was the center), radially out to the edge. Repeatedly strike until these pieces have been halved.
- Continue this process until you have proper pizza wedges. At this point, it's pretty trivial to just chop the pizza wedge, from the wedge to the base, into 4 or 5 smaller firewood-sized logs.
I know y'all probably didn't care to read this, but this was quite honestly weeks of my life in learning this, and I couldn't find a great guide on YouTube or anything, especially for rounds this big.
I don't burn softwood because hardwood is a much better fuel as a primary heat source, especially when you live in a mixed forest. Sugar maple, red oak, birch, and beech. Beech is the best: straight grain, good density, but less common where I live.
The trick to splitting hardwood, other than avoiding burls and knots, is to shave off chords around the outside of the buck. If you tried radial cuts or splitting on the diameter, well, best of luck with getting a season's wood split in one year. Chords around the circumference for about 50% of the buck, thenif you're lucky the core will split on the diameter.
Also, use a maul with fat cheeks and no edge rather than an axe. It's the right tool for the job.
Advice I would add: use a tire when splitting firewood to hold the logs together. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMv6-SYzv-Q
Wood no longer goes flying. Much easier to chop quickly.
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Between yours and the parent comment, I'm just surprised how LONG splitting wood takes. A year for a season's wood feels much longer than I would have imagined.
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I cared to read this :) Thanks for the effort invested.
You can also score the ends of the rounds with your saw about an inch deep, laid out radially like you're cutting a pizza, then work your wedges in.
Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC872sqjMNC8kHU0GU0ShZFw while cautioning that she seems to be genetically engineered to split wood. Her technique is like watching an Olympic athlete. No wasted motion at all, all energy delivered to the maul straight down. She’s a muse.
She's got a video where she explains in detail how to chop. She goes through everything from stance - including protecting the shins - to axe technique. Absolutely terrific - I feel a strained shoulder just watching the videos.
https://youtu.be/CQmom_0R1Wk
Wow! Great link. I’m better than average but… yeah, I’d upgrade her to goddess. She’ll just carve a new axe handle when she feels like it. Truly humbling.
My grandfather was like this, and not with soft wood. We try to burn Australian hardwoods and that takes quite a bit of force to split. He could pound through it like a knife through butter. There’s a definite art to hardwood, looking where the slightest fault might be. You can’t just smash it in the middle, your block splitter (preferred) or axe just bounces off it.
Try to burn hardwoods? What does that mean?
As a fellow australian but now former wood chopper: "Try" should be "prefer".
IE when you get a load of firewood for the winter, you want it to be hardwood. The person you buy the wood from may mix in softwood depending on their trustworthiness...
Why prefer hardwood? Hardwood density means it will burn for ages. So you have to mess with the fire less and it'll still have at least hot coals in the morning if you put a log on before bed.
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It’s wood. You put it in your fireplace and set fire to it for heat
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It's a combination of technique and the type of wood. Even with perfect technique, some wood is simply too hard to split. I've got the bottom 5 or 6 rounds of a bigleaf maple sitting in my yard that I simply can't make a dent in. You're welcome to take it if you can split it :)
Are you trying to split it with an axe? You need a sledgehammer and a few splitting wedges. The sledge lets you apply a lot more force than an axe and striking the wedge focuses that force onto a small area. The first wedge will open a crack, then you use additional wedges to expand that crack until she splits.
Source: grew up in a wood burning family, helped split many stubborn hardwood trees (all by hand).
The dude in the comments above suggested a maul, which seems nice (kinda like an axe and a sledge built into one tool)
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If it came from the base of the tree the wood grain will probably be squirrelly and practically unsplittable. Get a chainsaw or hydraulic woodsplitter, or throw them in a bonfire. Alternatively, use them in a woodworking project or innoculate them with your favorite mushroom spores.
I got some burly maple ends that even my 22-ton hydraulic splitter can't handle. Toss 'em into the woods, let nature take care of 'em.
These are also good for those "Swedish logs" where you drill a hole in the top and the side, and then cut grooves with a hand saw in the top and make a fire right on top.
Well they're about 4ft diameter and not really even possible to move. My electric chainsaw would just burn up trying to cut them, and the cost of a hydraulic woodsplitter wouldn't be cost-effective.
Current plan is just to leave them there until either they start drying/rotting enough to split, or I find someone who wants to take them off my hands.
If it didn't require flights, I'd bring my maul and wedges and take on your challenge.
Big rounds are the most fun.
It takes understanding rotation and momentum to do right. Also different to bet chops in different ways.
In former times you had to serve a twelve year apprenticeship before you could be trusted to split wood for barrels, you can do a PhD in rocket science in less time.