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which_chick) wrote2009-03-15 08:55 pm
which_chick) wrote2009-03-15 08:55 pm
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So I went out to NYR's house to make big logs into littler logs and to show NYR's husband the finer points of same. They'd just had two massive silver maples cut down in their yard due to ant issues and thus were well-provided with raw materials for learning to split wood.
I'd never done a silver maple before. I've done regular (sugar and red) maple trees but we don't have silver maples in the woods and so I'd never split one of them before going out to NYR's house. I did look on the internet, though, which here said that silver maple was "easy" to split. While I do understand that internet information is always looked at through the lens of consider the source, I had done rather a lot (ten years heating my home plus probably seven more years helping heat my dad's home, growing up) of splitting with some of the other easy-rated woods on the list: Black Locust, Black Cherry, Eastern White Oak, Ash, Red Maple, Black Walnut, Red/Scarlet/Black/Pin oaks (all classed as "red oak" for my purposes). I felt that I therefore had a good handle on what "easy" should split like based on my experience with the other easy-rated woods on the list. I figured we could handle that sort of "easy" wood.
Also, I know that wood splits easier when it's green (freshly cut down). These trees fell to ground this week and they were alive before being cut. That's still "green" in my book. I scheduled this weekend on purpose so that we would be working on green, fresh wood that should split well.
Further, I specifically asked NYR's household to get the wood cut to shorter lengths (because shorter wood is significantly easier to split) of 16" instead of the 24" they were thinking about. This was to make the wood more splittable, so that, y'know, it would split.
In short, I did everything in my power to see to it that the wood would be splittable in a reasonable and happy sort of way. I set us up for success... except somewhere along the line I apparently uttered the words How hard can it be, anyway? thereby dooming us to failure in spite of all my other preparations. I am an idiot.
There were two massive silver maples cut down. Massive. When I use the word massive, please understand that the base trunk diameter is in excess of three feet. These trees were fucking huge. Both of them had cores with reasonably straight grain, maybe 8" total across (the cores were slightly more pink than the outer wood) and then the wood had an outer ring of white, rippled grain like nothing I had ever seen before. The outer ring of rippled grain depended on the size of the piece... and the pieces, they were large. Large, I say. Diameters of the smallest logs exceeded a foot. Apparently the tree people ground up all the logs that were less than 12" diameter. Hunh. They must have had one hell of a chipper/shredder. Well, it is the city. Maybe they figured people didn't like messing with the smaller pieces.
So we went to splitting. The wood... okay, maul and wedge to split to halves. (This on a 12" diameter piece, which TOTALLY SHOULD NOT BE NECESSARY. I am a good wood splitter. Seriously. I'm good at it, girl arms and all. I can handle 12" diameter, branchless 16" rounds without a fucking wedge. I can. Usually.) Maul and wedge again to split to quarters. (Buh? This should fucking fly apart. It didn't. Trust me, I tried. I really did.) Again. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I knew we were fucked after the first three pieces. We went and tried the other tree to see if it was any better. It was not. There was wavy, unsplittable grain all over the place. Argh.
Fail, fail, fail. Massive fail. It is very non-rewarding to learn to split wood where every single radial (like from the center to the bark, a radius) cut requires a freaking wedge and maul operation. This was not a one or two strokes with the wedge-n-maul wedge and maul operation, either. It was driving the fucking wedge down until it was almost buried in the wood before the wood even started to creak/groan like it might split, every time. Then, the splitter had to lay the piece down and whack at it to drive the two pieces apart and retrieve the wedge. OMFG it was unreal. I have not had such a lack-o-fun time splitting wood since we took down the thrice-damned willow from the back of 200. This wood split about as badly as that willow.
I felt terrible. I'd told them, see, that hand-splitting wood was kind of fun and really not that hard, that it was work, but satisfying work, not without reward, and seriously not as hard as most people think it is. Well. So much for that.
NYR's spouse, who is a good sport of the first water, made a solid and non-complaining effort of repeated good tries and steadily improved his nascent wood-splitting skillset during the three or four hours that we spent failing in our efforts at conquering the vast mountain of unsplittable, surpassingly-heavy silver maple logs. He gave the sort of effort that made me wish I'd had better wood for him to learn on -- he listened and followed instructions very well and really deserved better wood. However, the wood is what it is. *sigh* We did, eventually, figure out that the centers could be cut out of the wedges -- the wood split far better circumfrentially than radially (this is not normally the case), and that discovery lent a brief ray of light into a day that was otherwise composed entirely of hard, unrewarding effort directed at exceedingly recalcitrant wood. At the point of that discovery (very late in the day, when we were getting quite tired), we would split the wood into halves (wedge-n-maul) and into quarters (w-n-m) and into eighths (w-n-m efforts exponentially increasing by that damned power of two), whereupon we could finally maul split each eighth (the logs were freaking huge, I tell you true) into three pieces circumfrentially, one swing for each cut... so you'd get sixteen satisfying hits out of one massive log... after having put in way more than sixteen very unsatisfying hits. And that, that was as good as it got.
They have a neighbor with a hydraulic splitter. I advised them to see about borrowing the hydraulic splitter. Then I drove home from Chez NYR with egg all over my face. Reallly not that hard, my ass. Next time I am going to tell people that it's impossible and that they shouldn't even bother trying.
I'd never done a silver maple before. I've done regular (sugar and red) maple trees but we don't have silver maples in the woods and so I'd never split one of them before going out to NYR's house. I did look on the internet, though, which here said that silver maple was "easy" to split. While I do understand that internet information is always looked at through the lens of consider the source, I had done rather a lot (ten years heating my home plus probably seven more years helping heat my dad's home, growing up) of splitting with some of the other easy-rated woods on the list: Black Locust, Black Cherry, Eastern White Oak, Ash, Red Maple, Black Walnut, Red/Scarlet/Black/Pin oaks (all classed as "red oak" for my purposes). I felt that I therefore had a good handle on what "easy" should split like based on my experience with the other easy-rated woods on the list. I figured we could handle that sort of "easy" wood.
Also, I know that wood splits easier when it's green (freshly cut down). These trees fell to ground this week and they were alive before being cut. That's still "green" in my book. I scheduled this weekend on purpose so that we would be working on green, fresh wood that should split well.
Further, I specifically asked NYR's household to get the wood cut to shorter lengths (because shorter wood is significantly easier to split) of 16" instead of the 24" they were thinking about. This was to make the wood more splittable, so that, y'know, it would split.
In short, I did everything in my power to see to it that the wood would be splittable in a reasonable and happy sort of way. I set us up for success... except somewhere along the line I apparently uttered the words How hard can it be, anyway? thereby dooming us to failure in spite of all my other preparations. I am an idiot.
There were two massive silver maples cut down. Massive. When I use the word massive, please understand that the base trunk diameter is in excess of three feet. These trees were fucking huge. Both of them had cores with reasonably straight grain, maybe 8" total across (the cores were slightly more pink than the outer wood) and then the wood had an outer ring of white, rippled grain like nothing I had ever seen before. The outer ring of rippled grain depended on the size of the piece... and the pieces, they were large. Large, I say. Diameters of the smallest logs exceeded a foot. Apparently the tree people ground up all the logs that were less than 12" diameter. Hunh. They must have had one hell of a chipper/shredder. Well, it is the city. Maybe they figured people didn't like messing with the smaller pieces.
So we went to splitting. The wood... okay, maul and wedge to split to halves. (This on a 12" diameter piece, which TOTALLY SHOULD NOT BE NECESSARY. I am a good wood splitter. Seriously. I'm good at it, girl arms and all. I can handle 12" diameter, branchless 16" rounds without a fucking wedge. I can. Usually.) Maul and wedge again to split to quarters. (Buh? This should fucking fly apart. It didn't. Trust me, I tried. I really did.) Again. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I knew we were fucked after the first three pieces. We went and tried the other tree to see if it was any better. It was not. There was wavy, unsplittable grain all over the place. Argh.
Fail, fail, fail. Massive fail. It is very non-rewarding to learn to split wood where every single radial (like from the center to the bark, a radius) cut requires a freaking wedge and maul operation. This was not a one or two strokes with the wedge-n-maul wedge and maul operation, either. It was driving the fucking wedge down until it was almost buried in the wood before the wood even started to creak/groan like it might split, every time. Then, the splitter had to lay the piece down and whack at it to drive the two pieces apart and retrieve the wedge. OMFG it was unreal. I have not had such a lack-o-fun time splitting wood since we took down the thrice-damned willow from the back of 200. This wood split about as badly as that willow.
I felt terrible. I'd told them, see, that hand-splitting wood was kind of fun and really not that hard, that it was work, but satisfying work, not without reward, and seriously not as hard as most people think it is. Well. So much for that.
NYR's spouse, who is a good sport of the first water, made a solid and non-complaining effort of repeated good tries and steadily improved his nascent wood-splitting skillset during the three or four hours that we spent failing in our efforts at conquering the vast mountain of unsplittable, surpassingly-heavy silver maple logs. He gave the sort of effort that made me wish I'd had better wood for him to learn on -- he listened and followed instructions very well and really deserved better wood. However, the wood is what it is. *sigh* We did, eventually, figure out that the centers could be cut out of the wedges -- the wood split far better circumfrentially than radially (this is not normally the case), and that discovery lent a brief ray of light into a day that was otherwise composed entirely of hard, unrewarding effort directed at exceedingly recalcitrant wood. At the point of that discovery (very late in the day, when we were getting quite tired), we would split the wood into halves (wedge-n-maul) and into quarters (w-n-m) and into eighths (w-n-m efforts exponentially increasing by that damned power of two), whereupon we could finally maul split each eighth (the logs were freaking huge, I tell you true) into three pieces circumfrentially, one swing for each cut... so you'd get sixteen satisfying hits out of one massive log... after having put in way more than sixteen very unsatisfying hits. And that, that was as good as it got.
They have a neighbor with a hydraulic splitter. I advised them to see about borrowing the hydraulic splitter. Then I drove home from Chez NYR with egg all over my face. Reallly not that hard, my ass. Next time I am going to tell people that it's impossible and that they shouldn't even bother trying.
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When I split wood at my house, it goes rather like the "splitting out the centers of the wedges" thing that we finally figured out at the end of the day. That's what it looks like all the time at my house. Swing, thwack, two pieces. Swing, thwack, two pieces. Swing, thwack, two pieces. It's work, but it's good, productive work.
When you are hand-splitting suitable hardwood of moderate size, a swings-to-pieces ratio that approaches 1:1 is not an unrealistic goal. If you omit "busting the round into halves" part of the job from your calculations, you should TOTALLY be able to have a 1:1 ratio or better for swings-to-pieces over the course of an hour's splitting. A swings-to-pieces of 2:1 is not so good but you can make headway with that and work on your aiming skillz. Swings-to-pieces of 3:1 is beginner-level splitting (on good wood). At your house, we were doing something worse than 8:1 for every damn piece, a ratio which was, honestly, horrific.
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I'm just wondering how the wood burns...
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I don't know how silver maple burns but it'll be at least until fall until it's ready to burn.
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