Log stacking, when to split.

[Ilnumero]

Always cut and split green; I do mine as soon as they are brought home.

 

I try to get them all done by the end of March so they have the warm summer winds to dry them. They are stacken in a south-facing open shed with cambridge walling to give plenty of airflow. The strong sun in the summer also helps to cook them dry, ready for the winter.

 

The shed is split into two halves so that anything that goes in after March will not be used until the next year, so one half is being filled and one half being used up.

[spandit]

Depends on the quantity you bring home

 

 

These will take a while to split, especially as another load was dumped on top & the next loads went elsewhere. You can see the unprocessed stuff already stacked on the right!

 

Can one have too many logs?

[drinksloe]

Does no one find beech very hard to split green/wet?

 

The limbs are fine just the butts got a lot of discs cut about 18"-2ft thick and 2-4ft daimaeter are a real pain when green, my splitting axe just bounces off them hardly arking them, yet 4-8 months later just after being left out to weather split a lot easier. Sometimes u can see the grain drying out and spliing

 

Just treated myself to a Fiskars X27, only had a wee play with it a logs were frozen together so just splitting them as they lay but definately seems a good tool

[peatff]

I have a cheap hydraulic splitter and I got some oak which split quite reasonably when it was fresh. A few pieces got put aside and only a month later the little splitter wouldn't look at it and the maul and wedges were hard going.

[drinksloe]

I think most trees are gnerally easy to split when fresh or when totally dry but become ackward and tough inbetween times.

 

But beech seems to be the oppisate (or atleast thats wot i've found) and hard when fresh, seems to hit a sweet spot a few months in but not all at same time.

I tend to give it a swing and leave it if not marking it but sometimes the next disc will split easily and all off same tree, go back a month later and hard 1 splits easily too??

I've found it quite strange but not split the volume i'm splitting now before

[Aunt Maud]

I found green Beech really easy to split if I flake slabs off around the edges and work my way around the ring, instead of trying to split them down the middle.

 

I've got a Hultafors Sly which weighs about 2.5 kg and I'm very happy with how it performs.