I learned back when i was in my teens that the best time to split elm is in January when the temps are well below zero, the stringiness is not a problem at those temps at all.
my boss has a few acres of timber on a hillside. dutch elm went thru in the 1960s and 70s. so he has plenty of dead standing. He likes to use red elm for his wood stove. He says it is like burning coal formed into firewood sticks
I split wood for 20yrs for my dad. Some with a maul and some with a splitter and elm is some if the hardest crap to split. It's stringy and twists. Don't miss splitting elm at all.
thank you so much for this video. We have been trying to split up an Elm tree and thought that it was splitting poorly because it was green. lol Now I know it just is bad wood to split.
Hi again; We're in southwest Nova Scotia and we don't see much elm here. We burn some soft wood and I think our white spruce gives my splitter the worst work out followed by rock maple and yellow birch. White birch and what we call "swamp maple" split quite easily as does most beech, but the gnarled beech and rock maple I will often break down with a chainsaw first.
I'm in the PNW USA and the most common super hard wood to split is Big Leaf maple. I have some rounds that are totally unsplittable by hand, have a Yardmax 35 ton splitter coming in a few days to deal with them
Biggest Honey Locust I ever saw. Here in Texas, Honey Locust is just a brushy scrub with lots of big thorns. Luckily disease killed most of the Elms here. I used to split Elm with a maul and wedges when I was young. Tough job.
Many years ago when I was in my 20's, I used to work for a tree service company outside of Detroit, MI. I never went out with the crews, just worked in the yard splitting firewood. We had a splitter similar to the one you're using. There was nothing I hated more than hitting a big pile of elm. The splitter chugged all the way through and even when there was just a few strands holding it together, it was still a pain to get it to come apart. I despise Elm...
Add "hackberry "to that list of hard to split. A small-diameter tree is hard to split. Does cure out very quickly & you can split 12-18" pieces and burn it in 40-60 days with ease. Produce very little ash in the fireplace.
I can attest to the way elm splits....its hard and miserable, but when it is completely dry it is one of the hottest burning woods around. Definately on the upper part of the heat range for wood burning.
That Elm reminds me of a big pork roast when you pull it out of the slow cooker and turn it into pulled pork! Great video Joe, I never knew that you could burn Elm green.That poor old Ford at the end, sitting off to the side. Alone and forgotten, traded in for a newer younger model LOL
Excellent video. Maybe, put the other half of the large chunk on some sort of table when you first break the rounds in half. Then you don't have to pick them heavier pieces back up off the ground each time.
Honey Locust is not as hard as Black Locust, Honey Locust or the variety that grows around here gets those long (6 to 8 inches long and has several offshoot thorns from each one) on the main trunk of the tree that completely covers the entire trunk area all the way up to the first limbs, and not as thick on the rest of the tree and they are sharp and strong enough to penetrate the rear tires of a farm tractor. Black Locust, has thorns on the limbs only and are about1/4 to 3/4 inch long, that is the hardest wood of the two, it has an Orange/yellowish colored inner portion and when seasoned, I have seen sparks to fly when cutting with a chainsaw. Elm takes many years for it to season after cutting it when the sap is up, it will almost rot before it seasons enough to burn in a stove, This winter try burning a few of the pieces that still had the bark that was still tight on the log before you split it, you'll find that once put in the stove it will still have sap running out both ends of the log and makes a hissing sound as if pouring water on a fire. I avoid cutting Elm when ever I cut, for that very reason, plus when it does dry out it will burn up faster than seasoned Pine. The Honey Locust you have there is most likely the Ornamental type that is planted along city streets and some people plants them in their yards as they are thornless.
The bright red in that box alder will turn bright green. Stinky wood and doesn’t burn good. Not every elm is quite that bad but whene they get like that one, it’s frustrating I keep a hatchet at the splitter so I don’t need to fight the split pieces for the fibers
Thanks. Great video short, to the point, and showed me what I needed to know. Most videos show splitting oak. I was very curious how a log splitter would handle a harder to split type of wood. I burn what I find in my woods ( dry, down, and with minimal rot) and a lot of it is elm or some other difficult to split woods. As I am not supposed to swing a maul anymore, I have been looking at log splitters. You helped convince me that this is the way to go.
I notice that your cylinder extends very smoothly. I have a woodsplitter, with the same configuration as yours, that will split virtually anything that I throw at it, BUT, at the end of its stroke, it surges forward and throws the pieces about 2 feet from the wedge. Why does it do that? It's a 2 stage pump and works well, but with large wood, it always does the 'surge thing'. Small wood that doesn't offer as much resistance - not so much.
One question or idea, or advice. the side opposite you work off of on the splitter, would it be feasible to fabricate some sort of platform or decent size table on the far side of your splitter so when you get to those really big pieces and split it in half it will stay on the table yu made to eliminate running around and repicking up that half of log? Other than that. love your videos, and the family, keep them coming and may God Bless you all in MN :)
I split most of my firewood with a maul.I remember hitting some elm.Never will i split that crap again.I stuck to red oak mostly because we had so many trees with oak wilt.
Elm is tough and stringy but it throws out the heat, it don't last like oak or locust though. You all have any hickory up your way? I am in southern Indiana. I need to start getting my wood in. Have a good day Joe.
Got an acre of black locust several die yearly and sit for a year or two. Try splitting that w/an axe. You can't w/o doing 3 times the work you should have to.
Shame to see such a pretty hardwood like honey locust cut up for firewood. I make medieval beersteins and heavy walking sticks out of it, things of lasting beauty
all wood puts out the same amount of heat 1 ton of cotton wood puts out the same amount of heat as 1 ton of oak but obviously a ton of cotton wood will be a much larger volume of wood then a ton of oak . this is based on seasoned would not green or wet wood
I have not but I want to mill and dry some and see what happens in the future. The colored center is very "non connected" if thats the right term to the outer white part so I am not sure how it would dry as a board. For sure something that needs to be tried. Thank you. Joe.
Green elm is for sure a tough wood to split, as is green cottonwood! Stringy as all get out! I try to kill them a couple years in advance, Otherwise they are stacked on their side for a year or two depending on size. I've been told (green) they split much easier frozen, just never had a reason to find out? I just try to keep plenty of seasoned firewood in front of me.
I have split a lot of firewood and all of it by hand. Elm is something I have never come across and after seeing this video, I don't want to. It is clearly a worst nightmare scenario.
About a third to a half of what I already have split. I split again today for about 5 hours and another load of wood was delivered tonight. I have much to do. Thank you. Joe.
I have a lot of nasty crap wood from an old silver maple that looks like the stuff at 5:45 and was wondering if a rental log splitter could do the job.
I try to split all my wood with axes and mauls, as I enjoy the workout, and how cathartic it can be, but I just got about 3 cords of elm for free and I think it's time to rent a splitter. Even the 5 inch elm pieces with no knots are extremely difficult, and I could spend all day trying to split a crotch piece and it won't budge, it's like trying to split a rubber boulder! And considering half of my pile has crotch pieces and tons of knots, a splitter is the ONLY way to get through this without running myself into the ground!!
Two things one get or make a table for your splitter you will not be picking up big chunks as often two I always handle the rounds by the sides I never put my hands on the ends... Now I see that you're not daydreaming while splitting but that wedge could take off a finger before you could say ow.stay safe
I learned back when i was in my teens that the best time to split elm is in January when the temps are well below zero, the stringiness is not a problem at those temps at all.
my boss has a few acres of timber on a hillside. dutch elm went thru in the 1960s and 70s. so he has plenty of dead standing. He likes to use red elm for his wood stove. He says it is like burning coal formed into firewood sticks
I split wood for 20yrs for my dad. Some with a maul and some with a splitter and elm is some if the hardest crap to split. It's stringy and twists. Don't miss splitting elm at all.
thank you so much for this video. We have been trying to split up an Elm tree and thought that it was splitting poorly because it was green. lol Now I know it just is bad wood to split.
That new motor looks like it is doing great Joe!
Hi again; We're in southwest Nova Scotia and we don't see much elm here. We burn some soft wood and I think our white spruce gives my splitter the worst work out followed by rock maple and yellow birch. White birch and what we call "swamp maple" split quite easily as does most beech, but the gnarled beech and rock maple I will often break down with a chainsaw first.
I'm in the PNW USA and the most common super hard wood to split is Big Leaf maple. I have some rounds that are totally unsplittable by hand, have a Yardmax 35 ton splitter coming in a few days to deal with them
Biggest Honey Locust I ever saw. Here in Texas, Honey Locust is just a brushy scrub with lots of big thorns. Luckily disease killed most of the Elms here. I used to split Elm with a maul and wedges when I was young. Tough job.
Many years ago when I was in my 20's, I used to work for a tree service company outside of Detroit, MI. I never went out with the crews, just worked in the yard splitting firewood. We had a splitter similar to the one you're using. There was nothing I hated more than hitting a big pile of elm. The splitter chugged all the way through and even when there was just a few strands holding it together, it was still a pain to get it to come apart. I despise Elm...
I can TOTALLY feel the pain in your statement. hahaha. OMG it sucks. Thank you. Joe
Add "hackberry "to that list of hard to split. A small-diameter tree is hard to split. Does cure out very quickly & you can split 12-18" pieces and burn it in 40-60 days with ease. Produce very little ash in the fireplace.
I can attest to the way elm splits....its hard and miserable, but when it is completely dry it is one of the hottest burning woods around. Definately on the upper part of the heat range for wood burning.
I hate to break it to you , but elm has the lowest BTU rating ........it has been called the only wood that burns without making any heat
Red Elm 21.6 million btus per cord. American and white elm 19.5 million btus per cord. Hardly at the low end of btus.
Its definitely not the lowest, poplar is probably the worst, but if you can get it for free or really cheap why not?
Joe you go a 100 miles and hour LOL...Always something going on...That's great!..
That elm is hard!
That Elm reminds me of a big pork roast when you pull it out of the slow cooker and turn it into pulled pork! Great video Joe, I never knew that you could burn Elm green.That poor old Ford at the end, sitting off to the side. Alone and forgotten, traded in for a newer younger model LOL
Wow! That last piece of elm you did, what a mess!
beautiful colors ....
Excellent video.
Maybe, put the other half of the large chunk on some sort of table when you first break the rounds in half. Then you don't have to pick them heavier pieces back up off the ground each time.
Good thing you got a new motor on
Honey Locust is not as hard as Black Locust, Honey Locust or the variety that grows around here gets those long (6 to 8 inches long and has several offshoot thorns from each one) on the main trunk of the tree that completely covers the entire trunk area all the way up to the first limbs, and not as thick on the rest of the tree and they are sharp and strong enough to penetrate the rear tires of a farm tractor. Black Locust, has thorns on the limbs only and are about1/4 to 3/4 inch long, that is the hardest wood of the two, it has an Orange/yellowish colored inner portion and when seasoned, I have seen sparks to fly when cutting with a chainsaw. Elm takes many years for it to season after cutting it when the sap is up, it will almost rot before it seasons enough to burn in a stove, This winter try burning a few of the pieces that still had the bark that was still tight on the log before you split it, you'll find that once put in the stove it will still have sap running out both ends of the log and makes a hissing sound as if pouring water on a fire. I avoid cutting Elm when ever I cut, for that very reason, plus when it does dry out it will burn up faster than seasoned Pine. The Honey Locust you have there is most likely the Ornamental type that is planted along city streets and some people plants them in their yards as they are thornless.
The bright red in that box alder will turn bright green. Stinky wood and doesn’t burn good. Not every elm is quite that bad but whene they get like that one, it’s frustrating I keep a hatchet at the splitter so I don’t need to fight the split pieces for the fibers
I agree with the other's that your better off to split elm when its really COLD! Because elm holds water!
No apostrophe in "other's", it's not "your" but you're. Hope you"re better at splitting wood than you were in English class.
Well, at least the elm still has some tinder and kindling attached to it.
It also looks like it would make great kindling.
Thanks. Great video short, to the point, and showed me what I needed to know. Most videos show splitting oak. I was very curious how a log splitter would handle a harder to split type of wood. I burn what I find in my woods ( dry, down, and with minimal rot) and a lot of it is elm or some other difficult to split woods. As I am not supposed to swing a maul anymore, I have been looking at log splitters. You helped convince me that this is the way to go.
Thank you Ed. I am glad this video helped. Joe.
That box elder is some pretty wood.
Frozen is the best way to split elm get it down around 0 deg f and it will split pretty clean
I notice that your cylinder extends very smoothly. I have a woodsplitter, with the same configuration as yours, that will split virtually anything that I throw at it, BUT, at the end of its stroke, it surges forward and throws the pieces about 2 feet from the wedge. Why does it do that? It's a 2 stage pump and works well, but with large wood, it always does the 'surge thing'. Small wood that doesn't offer as much resistance - not so much.
Great demo. Still no cure for Elm disease unfortunately.
Gettin' to be quite a huge pile....and you still have more to go!
wow,you,got,lots,of,different,wood,there.we,mostly,got,whitemaple,rockmaple,yellowandwhiteirch.
My former FIL had a splitter he cobbled togethor just like that.
One question or idea, or advice. the side opposite you work off of on the splitter, would it be feasible to fabricate some sort of platform or decent size table on the far side of your splitter so when you get to those really big pieces and split it in half it will stay on the table yu made to eliminate running around and repicking up that half of log?
Other than that. love your videos, and the family, keep them coming and may God Bless you all in MN :)
steve trayes yes you can fabricate a table to keep it from falling but on some wood you might also want a cage
I split most of my firewood with a maul.I remember hitting some elm.Never will i split that crap again.I stuck to red oak mostly because we had so many trees with oak wilt.
Elm is tough and stringy but it throws out the heat, it don't last like oak or locust though. You all have any hickory up your way? I am in southern Indiana. I need to start getting my wood in. Have a good day Joe.
Interesting how red the core of that box elder wood is.
Got an acre of black locust several die yearly and sit for a year or two. Try splitting that w/an axe. You can't w/o doing 3 times the work you should have to.
Shame to see such a pretty hardwood like honey locust cut up for firewood. I make medieval beersteins and heavy walking sticks out of it, things of lasting beauty
Yeah elm wood does split hard and it has a bad smell to it...lol but it burns good though when it's maintained as in stay dry.
There are some straight grain elm.
all wood puts out the same amount of heat 1 ton of cotton wood puts out the same amount of heat as 1 ton of oak but obviously a ton of cotton wood will be a much larger volume of wood then a ton of oak . this is based on seasoned would not green or wet wood
Beautiful colours in that box elder. Have you ever done any joinery out of it?
I have not but I want to mill and dry some and see what happens in the future. The colored center is very "non connected" if thats the right term to the outer white part so I am not sure how it would dry as a board. For sure something that needs to be tried. Thank you. Joe.
Green elm is for sure a tough wood to split, as is green cottonwood! Stringy as all get out! I try to kill them a couple years in advance, Otherwise they are stacked on their side for a year or two depending on size. I've been told (green) they split much easier frozen, just never had a reason to find out? I just try to keep plenty of seasoned firewood in front of me.
I have split a lot of firewood and all of it by hand. Elm is something I have never come across and after seeing this video, I don't want to. It is clearly a worst nightmare scenario.
I hate to split elm but love to burn it lol
I’d like to know what size splitter you are using?
0:58 for a real challenge, try splitting elm with a maul.
honey locust is much more feasible by hand and by splitter.
I have tried the elm. Watch out so the splitting maul doesn't bounce back and get you in the forehead.
Elm splits better when it's very cold
How much fire wood do you go through in a winter at the shop.
About a third to a half of what I already have split. I split again today for about 5 hours and another load of wood was delivered tonight. I have much to do. Thank you. Joe.
I have a lot of nasty crap wood from an old silver maple that looks like the stuff at 5:45 and was wondering if a rental log splitter could do the job.
Imagine how cool that splitting would sound with an electric motor.
iron wood is scary. Hard to cut into then bang it explodes sometimes.
south metro welding ; try spling that elm when it's super cold . my grandpa always said it splites better when it's frozen hard , try it
The blade is to sharp for the last timber , a wider wedge would be better for that wood, maybe a clip on type
I had to cut down a eucalyptus tree at my house, it was a nightmare to split just like Elm.
i would not want to build my house from elm....... oh my but good for burning
I try to split all my wood with axes and mauls, as I enjoy the workout, and how cathartic it can be, but I just got about 3 cords of elm for free and I think it's time to rent a splitter. Even the 5 inch elm pieces with no knots are extremely difficult, and I could spend all day trying to split a crotch piece and it won't budge, it's like trying to split a rubber boulder! And considering half of my pile has crotch pieces and tons of knots, a splitter is the ONLY way to get through this without running myself into the ground!!
Want a challenge? Try splitting cottonwood. It is worse than elm.
thats the way are wood is here in newfoundland hard to splitt we burn our wood wet and dry
You need a woodshed for all that wood to get it in the dry.
That is one of the projects that will be happening up at The Tent next year... A 16 foot deep by 24 foot wide wood shed. Thank you. Joe.
Joe, Could you number your video so we could then get the latest????? Just asking.
that's alot of wood
That's what she said.
I split some elm a few months ago by hand it took all I had my 8 pound maul and all my wedges never again will I touch that crap
WoW serious wood pile you selling wood?
Lots of people in cold regions use 2 to 3 times that much every winter
Black Gum is the worst I've ever split...
That stuff be terrible to split with maul and wedge!!!
got to split that elm in middle of winter let it freeze. lol.
Had my first experience with this crap today. I hate it!
most of the free fire wood on CL is elm.
Two things one get or make a table for your splitter you will not be picking up big chunks as often two I always handle the rounds by the sides I never put my hands on the ends... Now I see that you're not daydreaming while splitting but that wedge could take off a finger before you could say ow.stay safe
Elm is not to fun to hand split u never get a clean cut
True but it burns for along time
Elm is nothing to pecan. Pecan will get you if you are not careful
try iron wood!
1:45 got lucky dude.
Hey Joe want a hand there??
2nd
Elm, junk wood. Should have just shredded it into mulch.
But I didn't. You can do that on your channel.
first