Morris Dovey wrote:
Tanus wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:

.... and easier still if you do it with a powered hydraulic splitter.

And easiest yet if you have a neighbour with a splitter and way too
much time on his hands. Sadly, I have neither.

I'd split about 30 cords (about half elm) before I bought a splitter. If
you have any quantity to split, it might be worth locating one to rent
- they do save a /lot/ of work.

Heh. I had a couple of neighbors (not exactly with time on their hands,
they /made/ time to come over) help me cut up about a dozen trees that'd
been knocked flat in a storm. One of 'em brought a home-built frame that
had a 30" circular blade (with no guard, of course) that was pulley
driven from his WD45 PTO.

I think I was in my late 30's and both of these guys were in their early
70's. I'd already limbed the down trees, and one of these gents would
drag a branch over to the saw, and the two of us at the saw would swing
the branch into the blade - brannnnggg! I'd toss the cutoff up onto the
growing pile and reach to catch the cut end of the branch coming at me
to do it again. By suppertime the pile looked like a small mountain and
I was sure I'd set a new record for fatigue - but the old guys were
still looking pretty spry when they headed for home.

I've always thought it was a minor miracle that I still had both hands
at the end of the day.


Reminds me of my daily count when I come out of the shop. If I can count
to 21, it's been a good day. One day I counted 20. Not a good day.

Tanus