On Jul 9, 7:47*am, arkland wrote:
On Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:44:07 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:
Did you consider that maybe that tree had value as timber / lumber
rather than fire wood?

Not until now. I have other trees that need felling. How does one find
someone willing to buy a standing tree?

Forget those silly cone wedges, they don't work.

Thanks. The "advertisement" makes it look all so easy. But, that point is
very blunt. It barely dents the center of the 20-inch long oak log!

cut them down to 10" and get busy splitting.

That's half the current size! I didn't know 10 inches was the right size
for splitting. I'm sure the length makes a huge difference!

the smaller the piece of wood you add to a fire,
the closer you come to wood pellet behavior.

I'm not sure what 'pellet behavior' is, but, for a campfire, you kind of
just want it to burn for a while as you sit around it drinking a beer.

Dumping a huge log (20" long, 1/4 split?) on a fire will nearly kill it..

Hmmmmm... Not the campfires we make!

at least split ALL of the logs in half.

Makes sense. But that first split is also the hardest one!

If you wait until the wood dries you will be amazingly unhappy. As
others have said, green wood splits WAY easier than dry wood.

I'm surprised. Mainly because dried oak is cracked while wet oak is
seamless. But, it must be (for some reason) that wet wood is easier to
split than dried wood as someone would have said otherwise by now.

I could get a unit of 2x4's down into the 12% moisture content
range (from 30%+) in a couple weeks.

I wonder how we measure moisture content in percent at home?

Split dry or wet? It depends on species. I have never worked oak but
for B. Locust cut it green but split it dry. It splits with wedge/
sledge (10 lb) green fairly well but willa lmost fall apart with a
maul when dry.

Way back I read that wood, split and given enouth time will dry down
to the average humidity in the environment. I don't know if htat is
accurate but if you can dry firewood to 20% it is fine.

Me? I burn 6+ cords/yr and have since 1976. Knock two chunks of wood
together and if it goes "clunk" it ain't dry. It shoiuld 'ring'.

Harry K