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MtnDon
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# Posted: 29 Jun 2025 09:21am
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Seasoned dry splits nicely.
Frozen wet also splits good.
Some wood is difficult because of many knots or interlocked grain. I often toss a difficult knotty piece of ponderosa on the burn-n-dispose junk pile rather than fight it with the maul. No shortage of trees here.
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Malamute
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# Posted: 29 Jun 2025 10:37am - Edited by: Malamute
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Quoting: MtnDon Seasoned dry splits nicely. Frozen wet also splits good. Some wood is difficult because of many knots or interlocked grain. I often toss a difficult knotty piece of ponderosa on the burn-n-dispose junk pile rather than fight it with the maul. No shortage of trees here.
We had some pitch pinyon that was extremely pitchy and nearly impossible to split and too large to fit in the stove door at a buddies place. I ended up cutting an X into the top and leaving it out in the sun a year or more, it then split better instead of spitting the wedge back up into the air.
At my place I kept some full rounds for zero and below nights, one split if needed to fit in the stove, but since I started making fires wrong (upside down) I use much less wood, I still have a fair pile of full rounds left from building a place to sell and my own little place about 20 years ago, mainly door and window cut-outs.
The majority on my firewood has been construction waste/leftover pieces or mill slabs, the first cuts to square logs up into lumber. The mill let me get loads of it since I bought all my rough cut from him. Before injuring my back I could load the 16' flatbed with about 1 1/2 cords in an hr and a half, and cut it to stove size pieces either right off the trailer, or with a helper to throw it on the sawbuck. I only have to split small amounts as kindling, its effectively already split. I pick the thicker slabs when loading.
Making fires wrong greatly changed my wood usage and requirements, much less need for full rounds/logs/felling trees etc.
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paulz
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# Posted: 29 Jun 2025 01:07pm
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Thanks guys. Also I sharpened the maul, it was about like a butter knife edge, into a sharp edge. Didn’t help much, still tough split on oak chunks. Thinking about the same on the splitter edge. On oak often when it finally lets go there is a load bang, and the two pieces fly off.
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paulz
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# Posted: 3 Jul 2025 04:25pm
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My recycle yard pal gave me 3 new bottles of ‘Fire Starter Gel’. Just tried in the wood stove. Anyone used it? Like it says, no dangerous flare ups. Did seem to help the kindling get going though.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 3 Jul 2025 09:10pm
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Repackaged hand sanitizer?
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paulz
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# Posted: 5 Jul 2025 09:34pm - Edited by: paulz
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Bought this 110 ac log splitter yesterday at HFs 4th sale, $268. Its power surprised me, split this DF no sweat. Some hardwood bay gave it a little more trouble but anything under a foot around no problem. Uses a lot of juice, inverter wouldn’t power it, had to run the big lp genny. Best part is it fits across the tailgate, only have to bend down to pick up the splits.
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DRP
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# Posted: 6 Jul 2025 09:45pm - Edited by: DRP
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That's cool, I've wanted to make a small hydraulic kindlin splitter to mount to one of the back porch posts to make fine firestarter out of regular sized stuff. An electric/hydraulic power pack slung between the joists underneath and hose through the floor to a cylinder and plate mounted vertically on the post.
Going back to frost checks, the first 2 pics are of a frost check in some pine I sawed today. You can see bluestain is beginning.
The second pair of pics are of the bottlebrush Buckeye in the front yard, it is in full bloom today and attracting butterflies.
edit, forgot to mention the "massed pitch" in the frost check, the injury response in conifers. The crack is full of pine pitch and a good source of firestarter, waterproofing for ropes sails and between ship planking, varnish, etc. When you see massed pitch, figure out why, there is damage there. In this case there is a bad crack there filled with pine rosin.
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Malamute
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# Posted: 13 Jul 2025 02:59pm - Edited by: Malamute
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Quoting: paulz My recycle yard pal gave me 3 new bottles of ‘Fire Starter Gel’. Just tried in the wood stove. Anyone used it? Like it says, no dangerous flare ups. Did seem to help the kindling get going though. IMG_5216.jpeg
Just splitting some small clear pieces down is adequate, no paper or fluids really needed. Its the fun part of making fires to split down some smaller pieces with the hatchet on the outdoor chopping block, against the front of the woodstove or on the round I use to sit on to make fires, make a small fire lay on top of the tightly stacked wood, use one match, and have the fire going.
The last picture is the leftover fire the next morning, no other wood was added, only the initial stack shown. It burns all night with the airtight blaze king.
Fire lay
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One match start
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Fire the next morning
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paulz
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# Posted: 19 Jul 2025 10:24am - Edited by: paulz
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My city house had a small redwood sidewalk section I tore out and saved years ago. This week a friend and I hauled it out to the cabin and used it to cover the last section of the cabin, formerly slide down the hill rocky dirt. It’s only 1x boards but still better than cut and burn. So now I can walk completely around the cabin shoeless. Sweet!
Should probably extend the railing..
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 19 Jul 2025 04:47pm - Edited by: MtnDon
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Oops.
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DRP
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# Posted: 22 Jul 2025 07:15am
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I think that code reads something like "If the ground 3' away is more than 3' below you, it needs a guard rail." That looks like it might  .
I had rejected a couple hundred feet of the red oak I took to work, although it had been through the kiln and heat sanitized, it had powderpost and oak timberworm bug holes. I'm not going there inside, that is asking for a callback. Last week the clients asked about oak for the outside entry ceiling. It will be stained very dark to match the doors, a good use for the rejects!
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paulz
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# Posted: 22 Jul 2025 10:01am
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Quoting: DRP I think that code reads something like "If the ground 3' away is more than 3' below you, it needs a guard rail." That looks like it might .
Sounds good. As shown in my photo the rest of the deck is railed with old branches, I’ll have to go find some, everything laying around was burned for firewood before my neighbor gave me all his rounds from his cuttings.
Speaking of which, I’m still busy splitting those rounds with the new electric splitter. Had my doubts about that thing but it has worked so well that I’m going to move the manual splitter back down to the shop. Still many rounds to go but gives me something to do when the wife blabs me outside.
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