Splitting Wood

Yesterday I went to Tractor Supply in Alpena and bought an electric log splitter.  After Ed and Walt did their thing on Saturday, it was obvious that the wood was too large for my stove, and further processing would be required.  Doing this with an axe would be very difficult — and I'd probably end up in the emergency room.  So buying my own splitter seemed unavoidable.  This is a 5-ton (of hydraulic force) model, and therefore quite small when compared to the big rigs out in front of the store.  However, the unit was on sale, so I decided to take a chance.

This morning the weather was moderately cool — 70 degrees, very unlike downstate — with clear skies and a brisk breeze.  I couldn't want better weather for splitting wood.  Accordingly, I unboxed the new splitter, hauled it over to the woodpile, and plugged it in.  Hauling was no small task: the splitter weighs 105 pounds!  Once I found the on-off switch (it took some looking) the machine started growling in a very pleasant manner and I started feeding it wood.

My woodpile.  For a sense of size, the shovel in the center
foreground is about four feet tall.

Over the past couple days I have separated and stacked the
cedar just to get it out of the way.  Maybe someone will want it.

About half of my wood is cedar.  It can be burned in a wood stove, but generates a lot of creosote which, in turn, can result in a stovepipe fire.  Hardwood is much to be preferred.  The wood in the foreground in the photo above is the "good" wood — ash, oak, poplar, along with a bit of maple.  To split it, you put a log on the carrier, pull the switch, and the hydraulic ram pushes the log against a V-shaped wedge.  The oak proved somewhat difficult to split, while the other wood would often "pop" into two pieces.  Sometimes I'd have to split these again to produce logs of a more manageable size.  Then I'd toss the split pieces to the side, and later stack them.

The results of my first day splitting wood!  I estimate that
this is about one and a half face cords of firewood.

I started a little before 8:00 this morning and finished about 2:30 — with several breaks along the way.  The splitting goes fairly quickly, as the photo above will show.  But what a photo can't convey is the current state of my body!  After nearly five hours lifting, throwing, and stacking, just about every muscle I own is complaining, and right forcefully!

On Saturday the guys estimated that the pile, as is, contains at least 15 cords of wood, and maybe 20.  These are face cords which, when stacked, will measure 4 feet high, 8 feet wide, and roughly 18-20 inches deep — about the maximum size wood for most stoves.  (A true cord is 4'x4'x8'.)  I clearly have a lot of work ahead of me! And about one third of the wood remains to be processed by Ed and Walt. •••