Riving/Splitting Wood

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

Sgian Dubh

No idea what climax forest hardwoods refers to, but of all the species you mention as candidates for relatively easy riving or splitting, any of your white oaks should fit the bill.

Funnily enough Don, I think there might be a book out there you may have come across that discusses some of the characteristics of white oak types that historically made the Genus a popular material for a wide range of building projects, and a few other uses, e.g., food source, ink, tanning, smelting, etc. Slainte.

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

John K Jordan

I've split hickory before and it wasn't hard. Years ago I split a bunch and put it in the barn loft to dry. When I need a handle for something like an axe that needs to withstand some shock I pull down a piece. I split with a froe.

Do you need to demonstrate or just show split wood? I can loan you a froe if you need one for splitting or for a demonstration. I have plenty of hickory too, some logs on the ground at the moment. Cedar is often split for fencing. Walnut is very easy to split.

Curious as to why you can't use American Elm - it grows all over the east. And why don't you want to talk about Ash?

But for some other wood suggestions, both easy and hard to split, you might provide a list of trees you consider as part of a "climax forest". I understand it's a loaded term that not all tree people can agree on.

JL on this forum is the person I'd ask about riving/splitting.

JKJ

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

Jack Guzman from Maine

Red oak and white oak are the most used species for windsor chair making due to their properties that make them easy to bend and rive. Either species would be ideal for a demo.

Elm and Hackberry are nearly equal

Dick Coers

But Elm is the champion for resisting splitting. Use as wood wheel hubs for that reason. Hackberry does come close though. Hackberry was the reason I had a hydraulic splitter decades ago! Both red and white oak split very easily along the radial medullary rays.

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

JohnV

hackberry is much like elm when it comes to split resistance

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

Don Stephan

My most recent purchase was a book by a bloke named Richard Jones, I think it's titled Cut & Dried. I'll have to give it a look, along with an purchase decades ago I think called Country Woodcraft by Drew Langsner.

Climax forest is a term I learned decades ago, used to refer to the end stage of natural succession. Grassland, (here in Cincinnati) opportunistic wild roses and black and honey locust, . . . ending with oaks, maples, walnut, and other tall growing trees that would shade out the early fast growing ones.

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

Don Stephan

Thanks for mentioning hickory for tool handles - a wood and use I completely overlooked. Although they have been in a tool cabinet for far too long, I actually have a couple froes and hope to demonstrate briefly next year use of a froe, shaving horse and draw knife.

When I was working as a residential estate caretaker, we lost several large American elm trees to Dutch elm disease, and 18" long pieces over 10" in diameter would just laugh and laugh at rented hydraulic wood splitters. On the internet I found a reference that said, like American elm, red elm also has interlocked grain so I am going to try split a piece of red elm and compare the result with a split red oak so I can show the 4th graders one way that trees differ.

I'm hesitant to mention ash because here in Cincinnati they are almost all dead from ash borer.

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

Keith Newton

Sweet gum and Sycamore are a couple that are hard splitters, and I see a fair amount of black cherry that is as well, but it was all urban, and I’m not sure it would be from a forest.

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

Don Stephan

Thanks everyone. After five or six years primarily just talking about trees and how they an differ, next spring I hope to show more examples for them.

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

Don Stephan

During some internet searching this afternoon I saw several suggestions that sycamore also is not easy to split. Many of those sites reminded me though that using a chain saw on sycamore always made me cough for hours. Apparently there are very fine fibers that irritate the throat. I wouldn't want to give the students a similar experience so I'll probably limit my mention of sycamore to the distinctive bark and how from a distance it would suggest to early pioneers a water source. It likes to grow in moist soil, and their bus ride to the lodge parallels a stream with hundreds of sycamores along it.

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

William Duffield

The problem with Sweet Gum is it is not found in climax forests. Instead it is a pioneer species, growing best in cleared or burnt land.

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood *LINK*

Sgian Dubh

Thanks for the term's definition, Don. I've not come across that before - interesting.

Touching briefly on 'that' book, just today I stumbled (without even looking) upon a very positive review of Cut & Dried at Highland Woodworking. Made me feel warm all over, ha, ha. Slainte.


Cut & Dried review

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

Barry Irby

Printed on quality paper...me Arse. How many trees did that kill?

Just kidding, I bought one, Thank you for the effort.

Re: Riving/Splitting Wood

Sgian Dubh

"How many trees did that kill?"

Ooh. Not sure, but maybe one branch per book?

I hope you're enjoying, or should it be(?) finding the book useful and interesting. Slainte.