Elm

H

hollowdweller

Joined
Sep 22, 2003
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Is that sh*t tough or what? I was just reminded of this because I cut down this dead elm for firewood for camping last night and was chopping it up this evening:eek:

My chainsaw was smoking and I was pouring chain oil in the cuts to help. This had died standing and had a bit of a "petrified" character to it:rolleyes:

Now I've bent and chipped more blades on oak, but oak chops easier. I think elm has got to be the toughest to chop wood we have growing around here.

I remember several years ago we had a Khukuri Khonvention at Nasty's in OH and I brought a bunch of elm and I can't recall what the people were calling it but unless if you angled your blade an axe or khuk would almost bounce off:D:eek:
 
HD,

I heat my house primarily with wood, hand-carried, hand-split... Elm is bad medicine, I stay away from it.
 
mneedham said:
HD,

I heat my house primarily with wood, hand-carried, hand-split... Elm is bad medicine, I stay away from it.
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I also heat my house with wood and i have spent atlest 3-4 minute spliting one darn piece in freezing temps but it is worth it because it burns hot and long :thumbup:
 
Well the wife and I cook a lot on this grate in the backyard. Because we fenced in some paddocks on the hillsides, and the goats love elm we have quite a few dead standing ones.

I love it for cooking but like you say the big peices are just for bonfires cause no way in hell you can split them. I'm talking Slippery Elm. I hear it makes a decent bow. I guess the way it resists splitting it sure would;)
 
A friend brought me a load of firewood while my wife was in the hospital, since I was not able to get out and cut - so, I didn't see what it looked like before it was down. I thought it was Green Ash but it was a real booger to split. I still have a few 12" long pieces in the wood pile that were started and tossed aside because the halves stuck together with stringy lengths of wood. I don't know if it was Elm but the grain and bark looked like Ash except that the grain was "finer." I have a pile of it to look forward to splitting before next winter. My old maul will need a handle first - maybe I should make one out of that stuff! It was cut in January or February and has green shoots growing out of the logs now.
 
'resists splitting' ? In the old days people knew the characteristics of each of the woods .Then a specific wood was used for a specific job.One of the uses for elm was wagon wheel hubs since it has great resistance to splitting !! I've used it for firewood when a nearby one fell . But I only used the smaller diameter pieces as elm laughs at a monster maul !!
 
I prefer splitting elm with the tractor-powered hydraulic logsplitter. That shows the tree who's boss. Oh, you bet it does.
 
Splits like glass, and burns long, hot and smooth... and as HD will tell you smooth is important !!!
 
A few years ago one of my large Chinese elms fell over, and I turned it into firewood. It cut reasonably easily with a chainsaw when green, but after it had dried over the summer (a few months at 100+ with low humidity) it was an absolute bear to split. I certainly wouldn't buy any for firewood.
 
koyote said:
got any 32 inch pieces about 1.5 inches around?
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Not right now, but I could always trim something off my other Chinese Elm....it needs pruning anyway.

How are things in Davis these days? That's where I went to grad school.
 
Oh, man. That'd be fun. long and short hawk handles. TASTY.

Davis is freaking HOT. Way hot way early this year. The police are grumpy. My shop is great, my kids have a blast. We can ride everywhere and there's plenty to do outdoors.

The plums and peaches down by putah creek are late, the berries look tasty :)
 
If you think Davis is hot, come down here. On any given day, add at least five degrees to the Davis temperature. And we don't get the delta breeze to cool things off at night. Of course, it could be worse - Death Valley is usually fifteen degrees hotter than here, and Phoenix is pretty bad, too.

I live in the middle of miles and miles of peach, nectarine, plum, and apricot orchards, not to mention citrus, olives, walnuts, almonds, pistachios, grapes, etc. My plum tree will be ready to pick in a couple weeks, and I usually make about 26 pints of plum jam every year.

If you're serious about the elm, say the word, and I'll trim some off my tree. Do you want 1.5" diameter or 1.5" around (which comes to about 0.5" diameter)? What lengths?
 
I grew up in phoenix. Somehow it just feels worse here. And visalia gets pretty hot, too.

I would love to dry some elm out and use it. 1.5 or bigger (up to 3) diameter. I'll have to see how are travel plans are looking. we might even pass nearby sometime this summer
 
I still have that slippery elm you sent me HD. I'm still letting it dry. I always look at it when I'm in the shop. Its going to have to go on a special knife.

Lemme know if you find a pretty piece! I'll pay you to send it to me.
 
I believe that there is several kinds of elm. It all burns well when it gets to the right stage of dry. We heated with nothing but wood for most of my life. In our area we had mostly Elm, cottonwood and Ash. The ash was the most desirable .
 
hollowdweller said:
Is that sh*t tough or what? :D:eek:
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I was just thinking that a few weeks ago, when I was cutting some 6-7 in diameter logs from an elm that died im my yard a few years ago. My Stihl had a brand new chain on it, and it still was a booger! I grew up cutting wood with my dad...lots of red elm. Very tough...very hard to split. We used to wait until it was frozen to split it, otherwise it seemed very fibrous and you ended up with thin strips connecting the pieces you just split. Same results with a log splitter as well. It's a pain, but it burns well:thumbup: -Matt-
 
Fiddleback said:
I still have that slippery elm you sent me HD. I'm still letting it dry. I always look at it when I'm in the shop. Its going to have to go on a special knife.

Lemme know if you find a pretty piece! I'll pay you to send it to me.
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FB,

I have a huge like 12" dead one I need to cut down. I was thinking about cutting the trunk into an 8' section and driving it over to my pal Bill for him to saw it up for me.

If I do that be glad to send you some for free.

You are right in letting it dry. The peice I used warped on the knife handle, I had to remove the slabs and plane them down. I probably had to take about 1/8" off of them to make them fit:thumbdn: Luckily I bought some of the multi layer spacer material from Texas Knifemaking that I used to make up the space.:thumbup:
 
udtjim said:
I believe that there is several kinds of elm. It all burns well when it gets to the right stage of dry. We heated with nothing but wood for most of my life. In our area we had mostly Elm, cottonwood and Ash. The ash was the most desirable .
Click to expand...

We have mainly slippery and american here.
 
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