I’ve acquired some lovely freshly cut Ash logs from a grounds man. I need to saw some sections down to fit the wood burner, and summer need splitting. Is this best done while the wood is wet or dry and can anyone recommend a splitting maul?

Buy a hydraulic splitter if you value the health of your hands.

Very wet the maul just goes “splatch” and gets stuck. Trees felled in winter split nicely straight off. Some woods split OK dry, pine for example. Others such as plane are almost impossible to split once fully dry.

Do it whilst it’s wet, hydraulic is lovely if you’re doing it all the time but I use a splitting maul as it’s far quicker. Get an old tyre and screw it to your splitting block to drop the logs into, saves picking them up constantly..

Ash splits easily green or seasoned but it will season much quicker if you split it now. I wouldn’t bother with a maul, a splitting axe like the Fiskars X27 will be more than adequate.

+1 for the X27. Much easier to handle than a maul.

You’ve lucked-out with ash, split it now, ash is fairly dry green so won’t take long to season if stacked well, see mcmoonter of this parish’s history for ideas. As for mauls, I’ve split hundreds of tons in my time and have never worried about which axe I picked up, technique is more important.

Splitting maul or axe, for trickier ones log grenades and maul.

Buy a hydraulic splitter if you value the health of your hands.

[video]https://youtu.be/W3ToNZSkmRg[/video]

I split vast amounts of ash with a maul. It’s a lot easier than other wood, and only a downside when there’s a knot. It’s just a cheap drapers maul, but you will be sweating after an hour.

Aldi were just doing fiskars copy axels for £15. Quite impressed and obviously a three year period to break and take back.

It may be different for those splitting wood on an industrial scale, but I’ve found fibreglass handles tough on the hands. And a smaller weight tool might work better for you than a larger. I’ve chosen a 2.5lb axe over a 5lb. One of those engineering things, mass times velocity squared, probably applies

X27 +2. Effortless.

X27 here too. Better on hands than cheap fibre glass handled mauls, easy to swing and life time warranty.
I resort to a stihl pro maul for big, hard stuff, hickory stick of course. Occasionally only wedges will do. I have a grenade but find it useless, simple twist wedges are much better IMO.
Although Ash usually splits well green, every tree is different, if it turns out to be hard, let it dry a bit and try again.

Ash is beautiful wood to split green. Makes you feel like a samurai. You can split huge rounds with just a small axe. Unless it’s massive, and maybe knotted a maul will be overkill. I like a splitting axe but I prefer wood handled so I have a Gransfors splitting axe and I bough my dad a Husqvarna splitting axe which was half the price but 95% as good.

Ash splits easy at any point, lovely clean spaced grain.
Maul is the tool, nothing fancy, doesn’t need to be sharp, the shape and the weight do the work. Not a fan of fibreglass handles, they do odd things. Grenades are fine until they get stuck, then they are a pain.

X27 – another one here. Great tool.

I sold my hydraulic splitter after I’d got my X27 as I just wasn’t using it.

Best split green – I try to split any wood I get ASAP.

Mauls are ace, even cheap ones do a job tbh. I use a maul if I have maybe 30 mins to an hour worth to do, it’s great core work out.

However, I have a full winters worth of wood stacked in rounds to be done very soon, the hydraulic splitter will be coming out for this. I also like the control of the splitter, easier to get the size of logs you want.

X27…yet again. Anyone saying otherwise hasn’t used one.

Ash = Hollywood logs.

Have fun you’ll look like a log splitting god.

Anyone used the rope-em-up technique?

Circle of logs, rope perimeter, whack whack whack

I have a selection of old car tyres for that Wysiwyg! 😀

Yeah i use a tyre for like 4 at a time. But the vid i saw he did 50 or so.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLULLzZuMn8[/video]

[/quote]Ash = Hollywood logs.

Have fun you’ll look like a log splitting god.

Just split a load of ash recently…there was me assuming it was my great skills making light work of it…dammit.

That Gransfors is a lovely thing.
Relatively new to the whole log splitting thing, but can’t under estimate just how much difference the axe makes.

I love using my Gransfors Bruks Splitting Maul ….

I tried a bungee for about 3 swings. Then I cut it on the next swing and gave up on that idea.

Eyepic

X27…yet again. Anyone saying otherwise hasn’t used one.

Have used one and I prefer the two I mentioned. Better balanced imo and for me the wood has a nicer feel to it, seems to damp vibration a bit better. With all the weight being in the head of the Fiskars it just seems a bit flightier for want of a better word. Wood splitting performance is negligible but if i had to choose I’d say the Gransfors is best.

I also really like the idea that a wooden handle can be replaced almost infinitely whereas if (in the unlikely event) you break the plastic handle on the fiskars it becomes a paper weight.

Afraid i got a gransfors splitting axe. Amazing bit of kit, went straight through a horrible knotty bit of oak that defeated my felling axe and a log bomb.
Love using it, so satisfying to go straight through stuff

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. I’ve got a regular axe which I’ll have a try on the logs tomorrow.
Next is to plan an outdoor wood drying platform.

Next is to plan an outdoor wood drying platform.

I believe what you are after is a pallet 😉

Yep, our log store is made up of 4 pallets and some spare fence bits for the roof..

[url=https://flic.kr/p/q3ssM7]Wood store[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

Anderson shelter sections make great wood stores

The Fiskars in that video keeps getting stuck! The whole point of a maul is the wider wedge prevents sticking.

Hickory over glassfibre any time – I mistakenly bought a glassfibre maul (it was all they had in the shop at the time) and was shocked that the head kept travelling back up the shaft so I took it straight back.

Such a huge bundle of logs as in that video above looks like an open invitation for overstrike and a broken shaft. Though maybe it’s ok for logs as brittle as those appear to be, he looks like he’s only tapping them (I know appearances can be deceptive). With a tyre that only holds a few pieces at a time you can pretty much always strike the outside of the bundle and there’s nothing for the handle to catch on when the head goes through.

Personally I’ve never found much use for a wedge, if the knotty pieces are too tough to hack apart with repeated axe blows then eventually I collect a heap of them for the next time the chainsaw is out. Maybe I’ve not got a good wedge or more likely a good technique but it’s always slipping out sideways or just getting stuck…