Thread: Firewood

Just a minor point but what you are referring to is not "grain" but "growth rings". Cutting across the grain would be at 90º to the grain or across the log.

I agree cutting parallel to the growth rings is usually easier on Aussie hardwoods and yes, for something like pine cutting perp to the growth rings is usually easier

I guess it comes down to our hardwoods having greater strength between fibres in the same ring compared to fibres in adjacent rings

Something like Marri can have so much resin in between the rings it can even literally fall apart at the rings as it dries - I think the north Americans call it "ring shake" as it also happens to some of their trees.
Unfortunately this is what happened to this beauty as it dried out
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Are you using a maul/firewood profile axe or (usual thinner headed) tree felling axe? It makes a big difference.
In youtube vids of people cutting pine or similar for firewood you see them split 300 mm diam short logs that cannot be split with regular axe but fall apart when struck with a maul across the middle of the log..

A few years ago we went camping at a caravan park where fires were allowed and a large (up to 900mm diam) Marri had been felled and blocked at the edge of the park and a sign near the blocks said "help yourself". All the smaller pieces were gone and there were about 30 of the largest blocks left and you could see many of them had axe marks (across the rings) on them where folks had tried to cut pieces up without any success. I got out my firewood axe and peeled off the outsides of a couple of blocks which generated more than enough wood for a few days. During the time we were there I watched many a camper have a go at cutting the wood. A few knew what they were doing. On a couple of occasions when I saw they were struggling I lent them my axe and showed them how to do it.

Hi Bob. I haven't used an axe for a very long time. My go to (and only) option is a double headed log splitter, just like a normal one but without the sledge half. I have been using this for at least 40 years, it was the splitter I learnt to split firewood with. Been through plenty of handles (in part because the hole in the head is quite small - I have to reduce the diameter of a sledgehammer handle quite a bit which I think weakens it but I do get a nice fat shoulder underneath).

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Here's a photo