I've got a small elm tree on my neighbors property that he said I could cut.  It has a nice straight, branchless section that's about 6-7 feet long in the trunk.  I may be cutting it this week and had a question.  I've cut other woods for staves but not elm.  I've read where it can be a bear to split.  So should I just go at it with the hatchet/wedges or should I try to kerf it first with a circular saw before putting the wedges in?  The tree isn't very large in diameter (maybe 8" or so) and I want to get as much useable wood out of it as I can.  Any advice.  Thanks.

Aaron

I found elm not too hard to split, as long as you split through the heart. 8" should yield 4 nice splits.

Nick

Use something like a machete to chop out the "stringers" of interlocking grain that tend hold the split together.  Exploit a natural check or split in th end grain if you can.  I personally find kerfing to be of too like benefit to warrant the risk (of kickback).  Let it dry in stave form, or get it on a caul to dry if your reduce it to bow size or it will deform into horrible shapes.

For any interlocking grain wood, I just use a recipracating saw while splitting.  I would do it now.

Thanks for the advice.  I was just wondering what you guys do since I'd heard about the interlocking grain of elm.  I've done hickory, BL, osage, and pecan but never elm.  I have plenty of wedges and a good machete so hopefully I'll be alright.  I'll most likely leave it in stave form to dry.  I just don't have the time to reduce it right now.  

Again, thanks for the tips.  I'll let you all know how it turns out.  Maybe even some photos!  LOL....

Aaron

Well I finally got the elm tree cut yesterday.  Of course it got hung up so it took a littl more time than I had expected.  The tree was about 9" at the base.  A little bigger than I had thought.  Here's a photo of what I got out of it.

I had a few more billets split out but after looking at them I decided to make firewood out of them.  The bark came off a lot harder than the hickory I'm used to.  It peeled but didn't want to come off in long strips.  I found a curved piece of flat steel that my grandfather had used for something and it worked great at helping me peel up the bark.  You can see the pile of bark in this picture.

But I sealed them up and now to let them dry.  With family stuff I haven't had much time to work on bows but wanted to get some wood drying for when I get back into it.  By the way this stuff split out pretty nicely.  I didn't kerf it just started a hatchet in the end and worked my way down with wedges.  Everything split out nice except one piece.  Definitely harder to split than locust or hickory because of the grain but not too bad.  Anyway just wanted to share.

Aaron

Very nice staves. If you split them by hand they split cleaner than any Elm I ever split. In fact I quit splitting Elm. The last one about got me down trying to split. Any way you got some nice staves there. Dean

Nice staves you got. Fine job.

Dean, I split it by hand.  I started a hatchet in one end then went to work with wedges.  I had to keep cutting the interlocking grain with the hatchet as I went but it seemed to split pretty straight.  I left a couple of the pieces pretty wide to be on the safe side.  If I'm careful I could easily get a few more splits.

This stuff has really thin sapwood and a reddish heartwood.  I'm not exactly sure what kind of elm it is but using my tree ID information I think it's American elm.  I hope it will make a few good bows.

Aaron

If it's elm it will make good bows.  Some of my favorite sapling bows, from trees down to 3" came from American elm.  They end up with heartwood bellies and look good.