peeling logs before bucking and splitting

ok folks, just wondering if anyone might have a favorite way to peel bark off of logs. ive found that firewood dries much faster if the bark is removed from the wood. and with the super efficient wood stove I installed a couple years ago the wood has to be perfectly dry to burn without keeping stove door open. today I'm dealing with a pretty good size hickory tree that had been standing dead for more than a year  and on the ground since very early in the spring and I'm going to harvest its dead twin out of the forest as soon as this one is cut, split and stacked in the woodshed.

Hi Bruce; A long handle spud works well and you get to stand up.
The other choice is a draw knife. Works well but lots of work.

I learned something a few years ago that I'm ashamed I didn't realize decades ago. The best way to peel a log is to do it in the spring or early summer. I read that and could have kicked myself. When trees grow, the bark grows first and then the wood fills in there at the cambium layer. When the bark grows, it is at its loosest before the wood has filled in under it. How many times I've accidentally barked a tree with a tractor tire in the spring and thought ,"it barely touched it!" when a huge chunk of bark got knocked off, and yet I never made that connection. If you're cutting dead trees, this won't help, though. I've found often the bark can be knocked off while splitting rather easily, though I don't normally try. I do try to split the wood in ways that maximizes the surface area of fresh wood to dry faster.

To add to Thomas's list of tools, peeling axes were invented also for this very purpose. The one on the top is a "full peeler" pattern and the one on the bottom is a "California half-peeler" pattern. An interesting tidbit about peeling axes is that they are often reversible, since they apparently were prone to excessive toe wear due to the nature of their use.

Peeling is unnecessary. Cut it into rounds (16"is usual) and split the rounds into whatever size you prefer. Smaller splits season faster. You will find that the bark has heating value.
A very interesting read on the subject of firewood:
"Norwegian Wood" by Bjørn Vassnes.

I peel all my firewood, but usually I'm dealing with dead trees and loose bark. I use an otherwise useless little hatchet like this:



It's slim profile is great for getting under loose bark and removing it in sheets.

If I'm dealing with stubborn or fresh bark, I use a drawknife. I cut my logs in 4-8ft lengths so I can wedge them between two uprights on my sawbuck, leaving the log sticking up at an angle and gripped tight. I peel the available surface, then turn the log a bit to do more. Once I've peeled that end of the log I flip it around and do the other end. I'm not sure this makes sense.

My reasons for peeling firewood are:

1- it DOES dry much quicker, whether split or not
2- fewer bugs brought indoors. It sucks to have spruce bugs come out of their winter slumber and crawl around indoors.
3- Mulch! I can generate several cubic yards of bark chunks in one winter's work.

I agree with Michael Mass on heat value of bark, a lot of work peeling, etc. For species like birch where bark really holds moisure (why logs rot on the ground, and birch bark canoes float), if you don't have time to cut to firewood length right away, just run your chainsaw tip down the log and through the bark. This single scoring will kick start the drying process if the wood is not frozen.