Not very often, but today was one of those days. There's only a few big rounds left from the bigleaf maples I had cut down. I hope they're not all like this one. It was a shame to bust this up for firewood because it was so figured.
That’s some pretty looking firewood though! Before I got my splitter, I had 4-5 truck loads of some red maple that looked like that from a cleanup job I did for the village mayor. Ended up giving all but one of them away to my BIL cause it was just so miserable trying to split by hand. It was like hitting a spring, it would just spit the Fiskars right back out. There’s an alternative but it’s messy and you lose a bit of wood: Noodling - a How-to
I've attempted to many rounds like that. I usually get stubern and keep hitting it with the ISO core tell I'm to tired, then finally decide to noodle it. I need to learn to save time and energy and go straight up noodling if the round doesn't pop after a few hits!
I didn't noodle until I got a Dolmar 5105 that has noodle clearance. I'm pass the age where I can beat on the unsplitable just to prove something. Away back when an old neighbour had a splitter made from the rear wheel off an old steel wheeled tractor we could split a big wood pile in short order. A lager axe blade was bolted on one side and a counter weight under the rim on the other. The wheel was turned by a 9 hp Briggs and a long grain auger belt that wrapped all around the 3 ft diameter wheel. You can see similar designs on Youtube and one guy runs his way too fast.
