Ah, great thread and timely for me. I have an oak round from my brother that was a bear to split with the fiskars. It turns out it is the same type of grain. It actually grew 90 degrees perpindicular to the natural grain direction making it difficult splitting. Notice the bark is smooth and different than the normal bark. This is not where an old limb grew. I'm thinking it was diseased at one point. I wish I knew what was beneath this before it was bucked and split. I pulled some smooth bark off to reveal this beauty. It is now sitting in my projects pile waiting to be used. I'll toss any split aside that has promising grain. I'll wait months thinking of what to do with this one. I'm going to shout out to thistle. He may have some insight on this grain.
Well if that type of squiggly grain doesn't have an official name that we know of, I'd say it's up to us to name it.
Did you actually manage to split that with a Fiskars? I get some of these from really large rounds near the base of a tree and the grain is all whorled and swirly. I just noodle them down to burn size pieces since I can't budge them with the Fiskars and they crumble in my powered splitter. I think the Van Gogh reference is spot on.
I split the round in half with some difficulty. I tried to quarter it and I could not. I peeled the bark and saw the grain running perpindicular.
I've seen that pattern quite a bit in oak...usually above a crotch where the two branches have grafted.
