What is the best way to handle this...?

I have found if working by hand when you split big stuff its easier to work from the outside of the round inward. If your using a wedge make a purchase point first with the axe, then stick the wedge in there and use a sledge hammer to finish her off. Big stuff is fun to work with.

That was a pretty mean looking sledge you got there. Glad to hear it worked well. Like everyone said, the bigger stuff is more fun to work with. Nothing beats beating the piss out of s big round with heavy hand tools after a frustrating day at work. A bad day of splittin' is better than a good day at the office. Especially if you can go fishing when you're done.

gerry100 said:

20 minutes with my 8lb mall. Just takes lots of ptactice

Click to expand...

Sharpen it first but I split everything by hand with an 8lb maul...it might take me more than 20 minutes...

Wisneaky said:

I don't use eye protection when splitting by hand either.

Click to expand...

I use the Bugz goggles.
You only get one set of eyes...

I had plenty last year that size. No biggy. Slabs off the sides as was mentioned. After you've done that you are left with a big square. Knock the corners off the square. Now you have a piece much smaller and can take a shot at the middle.

Also I wouldn't want to pound the pole with another piece of metal. Shards and it would open the eye and perhaps mess with the fit of the head.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/index.php?threads/For-all-my-hand-splitting-brothers-and-sisters.147071/

I posted this today. If you're new to splitting you might like to take a look.

In a weird way, I jealous of you guys that can split by hand. I cut my wood at 26" and it seems that every tree that grows on my place has almost a 1/4 turn twist in that 26" legnth. This twist also makes stacking interesting.

26" splits would be real tough to split by hand... I cut all mine to 16"

I've been splitting a lot of large-ish rounds lately. Hit it twice with the maul, if it doesn't start to come apart, then break out the wedges.

Some larger rounds are simply to big for the fiskars and I only have a 5 ton splitter. I found through a lot of stuck wedges, to look closely at the cracks near the outside of the round, work with what the wood gives you.