Seems every time I get red maple it's always twisted and gnarly and really hard to split. Is this common? I love that it seasons quickly and being hard to split I usually end up with some large splits that I get good long burns from in the shoulder seasons.
A neighbor dropped around 1/3 cord that I bucked a month ago and out of the rounds I had about 3 that popped on the first hit from the maul but still needed another one or two to split. All the others either kicked the maul back out or sunk it in and had to wrestle it out.
Today I ended up getting out the sledge and antique wedges. I was amused how the round would make faint cracking noises for a minute or 2 once the wedges were sunk in deep enough.
A neighbor dropped around 1/3 cord that I bucked a month ago and out of the rounds I had about 3 that popped on the first hit from the maul but still needed another one or two to split. All the others either kicked the maul back out or sunk it in and had to wrestle it out.
Today I ended up getting out the sledge and antique wedges. I was amused how the round would make faint cracking noises for a minute or 2 once the wedges were sunk in deep enough.