Score!

Well, I started on next year's wood today. Yesterday my power was out for oh a good 8 hours thanks to a wind storm running through and splittin a third of my next door neighbor's soft maple onto the power lines. I didn't know what had happened, but I was outside smokin a cigarette and heard my neighbor on her cell phone sayin she had a big problem, so I walked over and sure enough a huge limb is layin on the lines. Asplundh came out and cut it up and got it off the lines. Nice fellas, talked with em on my porch while it was pourin and they were on the phone with their boss tryin to get permission to cut it up since they thought it might drop onto the lady's fence. Real pros though - no damage to the fence. In any event, this mornin hear the chainsaw start up over there so I grab mine and head over and help cut it up, then ask what she's gonna do with it. She says theyre gonna take it down to the dump!! I told her that's way too much work and I'd take it off her hands. All told it looks like it will end up bein bout a half cord or so. I tried to split some of the bigger rounds (theyre probably 28 inches or so) with the 8 lb maul - yeah, I'm going to need to rent/buy a splitter.

It may be soft maple, but it's free!

very nice. gotta love that.

I work in DE. The new H.D in Newark rents log spiltters, so does Ace in Elkton. Not sure where else does.
If you buy one you could try getting 3 or 4 guy to buy shares in it.

The HD idea aint bad; I was thinkin bout just ripping them with a chainsaw into smaller pieces so i can split them with the maul. It's extra moist though. I wonder if it would be any easier to split dry(er).

Soft maple is good wood and if you need a splitter its even better wood!(season pretty fast as well)20 on the btu per cord

I haddabuncha rock maple that I tried to split in June. Thunk. Stick. Doh! Grunt, grunt, finally, got the maul out of the round. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Still not split. I just tried splitting the same rounds last week, and they split pretty easily.