Knots in the wood will typicall cause that, but you should be able to tell when it starts binding down. Whoever is working the lever on the splitter should stand behind it or take the risk of getting hit with a flying piece of wood. If you see it binding down and not splitting easily, Everyone else should stand clear. And non split wood will stay wet and heave for quite some time....it also depends on the type of wood and how dense it is.

Straight grained hardwoods can explode pretty well; ash, maple along with birch. But when I'm splitting wood that pops I just put a hand on it, or like you said, take a step to the side.

Usually knotty wood won't pop like that, since there is so much variation in the grain direction. But if it pops that well it's probably easier and faster to split by hand. I cleared a pretty good area a few years ago (20 cord worth) and I split most of the maple and birch by hand. The cherry, hemlock and white oak sucked so I used a splitter. Some of the red oak was okay, but the bigger pieces got the splitter.

It was just me. I had it vertical and stood in the wrong spot.

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

It very well could've been ash or birch. Wood has an orangish tint to it.
I don't think it's the knots. Didn't notice any when it happened. Only problem I had with knots is the wood not splitting even.
I had my hand on it but stopped because of the force it would pop off. Maybe I'll go back to that tomorrow.

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

They froze up? Five months is not very long, and without it being split open, it won't be "dry" at all. So when it gets cold, that moisture freezes and makes wood do some funny things.

Orange hued wood could be yellow birch. And yellow birch is stringy as hell, to the point that it pretty much won't open up green. But, get it frozen and she'll pop open pretty easy. Matter of fact, I was splitting this past week and broke open a bunch of stuff that I'd set aside in the fall cause it wouldn't open.

This is one of the reasons that a splitter is a graduate level tool. To truly understand what you're doing with it, the requisite undergrad work should be done; ie, hundreds of cords should be split with a maul and wedges.

But maybe that's the NH in me...

Just be careful no matter what. I know more than several people that are missing parts of their fingers from splitters...

Straight grained hardwoods can explode pretty well; ash, maple along with birch. But when I'm splitting wood that pops I just put a hand on it, or like you said, take a step to the side.

Dry oak, despite how hard it is, if the grain is running straight splits quite easily.

We have a lot of oak in the back woods of our cottage property. The older ones die off standing up, then fall down sometimes on their own, or we bring them down with a chain saw. By then they are well dead and reasonably dry. We can section, split and stack and that wood and after only a short time it's ready for burning in the wood stove ( we heat the cottage with wood).

We've always hand split with an axe(s), but my brother, my Brother-in-law and myself (three families share the cottage), are all getting older and I must say the splitting is doing my wonky back no favors. For the next big go-round of stocking wood away, we are contemplating renting a splitter to see how it goes.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I split 3-4 cords of wood in about 8 hours. Back was a little sore. Probably from moving big sections without a prybar. Arms were a bit sore from tossing the stuff I split. But if you're splitting by hand that probably won't bother you.
Neighbor came over and used it for a bit. They split by hand. He reaction was , I've been doing it wrong all along.

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

Fleck if you really meant axe then you should consider a Go Devil instead. They work so much better. I've split many hundreds of cords with one. I wouldn't even consider trying to do an evenings worth of wood with an axe. I've had and used the same go devil for 40 years now and it still works just as well as the day I bought it.



Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Not sure I could pull off wearing the scarf.

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

Maybe you could - if you called it a bandanna instead.

It would be hard to pull off the high-waisted britches, though ...

You'd need to remove the boots, first.

Teed that one up for you, didn't I? :-)

Meh... I've found that the handles are a little short, making for an awkward swing without much force behind it.

I typically use a 6 and an 8 lbs maul for all easy grained wood, but when I need that extra oomph, I use one of the original 20 lbs Monster Mauls. Sadly, they're out of business now but they built one helluva tool: it'll open up all but gnarliest wood.