Dense hard wood

Czar, that's what the wood I got recently did. I'm going to assume it's just in need of more seasoning. I'd set it aside and try it in a few more months.

Got a chainsaw? Maybe you can just zip it down the middle.

As someone mentioned earlier, wood doesn’t really start to season until it has been split. 6 months is my minimum before I’ll try and use it. A year for oak.

I heat with wood, and split it all by hand (sledge hammer and wedge), so I've split quite a bit of wood over the years. I'm not seeing anything in that stack that would be a problem to split by hand, much less with a wood splitter. Most of it looks like it could be split with just an ax. I'm wondering if you're orienting it properly in the wood splitter?

Typically you stand the piece of wood on one end and split it from the top down (lengthwise along the grain). It sounds like you're laying it on its side and trying to split it while it is lying flat. While it is possible to split wood that way, it is a whole lot harder.

^^^^

What he said.

Monkey Uncle said:

Typically you stand the piece of wood on one end and split it from the top down (lengthwise along the grain). It sounds like you're laying it on its side and trying to split it while it is lying flat. While it is possible to split wood that way, it is a whole lot harder.

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This.

I have the same issue with some of my pecan splits... I've got a pretty good splitting axe (Fiskars) and it cuts through most wood like butter, but other times I put everything I have into it and I barely even dent the wood... my hands rattle like all hell. I will take those and cut them down with my chop saw until they are quite a bit smaller, and then I can split them pretty easily.

Czarbecue said:

I’m using a 10 ton manual hydraulic splitter. So it’s splitting from the top, just laying down.

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The end of a piece of wood is like a road map, you need to look for the correct area to split. If you look at the picture of the piece of wood you showed in the firebox, see the cracks in the end of it? That is where it should be positioned in the splitter, same thing if using a splitting maul.

Green wood is hard to split. If its wet and heavy it can be split, but it will take a lot more force to do it. If the wood is only 6 months old then its green and not really ready to split.

If it was dry it would split easily by hand and like nothing on a log splitter.

I have a 22 ton and while it will split green wood, it does struggle a bit. Especially if the wood is full of knots.

Let it dry out for a few more months and try it again.

Sounds like your wood is pretty dry to me, wood always splits best when it’s green. But some trees are just denser than others might have just got a harder tree. My family and I have a lumber business and a log that has been cut a year or so cuts way harder than green tree.

Czarbecue said:

I’m using a 10 ton manual hydraulic splitter. So it’s splitting from the top, just laying down.

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Sorry - I missed the part in your OP where you said it was a manual splitter. I was picturing one of those powered splitters that splits vertically.

As Burnt at Both Endz noted, placement of the grain of the wood relative to the splitting wedge is of paramount importance. Typically the splitting wedge is oriented perpendicular to the growth rings of the wood. Many pieces also can be split pretty easily by orienting the wedge parallel to the rings (i.e., you could split the point off of those triangular shaped pieces pretty easily, as long as you aren't trying to split through a knot). But the wedge has to be either perpendicular or parallel to the growth rings - any other angle won't work.

All I can figure is you aren't orienting the wedge properly relative to the growth rings, or the splitter you're using isn't up to the task. As I said, the picture you posted does not appear to include any problematic pieces. They aren't particularly large, and cherry is pretty soft compared to many other smoking woods.

I suggest you split by hand for a while until you get the hang of how to place the wedge. Use a sledge hammer and wedge, not a maul (a maul makes it harder to get the orientation exactly right, and you have to be able to hit exactly the same spot multiple times until the wood splits).