Slide action wood splitter - GIF

[Hoosiersmoker]

An old farmer my father knew had my brothers and I out to help clear a tree line he had cut the previous year for firewood and paid us a few dollars. I didn't realize what a joker he was but he sent us to a tree line to split the wood and load it in the wagon to take to his house. We didn't know but he had gone earlier to that area and put about 4 or 5 pieces of newly cut ironwood, ready to split. We were using about a 9 lb. splitting maul and went through the walnut and oak that was there without many issues, except knots and such, and grabbed one of the weird looking logs to split. I took a windmill swing with everything I had and the maul went in maybe 1/4" and popped back out. I have 3 brothers, we were all in our teens and we wore ourselves out trying to split those logs. He pulled up a little bit later and yelled at us for taking so long to split all the wood. He kept a straight face for a few minutes then just busted out laughing and let us in on the joke. I was sore for a week trying to split that stuff by hand. When we got back to the house one of his hands was using an ancient hand operated splitter on some well seasoned ironwood, which was his favorite heating wood. Lesson well learned! Good Times!