I have used a ripping chain and it does work better for what you want to
do than a standard (crossuctting) chain does. But, the cutter design
makes them pretty hard to resharpen; for me at least. This is the style
of chain that works best for those log sawing gadgets that clamp to the
chain saw bar. I had to special order that chain.

Someone else already mentioned splitting the log with a log splitter,
but here's the cheapest and best answer:
A Froe. It is like a large knife with a handle at a right angle to
the blade. You drive it into the end grain as far as you can then twist
the handle to open up the split.
Here's one:
http://www.woodcraft.com/depts.aspx?...FSemQQodUjB-YQ
If you were going to use it a lot for bowl turning, where you might be
using woods that are less prone to splitting than cedar, I'd get one
with a "deeper" blade. That'll give you more twisting ability, but the
one on that webpage should work well. (I make my own from old car leaf
spring).


A decent Froe won't cost any more than a ripping chain and it give you
very good control of the split.

This tool works particularly well on short rounds such as you have
there. A friend of mine makes his living demonstrating wood turning
on a spring pole lathe. He uses the froe to even split off sections for
platter turning.

The only caveat as I see it is that if you were splitting an Elm or
other really stringy wood, the normal Froe might not totally part the
round. In that case, I'd get a couple of steel (or wooden) wedges,
remove the Froe and complete the split with them. Very satisfying
method and makes hardly any noise.

Pete Stanaitia
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