Been wondering and even searched around, Although I read it used often what exactly is the definition of noodling?
Noodling is when you cut parallel to the grain of the wood in order to split it length wise. The wood chips come out long and skinny like noodles. I bought my 064 mainly to noodle with. Did some today on some knotty hickory and white oak crotches. If my Fiskars bounces off after 2 or 3 good hits, then I noodle it. That's my rule
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The farm I cut on has some big trees, often in the 30" and a few over 40", mostly oak and beech. That's big for around here. When one blows down, the rounds are just too big to be able to do anything with them, especially if they are down in a ravine. I can noodle them on the spot faster than the average splitter can split them, and it's easier to man handle my 064 around than it is to man handle a 36" round of oak
To help keep the noodles from clogging too bad, I normally put a small limb, piece of 4x4, or a split under one end of the round so that it's laying at an angle to the ground. I start with the tip of the bar on the far end of the round because that seems to help keep me from getting things crooked. From there, I drop the back of the saw in, and level the bar out so that I'm cutting at a slight angle to the grain. The noodles are shorter this way, and come off pretty good. When the back of the bar gets almost to the bottom of the round, I raise the back end up and let the bar cut parallel to the grain again. Since the end closest to me has already been cut, the noodles have more time to come off, and they generally don't clog things up. The only time I get into problems is if I'm on a big round and I don't get the noodles cleaned out from under the saw.