Thanks so much to all. blackdoggy, excellent pictorial.
Finding the way a round wants to split goes a long way to making splitting by hand look easier than it is. My father is approaching 60, and I'm amazed at how little effort he looks like he's exerting and we often split wood at 30" lengths.
The ability to read the wood combined with good aim can make all the difference.
Here's some more bits of advice I've picked up from watching over the years-
-Frozen wood splits easier (the grain cannot compress when frozen and less of the energy exerted is absorbed by the compression of fibers)
-Give the wood time to split, and by that I mean, after driving the wedge a couple times, give yourself and the wood a few seconds to rest. You know you're not waiting long enough if the wedge pops out on the next strike.
-Always have
at least two wedges, sometimes ya need three... nothing more depressing than seeing a log with a couple of iron squares on the surface and no splits.
-Give it a couple strikes off before using a wedge... you might get lucky, and if not, you've got a good starting place for a wedge.
-Not necessary to keep a maul edge sharp... and while this may be personal preference, I find that splitting with a sharp maul only hinders me, especially when I miss my mark, I spend too much time prying the head out of where ever the hell I just sunk it.
-If you don't have a lot of experience, keep an eye on your maul handle close to the head... poor aim, like I had when I started doing this a lot ~10 years ago, can result in some impressive damage to the handle near the head, which can result in the head leaving the handle with high velocity in a dangerous fashion. I have a fiber glass handle that I've reinforced by putting a couple wraps of glass cloth and epoxy around the handle under the head and I don't think it'll ever come off now...