You know Don, I bet you're right about the whorls. When I come to a knot, if I'm going at 60 I speed up to 90 on the knot. Green or dry, I take a good full swing at the knots. Maybe I better slow down, go back to pecking. At least on each side of the knot.
One more question, you hew from butt to tip?
When I've tried that on the finishing pass, the results have always been sort of splintery. Don't have that problem when I hew from tip to butt. Not sure why. But that's me, and I'm hewing fairly young plantation white pine.
Like you said, everybody's different. It's just a matter of what works. Thanks for the response.