My cousin offered me this oak log from a tree-removal the other day. I got over there in a hurry and found this chunk at about 40" in diameter. It took me about an hour and a half to split it the first time, taking advantage of some checks that had already formed. I'm going back to expend more effort on it tonight.
I'm really looking forward to having radially split oak boards, but this is a learning experience I never bargained for. I broke my club/beetle, my froe, and severely degraded one hatchet handle in the process. leap-frogging a pair of splitting wedges is a nice theory, but I wish I had 10 sharp ones. (the 2 I used yesterday are sharp for today).
Enjoy the pictures.
 |
| The first step is scoring a line. I used a machete (not pictured). |
 |
| This froe was still useful after it broke. I'm pretty sure breaking it was my own fault. I should not have hit it with steel after the wooden maul broke. |
 |
| Finally it's in two. For bonus points, count the broken tools. |
 |
| My cousin and I struggled with one half for a while. It was harder since there were no existing checks to take advantage of. |
No comments:
Post a Comment