on Aug 25th, 2005Quest for a Plank from a Log — Part
So, we all got to talking the other day about splitting out very thick planks from logs from trees that are not oak, pine, or ash (the best trees for riving/splitting).
Lo and behold, right after I was able to save some 12″ diameter maple logs from the city dump. They were from a limb that had fallen from a MASSIVE old maple in our neighborhood.
So, obviously the first problem is that this is limb stock, but it was so thick and had some lovely straight sections that I decided to go for it. As a test run for the Walnut tree at my Father in Law’s place that is laying on the ground waiting for me.
I chainsawed off the rotten parts, and then cut out the straight sections into manageable chunks. This maple is HARD and HEAVY, and the 18″ poulan really really doesn’t like it, but I took it slow and managed not to soil my clean underwear.
So here we are with our fist log split in half. This part was easy, just a matter of taking it slow and leapfrogging my wedges.
Normally I would stop at this point and use the bandsaw to saw these two halfs up into the thickest blanks I could possibly get. But I wanted to try this whole plank thing so onwards and upwards as they say.
At this point I realized that I have misplaced my other 2 wedges. Meaning that instead of having four for this next part I only have 2. Not good, but I decided to persevere anyways. This was one of my 2 mistakes.
Next I strike a line and try to divide the mass in half.
I start the kerf for the wedges with a handsaw, and then use a small and very cheap hatchet to open up the kerf enough to allow for the thick iron wedges.
Here is why everything goes sideways. I lay the log on its sides, advance the split down the side, get the wedges set, and then slowly tap them until I feel the log split away from itself.
However this was my unexpected result:
As you can see, it ran out and only split off that small section.
The problem was two-fold. First I did not get the split adequately started on the top of the log. Second because I only had two wedges I tried to do this all from one side, which I’m pretty sure is a bad idea. I should have been splitting from both sides and using more wedges.
That was the root of all problems. NOT ENOUGH WEDGES. I cannot stress that enough. More wedges is better.
So, today I’ll get some more wedges, and tear the garage down finding my other two and I will try again on the other half of this log. I will be much more patient, and I think ultimately I will have success.
Finally, let me tell you something. This work is extremely exhausting. Between wrestling the chainsaw, and swinging the sledge hammer to drive the weges I was a sweaty wore-out sumbuck last night. I slept good I can tell you. I cannot imagine my grandfather who worked like this all day every day until well into his 70s.