Chopping Block....What to Use?

I made the mistake of underestimating the splitting power of my Fiskars X25. My first attempt went right through some oak and hit a rock just under the soil. I needed a chopping block.

I don't have any large rounds and most of mine aren't level, so its been a bit awkward for me so far. I've been balancing two rounds on top of one another. It works but I'm always straightening things back out.

What else could I use as a chopping block? How would birch plywood hold up? I could glue a couple of 3/4" thick 2' x 2' pieces together??? Would that work or would it just be temporary at best?

Thanks!

Find your thckest round and cut a nice flat round about a foot long and use that. You're going to hit it a lot with the business end of the Fiskars and its going to vaporize the plywood in short order.

You can make one from some 4x4's and plywood. It can be any size you want.
Add an old tire, and you are good to go.
I scrounged the wood from some pallets.

That is genius. Found my answer!

One suggestion, use some extra pieces of plywood on top, when they wear out just remove them.
Wish I would have done that in the first place.

Chopping block need not be level. In fact I always choose one that is a little off-kilter so that it can cancel out the off-kilter cuts. Sometimes two wrongs DO make a RIGHT!

So do three lefts!

I saw that pic a while back and forgot about it. Now I got my weekend project. what did you use to secure the 4x4's?

How small are your rounds? Nothing 18" or bigger? Really?

I'd rather just put my tire on the ground and split there. I've used a tree stump and that worked okay.
Chopping block or on the ground... either way, get yourself an old tire. It keeps the wood together, you don't have to keep picking up the rounds/splits to stand them up again.
And it keeps the chips and debris in one tight spot.

I cut down a stump, inverted an old ATV tire & screwed it to the stump.
taller sometimes is good, it cushions the handle when the split goes deep & springs it back up, (lift assist)

I do that too. Nice and sloped, but not so sloped that the straight, small diameter rounds fall over.
Whenever neighbors give me bits of wood they've cut I need a real slanty block to get them to stand up.

My chopping block is a round.

Every now and again it gets split and replaced due to wear and tear.......

Bit like never ending recycling ;-)

Mine has a 2 stage slope. I use the humboldt notch felling technique and sometimes the bottom round cuts don't quite land on the same plane. One half of the block has slightly more "kilter" to it.

A "chopping block" search turned up this old post. I saw the pic of WES999 chopping block somewhere else here . And as burnit13 did, I hit the ground a few times with the Fiskars and decided I need a block. I am going to the tire store today to see if I can find a small tire that will fit inside a larger tire (free). My thinking is I will have the larger tire for multiple rounds (or very large singles) and if I am doing smaller single rounds, I will put the smaller tire inside the larger one to hold the smaller round.

A friend had leftover 6x6's from building a deck.I cut them 24" long and used 2 pieces of allthread to hold them together.Makes a nice area for overstrike protection around the edges.

Here in town I have 2 18"+ very knotty Eastern Red Cedar rounds,about 10"-12" long max for chopping blocks.Also used for ripping shorter slabs & roughing out various blocks for woodturning etc.About 4 yrs old now,a few knicks from the axe/maul,no signs of splitting apart yet.Though they do have a bunch of shallow grooves less than 1/2" deep from the saw kerfs,that keeps any rounds from moving around.