manual splitters question: do you use a chopping block?

[philaphire]

So I've been one to lay the rounds directly on the ground and split them given that gives me the longest swing and most power - like using the driver in golf. However, with the ground soft from all the rain, I'm wondering if using a chopping block will be better as it might keep more force in the round than soft ground absorbing it. Sure I might lose a foot or so of momentum, but does the hard block vs soft ground make a difference that's worthwhile. I'll probably try both tomorrow and go with what works/feels best, but curious as to what some of you do.

THANKS!

 

[begreen]

Without a doubt. The energy of impact is greatly absorbed by the ground. A chopping block will save you half the energy it takes to split and it raises the wood a bit higher so less bending over.

 

[pgmr]

Almost always use the block, unless I can't get the piece to stand up. I try to swing so the blade is coming straight down, instead of an arc, so if I mis-hit, the maul/sledge is not heading back toward my legs. It's harder to do that if the piece is on the ground.

 

[hardwood715]

I use a big chunk from a maple , the base, and it works well, sometimes if i miss and the wood falls off, ill swing at it again on ground, good way to aereate the lawn, you know the miss, miss again...... :-S

 

[AKFireMan]

I use a block.......3 reasons.

1. In summer the ground is soft and will absorb alot of energy when splitting.

2. Winter the ground is frozen very hard and I have chipped splitting edges on various types of mauls if the tool hits the ground on follow through.

3. Last but not least is the miss hit, normally you hit the block and not your leg. (haven't done this in a long time but anything can and will happen)

 

[quads]

I split the rounds right where the tree fell and was cut up. Just tip them up as I move along the tree until done. Less handling and moving the wood around unnecessarily that way. I never use a splitting block, mostly because I would have to move it along the tree with me or carry the rounds to it. Also, each time I swing at a round, it usually tips over and I have to bend to tip it up again. Seems like putting it on a splitting block would guarantee I would have to bend after every swing and not just tip the round back up to swing again, but also lift it onto the block. Oh, my aching back! I would rather not lift the rounds at all until split, if I don't have to, and handle each piece of wood as few times as possible.

 

[DeanBrown3D]

I use a 6" tall block of sweet gum. That will NEVER split in half, although I do tear off a slither from the side occasionally, when my aim is down.

 

[Dave_1]

manual splitters question: do you use a chopping block?

No, age hasn't slowed down the 16 lb Stoz maul, it still works like new. ;-)

Dave

 

[begreen]

Dave, try it with a block of wood underneath the round. Placed on a block, that monster will work on gravity alone to split the wood.

 

[Rich M]

I use a short Beech chopping block, the hard surface makes up for less swing arc. Better for the tool edge too. I use a splitter for the big gnarly pieces but switch to the maul for all the halfs, smaller rounds and straight grains.

 

[kd460]

I use a piece of ash for a chopping block, only because it was the biggest piece I had. I also use an old car tire to put the pieces of wood in when splitting. The car tire holds them upright, and no flying pieces, no bending over. It all just stays inside the tire. I did drill a few holes in the tire to prevent water from staying inside it, and just recently I used 4 pieces of chain and some wood bolts and hooks to keep the tire from falling off the chopping block.

Using the tire has cut my splitting time in half. Everything in the tire gets split, then that load gets scooped up in my arms and added to the stack in one trip per tire load. Really helps when you have lots of smaller pieces. Can put 5 or 6 smaller rounds in at the same time and split them all, then move them to the stack. Any tire store will give you one, I'm on my second season, one side wall is starting to get blown out, but it still works great. It does increase your risk for an overstrike and a broken handle, but fiberglass cured that. KD

 

[citizanken]

I use a chopping block. It might just be in my mind, but I think it gives me a added bit of safety. I am relatively new to swinging the maul, and I am afraid I would bash my leg or knee if I had a bad swing :red:

 

[suematteva]

I use a about a 10 inch block of hard hack..have 2 strips of maple flooring nailed to bottom and after about 15 rounds it is solid as a rock...

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

i just use the wood that im splitting, when it goes i have firewood and grab another, from the stack im splitting...

 

[Dave_1]

Dave, try it with a block of wood underneath the round. Placed on a block, that monster will work on gravity alone to split the wood.

BeGreen,

If I did that then wouldn’t get the exercise needed to keep up shoulder strength. And the Guvenator says that I can’t eat Kallifornia spinach no more. Like Kermit said; “Being green ain’t easy.” :lol:

Dave

 

[Gooserider]

I use a piece of ash for a chopping block, only because it was the biggest piece I had. I also use an old car tire to put the pieces of wood in when splitting. The car tire holds them upright, and no flying pieces, no bending over. It all just stays inside the tire. I did drill a few holes in the tire to prevent water from staying inside it, and just recently I used 4 pieces of chain and some wood bolts and hooks to keep the tire from falling off the chopping block.

Using the tire has cut my splitting time in half. Everything in the tire gets split, then that load gets scooped up in my arms and added to the stack in one trip per tire load. Really helps when you have lots of smaller pieces. Can put 5 or 6 smaller rounds in at the same time and split them all, then move them to the stack. Any tire store will give you one, I'm on my second season, one side wall is starting to get blown out, but it still works great. It does increase your risk for an overstrike and a broken handle, but fiberglass cured that. KD

I find that using normal round for a block hurt my efficiency because I was hitting to high in the swing, and the maul (I use a 12 lb monster maul for most stuff, an 8 lb sledge and wedges for the gnarly crap) didn't have enough time to build up a good head of steam. The extra lifting to get the target back on the block after every hit also got old fast. It also seemed that because the normal arc was shorter a miss got closer to my legs before it hit the ground. I do tend towards a longer round than most - our stove takes 28" max, I usually cut 22-26"

Best was the ~4-6" high stump left from a big swamp maple I had dropped, that was nice and solid, didn't ding up the tools, and wasn't going anywhere. It seemed to give me an optimal impact height, and didn't waste any energy going into the ground. The slight differences in slope from where it had been cut also worked well for finding a place where not-quite-square cut rounds could be spun to get a stable position and a good hitting surface. I really liked splitting on it. Only trouble is that it's on the other side of the yard from where the log-length pile is, and where my wood sheds are. It doesn't make sense to move all the rounds from the pile past the woodshed to split them, then move the splits back!

So now I split on the ground, but pretty much in the same spot, within tossing distance of the woodshed. I move the rounds to the spot, split them, and toss the splits to in front of the shed, then the GF or I stack them in the shed to dry. The ground is a bit springy, but the constant impacting in the same general area has pushed the topsoil out of the way, leaving a harder clay / sand surface that doesn't have to much bounce. I still miss the stump though, and wouldn't mind having a SHORT block - say 6-10" above the ground. Trouble is I don't have any big rounds of wood that wouldn't quickly break up if cut that short.

Anyone near Lowell, MA have some large diameter rounds of elm or other "unsplittable" wood they'd like to swap for?

KD, that idea about using a tire to hold up your splits is BRILLIANT! I can't wait to give it a try as the constant having to pick up targets after every swing is something that has long annoyed me. Also seems like a good way to save tool edges as a miss will hit the tire instead of the ground. Thanks for sharing the idea.

Gooserider

 

[kd460]

Well Goose, as I read your post, it made me realize how much sense that makes about the height of the chopping block. I do have mine on a slight grade and notice splitting is easier when I'm up on the grade as apposed to downside on the grade.

Another solution for a chopping block that is to high is to simply dig down into the dirt and drop the block into the hole however deep you need to make the block sit about 4-6 inches above grade (or your comfort level). Drop the block in the hole and back fill to lock the "stump" into position. Now you have the height you want, and a good solid block that won't move or split (cause it's actually taller than 4-6 inches-most of it is just buried in the ground). Can't believe I didn't think of it earlier. Just needed your help I guess. Thanks!

Gonna do that first thing in the morning before the frost sets in (which will be soon here in Michigan). My block does have a slightly uneven top to it also, and I agree it helps for the unlevel cut pieces. Glad I could help with the tire gizmo. It really speeds things up. KD

EDIT: I can't take credit for the tire thingy-I read about it somewhere on the internet.

 

[BrotherBart]

Back before I decided that pulling a start rope twice beat the heck out of swinging a maul many times, I split on the ground. Still do when the urge strikes me. With the surface area of a ten inch or larger round, if you think you are lumberjack enough to hit it hard enough with the wedge end of a maul for the ground to be absorbing a bunch of energy you are dreaming. Or you have the maul turned around backwards.

 

[ChrisN]

I always split the rounds directly on the ground. I read somewhere a suggestion to dig a hole and plant a round into it, making the top level with the ground to use as a splitting base. It seems like it would work, but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet. So I pretty much just attempt to split the rounds where they sit. My rule of thumb is if it doesn't split after 4 rapid whacks, I leave it and move onto another. I come back to the contrary ones after a while, (sometimes weeks or months later), find it great therapy to just work on one round for 10 or 15 minutes after a day at the office.

kd, I think i'll try the tire method next time. I happen to have several tires left over from my summer gardening experiment when I attempted to grow potatoes in them. I didn't work for me nearly as well as I had oped.

 

[colsmith]

I generally split on a block, we use big stump hunks that are wide and fairly short, we have a few scattered in various parts of the yard where we tend to do our splitting. I lean really oddly shaped wood that won't sit flat on the blocks on the ground by them, propped up by something else if necessary. It is very easy for me to tell that it requires more force to split wood on the ground than on the block, because the ground does smush and absorb some energy. BrotherBart, it is because I am NOT a big old lumberjack that the block helps. Think of cracking a hard boiled egg on the kitchen counter versus on a soft squishy couch, which is easier? If that doesn't convince you, I used to teach physics, maybe you will trust me on this one. It really is easier to split wood on a hard surface than on a soft surface. As for the lower distance of the swing, that doesn't make up for the squishy factor. Maybe if I was really short to start with it might matter, but I'm tall.

 

[Gooserider]

KD - Another solution for a chopping block that is to high is to simply dig down into the dirt and drop the block into the hole however deep you need to make the block sit about 4-6 inches above grade (or your comfort level). Drop the block in the hole and back fill to lock the “stump” into position. Now you have the height you want, and a good solid block that won’t move or split (cause it’s actually taller than 4-6 inches-most of it is just buried in the ground). Can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier. Just needed your help I guess. Thanks!

Gonna do that first thing in the morning before the frost sets in (which will be soon here in Michigan). My block does have a slightly uneven top to it also, and I agree it helps for the unlevel cut pieces. Glad I could help with the tire gizmo. It really speeds things up. KD

EDIT: I can’t take credit for the tire thingy-I read about it somewhere on the internet.

Glad to have helped out, I hadn't really thought of burying a log, but that makes sense, and I have a couple that would likely work really well for that - couple of feet around, and full of knots. I'd been dreading the notion of trying to split those anyhow. I might not get around to burying them until spring, as I'm mostly done w/ wood cutting / splitting for the season - the sheds are full and my left over rounds are all stacked and tarped for the winter. The monster rounds are either on the bottom of the pile or bracing it up. It also won't be fun digging a hole that's large enough givin that we are in prime New England "rock farming" country... But I can start looking for a tire much sooner than that!

BrotherBart
Back before I decided that pulling a start rope twice beat the heck out of swinging a maul many times, I split on the ground. Still do when the urge strikes me. With the surface area of a ten inch or larger round, if you think you are lumberjack enough to hit it hard enough with the wedge end of a maul for the ground to be absorbing a bunch of energy you are dreaming. Or you have the maul turned around backwards.

Well BB, I've never tried instrumenting things to measure them, but I've watched the earth next to a round shake when I give the round a good whack with my monster maul - it makes sense to me that any energy that's going into moving the dirt isn't making the log split. When I was whacking stuff on my favorite stump, it seemed that I needed fewer hits / split, considering the wood type, but it was hard to tell since what I was splitting on the stump was mostly maple, and the load of log-length I got and was splitting on the ground seemed to be mostly red oak that was easier to split.

Suffice to say that I think it is easier / better to split on a block that's the right height for the same reason a blacksmith finds it easier to whack on steel that is sitting on an anvil...

chrisN:
I always split the rounds directly on the ground. I read somewhere a suggestion to dig a hole and plant a round into it, making the top level with the ground to use as a splitting base. It seems like it would work, but I haven’t gotten around to trying it yet. So I pretty much just attempt to split the rounds where they sit. My rule of thumb is if it doesn’t split after 4 rapid whacks, I leave it and move onto another. I come back to the contrary ones after a while, (sometimes weeks or months later), find it great therapy to just work on one round for 10 or 15 minutes after a day at the office.

I guess I'm more of a stubborn b*****d! I figure that I have to deal with any given piece sooner or later, so once I'm hitting it, I might as well get it over with. I'll whack it with the monster maul for a while, but if that doesn't seem to be getting anywhere I'll grab the sledge and wedges, but the only way a round leaves my splitting zone is in pieces! On the flip side, I've learned to be pretty good at guessing which hunks are going to go easy and which ones will give me a hard time. I try to choose my "victims" so as to get 4-5 'easy' logs for every gnarly one.

chrisN:
kd, I think i’ll try the tire method next time. I happen to have several tires left over from my summer gardening experiment when I attempted to grow potatoes in them. I didn’t work for me nearly as well as I had oped.

I eat low carb, so I have no interest in potatoes, but I've had pretty decent luck growing hot peppers in tires. My bee supply lady raises llama's so she is always looking to get rid of 'llamadoo' which is an excellent fertilizer (It's nice to have friends who will give you $#!T on request....) I used a hole saw to cut a few holes one of the sidewalls of a bunch of tires. I put the tires on a piece of black plastic, filled them with a 50/50 blend of llamadoo and potting soil, then covered the top with more plastic. I then cut a few holes in the plastic to match the sidewall holes I made earlier, and a few more in the center hole, and put about 6 plants in each tire. The effect is a raised bed that is easy to work around. The black plastic keeps the soil moist and helps warm it, as well as discouraging most of the weeds. I've gotten several good crops this way.

Gooserider

 

[cbrodsky]

I use a piece of ash for a chopping block, only because it was the biggest piece I had. I also use an old car tire to put the pieces of wood in when splitting. The car tire holds them upright, and no flying pieces, no bending over. It all just stays inside the tire. I did drill a few holes in the tire to prevent water from staying inside it, and just recently I used 4 pieces of chain and some wood bolts and hooks to keep the tire from falling off the chopping block.

Using the tire has cut my splitting time in half. Everything in the tire gets split, then that load gets scooped up in my arms and added to the stack in one trip per tire load. Really helps when you have lots of smaller pieces. Can put 5 or 6 smaller rounds in at the same time and split them all, then move them to the stack. Any tire store will give you one, I'm on my second season, one side wall is starting to get blown out, but it still works great. It does increase your risk for an overstrike and a broken handle, but fiberglass cured that. KD

Really good idea - I will try it! I agree with all the posters who split on a large block. Sometimes I get tired of picking up pieces after they shatter and fly off the block even though they need to be split further - this idea may help.

I think the main advantage I see is that when I split on the ground, I find it necessary to squat as I come down with the maul so that the handle is parallel with the ground to get effective splitting. This seems to increase the success of the split, but it wears me out after a while. Having the top of the wood about waist high avoids this and seems to be about optimal for my method.

-Colin

 

[ChrisN]

Marica aka Somelikeithot wrote:

Think of cracking a hard boiled egg on the kitchen counter versus on a soft squishy couch, which is easier? If that doesn’t convince you, I used to teach physics, maybe you will trust me on this one. It really is easier to split wood on a hard surface than on a soft surface. As for the lower distance of the swing, that doesn’t make up for the squishy factor.

Oh Marcia, I've been enjoying the lively debates on this forum for quite a while now, and I've got to say I will be surprised if your suggestion that you used to teach physics will cause the skeptics among us to "trust you on this one." Your use of squishy as a condition for splitting is very subjective. I split on firm ground, it can get a bit mucky now and then, so how does that compare to elevetating the target round up 18 inches? Who knows. I won't be able to match your math computations proving which method is more effective, but I can say that after several years I find splitting rounds directly on the ground is easier, faster and saves my back.

 

[Dave_1]

" ... I split on firm ground, it can get a bit mucky now and then, so how does that compare to elevetating the target round up 18 inches? .... but I can say that after several years I find splitting rounds directly on the ground is easier, faster and saves my back.

I second that fact & approve this message!! ;-)

Dave

 

[cbrodsky]

Marica aka Somelikeithot wrote:

Think of cracking a hard boiled egg on the kitchen counter versus on a soft squishy couch, which is easier? If that doesn’t convince you, I used to teach physics, maybe you will trust me on this one. It really is easier to split wood on a hard surface than on a soft surface. As for the lower distance of the swing, that doesn’t make up for the squishy factor.

Oh Marcia, I've been enjoying the lively debates on this forum for quite a while now, and I've got to say I will be surprised if your suggestion that you used to teach physics will cause the skeptics among us to "trust you on this one." Your use of squishy as a condition for splitting is very subjective. I split on firm ground, it can get a bit mucky now and then, so how does that compare to elevetating the target round up 18 inches? Who knows. I won't be able to match your math computations proving which method is more effective, but I can say that after several years I find splitting rounds directly on the ground is easier, faster and saves my back.

Yea, I'd say it's hard to say one will be universally better. For example, a poorly set block of wood could be a lot worse than splitting on dense rocky clay.

Most anything outside any of us split on is pretty solid - I'll give people the benefit of the doubt that they don't split in mud. I think much more important are things like how well the blade aligns to the piece being split and how freely the maul head is moving. (i.e. relaxed guiding the head vs. choking up hard on the handle... think golf swing...) I'd guess people learn the most effective way to deliver the maul position at their preferred splitting height, and once they change height, other aspects of the splitting change and are less ideal, and at that point, they are forever convinced their way is right

-Colin