I split a lot of kindling, between the forge and the kelly kettle. I rarely ever use an axe though, unless I'm out camping. When I'm in my workshop I stick a cutter in my anvil and drive the wood onto it with a rawhide mallet. That way is fast, safe and I don't have to spend any time chasing wood around the workshop because it is usually still in my hand. So after seeing a similar idea being sold by a smith friend of my mine, I figured I should come up with something myself.
I wanted something that wasn't going to weigh too much, but would be robust and solid enough to put up with muppets trying to split a log with it rather than just kindling. I did want to make it more compact, but I couldn't think of a simple (and thus cheap) way to make it collapsible and still as rigid and without bits to lose. There are a number of diy versions doing the youtube rounds after a schoolgirl designed a cast iron one and it won some awards a couple of years ago. Most of those have 'safety' cages/rings to stop you from driving your hand onto the wedge. I've found that unless you use the correct length wood they are more of a hindrance and obviously add to the bulk and complexity of the tool. I may add something as a bolt on extra at some stage for those who want to use it.
This is how it looks at present. The blade is 20mm thick, 85mm wide and the prototypes are 100mm and a 120mm tall; the wedge section is heat treated spring steel ground to a polished rounded edge so not sharp. The spring steel is a bit over kill for good wood, but I've had a lot of nails or hard knots in crappy wood and this will chop them if you hit them hard enough rather than ding or get a burr. The base place is 120x120mm and 10mm thick with a hole in each corner for screwing to a log (at home) or pinning to the ground with a tent peg.
I tested it sitting directly on the ground (leaf litter and dirt) outside my workshop and it was plenty stable enough. The idea is that it will be used to split a small log, branch, pallet, etc into kindling using a wooden or rawhide mallet (or another stick). I would suggest that the wood to be split is a bit more than a hand width wider than the height of the wedge, so if I were to accidentally hit too hard then I wouldn't hurt myself. In practice I find that I hold the wood in the air just balancing on the top, so when I strike it the wood goes down far enough to split and my hand automatically 'bounces' back up to make the next stroke. Granted that technique is probably something that I have learned through other activities (such as forging and carving), but isn't tricky and means that I can split shorter stuff happily. The wood doesn't need to go all the way down to break, the only reason I have these two so tall is in case the wood is knotty and you have to force the split further along the length. I might try dumpy version and see how it goes. The cutter in my anvil is only about 70mm tall, but then I rarely split kindling over about 150mm in there.
Now I'm wondering if I should leave them as black metal or go for a snazzy blue paint job? The paint will add a few quid to the price and will come of in use obviously, but it does look nice
splitter by buddknives, on Flickr
I wanted something that wasn't going to weigh too much, but would be robust and solid enough to put up with muppets trying to split a log with it rather than just kindling. I did want to make it more compact, but I couldn't think of a simple (and thus cheap) way to make it collapsible and still as rigid and without bits to lose. There are a number of diy versions doing the youtube rounds after a schoolgirl designed a cast iron one and it won some awards a couple of years ago. Most of those have 'safety' cages/rings to stop you from driving your hand onto the wedge. I've found that unless you use the correct length wood they are more of a hindrance and obviously add to the bulk and complexity of the tool. I may add something as a bolt on extra at some stage for those who want to use it.
This is how it looks at present. The blade is 20mm thick, 85mm wide and the prototypes are 100mm and a 120mm tall; the wedge section is heat treated spring steel ground to a polished rounded edge so not sharp. The spring steel is a bit over kill for good wood, but I've had a lot of nails or hard knots in crappy wood and this will chop them if you hit them hard enough rather than ding or get a burr. The base place is 120x120mm and 10mm thick with a hole in each corner for screwing to a log (at home) or pinning to the ground with a tent peg.
I tested it sitting directly on the ground (leaf litter and dirt) outside my workshop and it was plenty stable enough. The idea is that it will be used to split a small log, branch, pallet, etc into kindling using a wooden or rawhide mallet (or another stick). I would suggest that the wood to be split is a bit more than a hand width wider than the height of the wedge, so if I were to accidentally hit too hard then I wouldn't hurt myself. In practice I find that I hold the wood in the air just balancing on the top, so when I strike it the wood goes down far enough to split and my hand automatically 'bounces' back up to make the next stroke. Granted that technique is probably something that I have learned through other activities (such as forging and carving), but isn't tricky and means that I can split shorter stuff happily. The wood doesn't need to go all the way down to break, the only reason I have these two so tall is in case the wood is knotty and you have to force the split further along the length. I might try dumpy version and see how it goes. The cutter in my anvil is only about 70mm tall, but then I rarely split kindling over about 150mm in there.
Now I'm wondering if I should leave them as black metal or go for a snazzy blue paint job? The paint will add a few quid to the price and will come of in use obviously, but it does look nice
splitter by buddknives, on Flickr
