That's a nice collection. I have three and one is MIA. None of mine have peened over tops though. They've split a lot of oak and gotten stuck in some pine. One time I had all three jammed in a pine crotch I should have just thrown out.
Thanks. I split on my asphalt driveway which is not flat at all and quite sloped actually. The only flat spot I have is a parking spot off to the side made of paver bricks. I put the plywood down to help protect the asphalt when I get a load of wood dumped from a truck. It isn't much but I do think it helps. So the plywood is not there for any other purpose. On smaller rounds I can easily maneuver I split on a stump with a tire mounted to it. Once I split these big boys into smaller chunks I walk 'em over to the stump/tire combo which is close to the stairs which is where I have my garden cart so I can then wheel over to the stack. That looks pretty neat. I might have to attempt to build that once I learn how to weld a little better (only have an hour under me belt thus far). We shall see how far I get today. I have 1 buddy coming over with his ISOCORE MAUL and another new neighbor I just met who splits by hand as well. I offered them to take whatever wood they can split. I'm not sure you answered my question - have you ever walked the line and split a round like that? I enjoy learning new methods and seeing what works for me. If you haven't tried it, you should try it just to see what it's like. Again, I need and enjoy the workout. I'm not in a race for speed, I have no customers, this is simply for me. Super satisfying even though using a wedge and sledge would be *faster*.
I get the opposite treatment all the time. Countless times I have had people give me the up and down stare of bewilderment when I tell them I play tennis. Then we go out onto the court and I open up a can o' whoopess and they suddenly realize their grave mistake of judging a book by its cover.
I have two warren-teed 5lb wedges I soaked in vinegar and put an edge on. I also have 2 of those crappy estwing blue wedges from HD that I don't use unless I have to. I find that the angle is too obtuse on those and they tend to pop out. I've had to grind off the tops of the wedges as they peen over the top a few times.
This reminds me of a Bad Man contest I watched many years ago. There were some very tough and fast smaller brawlers who did last till close to the end, and one medium sized polished and trained fighter (very skilled) who made it to the last bout against a very big (huge red neck man). Now this big guy was not polished or did he have any training that I could detect, but he was built like a tree and if he ever connected with one of his haymakers, it was game over. Well, they had a break before the last fight, and my buddy went down and talked to the polished trained fighter, and asked him, do you think you will be able to take this big man? The polished fighter was very confident that he would win. But he lost in the end, because he just couldn't hurt this big man, and more or less wore himself out whipping up on him, until the big guy finally landed a wild haymaker and it was lights out for the polished fighter. It was quite a lesson that evening.
I don't have a hydraulic splitter, but I did use one recently to split a couple of cords of saw mill reject logs, some were pretty big rounds. It was a big splitter and I was impressed; just rolling the rounds over to the splitter and positioning was hard enough work. I have always split by hand, but the trick is to find and cut only wood that I know I can split by hand. I don't have any steel wedges for spitting, but I did use wedges when I was a young man, and I guess I didn't have good wedges or something because I was never very successful at splitting rounds with wedges. But I was probably trying to split some really bad wood that should have been left in the woods to start with. I got into a deal recently though, where I was cutting this big Pin Oak that had been laying in a field for a couple of years, and it had a lot of knots and twisted wood in it. It was also big and it was all I could do to stand a round up on end sometimes, to split. Some of it, I was able to split with a big double bit Plum ax (my favorite) and some I went to a 6 lb maul and some of it I tried my 8 lb maul but it would often just bounce off. Some of it, I doubt I could have even split it with wedges. Normally, I might have just walked off and gave up on it, as there is easier wood to get, but it was given to me, so I felt obligated to clean it all up. Well, since I didn't have a splitter and I wasn't going to go to the trouble to try to borrow one, and haul it out there, etc, I decided to rip it with the chainsaw. I had seen this done on You Tube by Bucking Billy Ray (he is pretty informative actually) and if you watch him, you know he loves to split by hand. But in this case he did decide to rip some with the saw. And I learned that if you are going to do this, you need to saw from the side of the round and not come down from/thru the end of the round or (he said) you would burn your saw up. So, I tried it with my 362 and I must say it worked pretty good. My saw was sharp and pretty hungry, as I had filed the dogs when I sharpened the teeth, and it cut really good. So, I cut some of the rounds in half, and split some, but many were still very difficult so I quartered the rest and some the really bad knotted stuff, I even cut a little but more, but it worked and I didn't wear myself out on impossible knotted and twisted rounds. I wouldn't recommend this as a regular plan of action, but it beats the heck out of beating on a round until you are blue in the face if you don't have a powerful hydraulic splitter.
Not to sound like the safety police but I could grind the peened ends off of them if you like. I witnessed a dude get a chunk of metal imbedded in his face from a piece of a wedge that came off when he struck it with the mall.
I'm getting far pickier now that I have no room for shorties, not much room for additional stacks (maybe 2 more if I really try), I've got kindling for the next 5 years, and since I don't have a stove......I don't have any desire for uglies, shorties....and right now I'm just spoiling myself by giving away pieces I probably wouldn't have given away when I first started splitting exactly a year ago. I would highly suggest trying to find a vintage wedge on eBay with a nice, slim profile, with little sign of abuse (i.e. the head all bashed up and in need of grinding)....They work so much better than the crap you can buy at the box stores. Make sure you wear your face shield and protective glasses when thou art grinding the wedges! Let me know how it works out for ya. It doesn't always work.....which is ok.....if there is a buried knot or some other form of ridiculousness, it ain't gonna happen. In that case I just transition to the wedge. Today I tried to walk the line on both these rounds to no avail and look what I found inside after using the wedges......
HW10 looks like it has potential. It's a stone splitting wedge but so what. Hand Splitting Wedges - Masonry & Hardscaping
