I was splitting this morning and noticed several nicks on the wedge of my box store splitter. Is it worth it to grind a new edge on it being only a box store?
Probably doesn't matter all that much. I guess if it bothers you or is really bad then you could touch it up but it doesn't really need to be razor sharp since it is designed to split with the grain and not cut across it like you would with an axe.
I would at the least smooth out the marks. I recently had to do that on my 34t Huskee after running into several nails in mulberry.
My wedge is thin and slices through strings and knots. Having it sharp makes the difference between strands everywhere and clean splits.
My husband used a very old - like 60 years old splitting maul. Over the last few decades I'd find orange dust on our knife sharpening wand in the knife set. Worked for him back then. (he has a new one now , wood handle broke and I could not fine a replacement that fit his maul).
I wouldn't worry about it, but weird that is odd it was nicked from the factory. I've thought of sharpening mine as its duller than my love life, but with my luck I'll cut myself on it so I leave it as is.
Not nicked from factory. I've had it 5 years probably 120 cords. A log I was splitting had a chain in it. Didn't notice the nicks till this week. Got lucky the saw never hit the chain.
My bad. Helps if I read it AND it registered upstairs. The hydro I use is 3.5 years old and it splits a lot of wood as you've seen.
Right after finishing my splitter on maybe the 3rd use, I was splitting up some 3 ft rounds for my Dad at a rental. In the middle of the tree was a 1/2 round bar of steel that my wedge severed and made a big ding. Couldn't see it was there. What you can do with those is get a thick piece of copper and use it on the back side. Fill in with weld and grind that back to your edge you want. Copper sucks the heat and you can build weld on the surface. Saves wasting a lot of steel trying to sharpen the whole thing.
Nails , and hooks are not that uncommon, but a 18" section of 3/8" chain inbedded perfectly so you can't see it and it lined up perfectly inside the sixteen inch block was a first and hopefully an only.
I would touch it up. A good job for a 4 inch grinder to true up. I wouldn't worry about spending too much time on it.
I honed up the wedge on my little Timber Champ , 7 ton kinetic electric powered splitter . Made a Big difference. Especially around knots and stringers. Came out with cleaner splits and less chopping strings with the hatchet. It also really bumped up the splitters proformance. Being a kinetic, once the rack starts forward, it's all downhill from there power wise. Having it as sharp as I can easily make it helps I've found .
