Alright.. stupid question. Coming from cities all my life, I've never had to split a log in my life. Now I live on a wooded lot and build a fire almost every night.. What are the appropriate tools/techniques for splitting 4-6" diameter logs? I have only used the Glock field knife and a baton, which worked beautifully, but I know there are better tools for the job. I picked up a hatchet, but basically I'd get the whole head sunk into a log and be unable to finish the split because there's nothing available to strike. At least the knife was longer than the diameter of any wood I'd split, so you could pound it all the way through. Thanks for any advice for this outdoors newbie.
Either get yourself what's called a splitting maul, which looks like a sledgehammer witha fat axe type blade on one end, use that by itself should split logs of that size with ease, or you can use the same maul's blunt hammer end and get yourself a spliting wedge.
Wow. A field knife and a baton. I'm impressed. There are 3 tools you would need to split just about anything. A maul, a sledgehammer and wedges. A maul is a heavy headed (6-12lb) axe designed specifically for splitting. A morph of a sledge and an axe. The angle on the face is wide, so unlike the hatchet, it will spread the wood much more. Really for 4-6" logs you should be able to pop them apart with one swing of a maul. When you get into larger rounds that's where the sledge and wedges come in. You pound the wedges into, say a 24" diamemter round of oak, and work off chunks that are manageable with a maul. You should be able to pick up all of these items at a hardware store. For light duty most any brand will do. I prefer wooden handles to fiberglass, but a good fiberglass handle is easier to get than a good wood handle. Most of the wood handles these days are soft. Fiberglass won't break, but eventually the head will become loose. A lot of swings before that though. You can easily get a good maul, sledge and 3 wedges for under a c-note and be set for anything.
I picked up an #8 maul this afternoon and went to town on some wood.. amazing how easy that thing splits once you get a good, accurate swing going. I can see where you'd probably have to cut all the way through if you used a regular axe.
a splitting wegde or single blade axe for wood that size. But for 4"-6" we don't split them. We split 12" or bigger in diameter. if they are really big or you have alot of wood to split, but a gas or electric wood splitter.
I agree that a maul and a few wedges ought to get you going with that small stuff, but if you have some bigger stuff around, these are about the best bang for your buck going. http://www.thestickler.com/ They retail for over $250 with shipping, but my uncle has one he paid $15 for at an estate sale. Look around...you might be surprised at the wide variety of options available to you!
I thought that was joke but man that's impressive. Don't know if I would want to jack up my car/truck and have it running just to split some logs. I wonder why nobody has something like that attached to a 5hp lawm-motor engine? Slight different approach then the conventional splitter.
If you want to split logs you will need a sledge and wedges. If you want to split blocks that have been cut from logs, you will need any of the above mentioned stuff (ax, maul, etc).
Rusty, don't be scared to grind a little sharper edge on the maul than what it came with. It'll make things go a little easier. Also, be careful not to "over strike", it won't take too many of those to break a wooden handled maul. Somebody makes a splitting maul with a steel tube handle that is unbreakable, they are/were orange in color. NS
