Tuesday, June 11, 2019

I am getting too old for this

I fiddled around with peeling the bark off. I read where settlers used to harvest the bark from Ash trees to use as shingles. It appears to be entirely feasible for hybrid poplar trees as well. I used a billhook to pry the bark off the freshly cut rounds.

First I worked a line of hits across the top of the round. Then I inserted a wedge and started driving it in.

A second wedge was added when a distinct fracture plane presented itself.

Then I did my imitation of a gandy dancer. Left, right, left, right....
The halves split much more easily than the full round. I did not even need to invoke the wedges. The reason you see one is because I was too lazy to retrieve it before splitting the halves.
You know, I might be on to something if I could come up with square tree trunks. Think of how efficiently they could be turned into lumber.

If I can manage six of these a day it will only take me three days to get them knocked out.

2 comments:

  1. I actually miss splitting wood. No fireplace here at Chateau Wilder.

    Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I finally bought a used splitter this winter

    No more repetitive motion injuries at my place thank you very much.

    Took me weeks to split and stack the twisted monster we felled last year. Of course I work slow now..

    Getting old sucks.

    ReplyDelete

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