Chopping kindling on hard standing - axe protector?

Would a Butchers chopping block be a good option?

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, David snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com writes

Many years ago at a farm auction I was persuaded to bid on a 40' x 20' chicken shed. Needless to say, nobody else wanted the bother of dismantling, carting a re-erecting the thing. Well we got it home but the impetus had gone. The aluminium roofing got used for other jobs, the extractor fan motors are on my pile to be sold for scrap, the timber walls have been very useful!

Creosoted tongue and groove pine burn and split very well and have started innumerable log fires. Small pile of sticks on the log burner grate. Few seconds with the boss's creme brule torch and then some logs laid in carefully....

Bit of plywood on the workbench, a hatchet or hand chopper and some straight grain pallet wood....

That is my tool of choice for splitting logs. I also use it on the back side with a pineapple shaped/bomb log splitter. It is a bit overkill.

Most of the time I use deadwood branches that drop off my trees after a period of storage in the dry. But a few small pieces are handy.

Have you got an old kitchen chopping board, either wood or plastic?

So, take your chainsaw, and go cut a lump of full round timber from a tree, and use that as your chopping block.

Ideally make it long enough you can bury one end in the ground, to give you a plinth you can work at without stooping over.

(a bit of 4x4" fence post would probably do at a pinch)

Electric chain saw.

No easy access to wood to cut anyway.

Oh, and I need it to work on block paving so no burying.

Overall hassle factor would make it cheaper to but a ready cut trunk with flat ends (see price in OP).

I was just looking for something very simple which didn't involve going out to hunt the dead tree.

Also, I could no doubt manufacture something but am up to my neck in can't- be-arsed at the moment so I was just looking for a simple, cheap, ready made solution.

Like a block of rubber (my first thought).

I think that relatively thin bits of wood (plank off-cuts or old chopping boards) would be very likely to split along the grain after only a short battering.

My main requirements are minimal size, minimal effort to obtain, and easily stowed out of the way.

As I said earlier my stock of useful off-cuts, wood scraps and the like went through the fire a year or so back.

The list of what I already have was an attempt to head off the multiple attempts to persuade me to buy them.

Cheers

Dave R

Last I checked, they still cut wood! :-)

Buy a length of cheap 6x2 pine or similar, screw togther a few 12" long cut off sections, and flip it on its side. Use that as a chopping block. You can stick a foot on one end to keep it stable, Hold your bit of firewood steady by hand, and chop away with a small axe or wedge and hammer.

Might just get you a rebound into the face!

I get a reasonable sized stick delivered once a day by a passing dog whose owner takes it for a long walk in nearby woods, started a few years ago so the sticks get time to dry out before they are needed. Costs me the odd slice off a carrot occasionally plus the occasional afternoon of looking after the dog if the owner can?t take it somewhere.

GH

Reporting back.

I found the pallet thing which the wood burner was delivered on, hidden away. That does the job adequately (shifts around but keeps the axe away from the hard standing).

The good bit is that splitting the wood down a little further has made a big difference to the speed that the stove gets up to temperature. Once the coals are red hot the bigger bits burn well.

I assume the slow starting was due to the ratio of volume to surface area

- not enough surface area for the fire to catch well. Also (see why wooden beams don't burn as fast as you would expect in a house fire) the carbonisation of the surface can retard the spread of the fire.

Anyway, worth doing.

Although it is getting towards the end of the log burning season and the log pile is quite small now.

Cheers

Dave R

The "area to volume" thing you mention is correct, but the other good argument for splitting especially if you use timber from logs is that this gives them a better chance to dry. Most commercial logs are not dried for very long, and often only in thick sections which dry slowly.

My local logs typically come as cylinders between 4 and 8 inches in diameter, or sometimes split from bigger rings into pieces typically 6 inches across. I used to split a dustbin full into pieces that were typically triangles of 3 to 4 inches on each side. I'd stack these up each side of the woodburner. I'd burn from one side, then refill that and start burning from the other. That way (after the first load), I was always burning wood that had been split and in a warm place for a week or so. This generates significantly more heat than freshly split wood, because damp wood steals heat by sending water vapour up the chimney.

I still don't understand your need for this. Do you miss a lot? Even if you do then any slab of thick wood or plastic ought to do.

Only really needed for starting the fire. I tend to use newspaper dry bits that drop off my pine tree and dried tangerine peel with a few thin strips of selected kindling made from corners of logs and any thin ones.

It is surprising how resistant to catching bulk wood can be. Edges and corners will always catch first.

My log supplier seems fairly good at seasoning it, but I still have them in my under cover log stack for several months prior to burning and in the inglenook warmed by the fire for a few days after that.

It is certainly the case that wet wood doesn't burn at all hot. The drier you can get it prior to putting it in the burner the better.

I use a hatchet and a club hammer to split wood. This is generally very effective. However now and then a piece of wood splits far more easily than expected and the hatchet flies through the wood and towards the ground.

Having something between block paving and the blade avoids damaging the blade of the hatchet.

Not complicated, really.

If you look back, I started out searching for an off-the-shelf slab of {something}.

Not having a slab of plastic or thick wood to hand.

Cheers

Dave R

You should be able to pull the blow if it goes so easily. I just use an axe for kindling and a damn big one for serious work of bigger logs. The biggest ones use a log exploder. It isn't very sharp at all.

No it isn't. If you can judge how hard to hit it.

Learning to use an axe properly might be a better approach.

Ah! The Apple approach. I'm obviously (holding) doing it wrong.

Assume that I have assessed the risk and have chosen a mitigation that I feel is appropriate.

Learning that your chosen way of doing things isn't always the best for everyone else might be a better approach.

Cheers

Dave R

Yeah, but drying damp wood in your house also steals the heat...

(today cursing my log supplier. I stacked them in the garage, I thought they were a bit damp. Today I moved them to the new log store, and found that the ply wall of the garage was mouldy. The meter says it is 23% moisture :( )

Andy