Wood splitting tips

[Oldscout448]

1 hour ago, SSScout said:

Thankee, matey...

I hope ye got the gist of my total comment about ruining an axe with the "safe" method of splitting bolts.  Yep, they call it the Shilleliegh Method.   I do not recommend it , but have to mention it in the IOLS  training.  I gave the Troop a fiberglass hafted axe I bought as an experiment, I encourage them to use that.  It would need to be ground down for about an hour to get it sharp enough to actually cut wood, it is so dull in profile, but it makes a good "hand wedge". And the handle will never be broken by over swinging or being run over by a truck.... 

 

Ok I get you.  But WHY is in ILOS at all? It just seems to teach misuse. Which drives the woodworker and tool collector in me nuts!  I just hate finding a 50 year old ax with beautiful balance and a laminated steel blade rendered almost useless because some barbarous philistine beat the butt end with a sledgehammer!   Ever read any books by Eric Sloan?

  When I took IOLS 20 years ago.  We had a knife and ax instructor who insisted that axes should not be used by scouts at all because they were to slow and dangerous. And therefore to set a "good" example the scouters shouldn't use them either.  We had quite the argument after the class was over.   I did my best to keep it courteous until he tried to pull rank.

I actually had a SM stop me from chopping wood for a campfire about 10 years back. it seems that in his troop scouts were only allowed to place the ax on the branch perpendicular to the grain, and then hammer the dull ax through the branch using a log for a mallet.  His troop so his rules I guess...    But I did say something like" You'll na be usin any dammed shilleliegh on any ax o' mine laddie!"

I told him that he was doing his scouts a disservice.  I still think so dinosaur that I am.  But as i think on it, this just might help explain why at the last area Ordeal not one of the scouts brought an ax, saw, or hand ax. When it came time to build the council fire they were  indeed a sad and pathetic sight.

Oldscout448 

We really do need to get together and have that cup o' joe sometime. 

 

Edited December 3, 2019 by Oldscout448

[SSScout]

9 hours ago, Oldscout448 said:

Oldscout448 

Well, ye're only as old as ye feel...

I only include mention of the Shileleigh because folks ask about it after I unveil my sharp tool collection and speak of sharpening and chopping and such. I do not promote it, for sure.  Occasionally, I even get a nascent SM trainee who wants to try out my two Scout crosscut saw.  Once (once!) at a Webelos Weekend, , I was able to convince a Troop to set things up, let the Cubs cut cookies out of a log, the Troop had a fire set up to heat a small branding iron to write a "TXYZ " in the cookie for a souvenir.  Haven't been able to arrange that again. 

 

Dempsey's in Ashton,  homemade peach cobbler, you name the time..... . PM me?  

[JoeBob]

On 12/3/2019 at 10:30 AM, SSScout said:

Occasionally, I even get a nascent SM trainee who wants to try out my two Scout crosscut saw.  Once (once!) at a Webelos Weekend, , I was able to convince a Troop to set things up, let the Cubs cut cookies out of a log,

For crosscutting, we would make a 'Deadman' log sawhorse.  

It looked something like above, but we'd use 8 foot long green logs and auger holes to bury the ends.  Lashing the two cross sections and one cross-brace gives you a very stable platform at waist height so that you can really get going with your two man crosscut.

[SSScout]

Yep.  Mine is made of 2x4...