Many people like to watch a living flame, so the installation of wood-burning fireplaces in dachas and private homes is very popular. This is not an easy task, but if you wish, installing a fireplace can be done. But even if the fireplace is already installed, it will not be possible to light it without fuel. Therefore, it will be useful for owners of wood-burning stoves to learn how to properly chop wood.
Probably, many will be surprised by the question of how to chop wood. After all, there seems to be nothing complicated in this process. You just need to swing the cleaver, splitting the logs into even logs that will fit in the firebox. However, when faced with the need to cut firewood in practice, many encounter difficulties. Let's figure out how to chop wood correctly so that this rather difficult job can be done easily and quickly
The easiest way to watch how to chop wood is on video. But oral advice from an experienced woodcutter will never be superfluous. Therefore, we will dwell in detail on each stage of this difficult but fascinating matter.
Ready firewood
If you have a sauna or fireplace in your home, then the ability to properly chop wood will definitely come in handy. Of course, you don’t have to bother yourself and buy ready-made, chopped firewood, but it’s such a pleasure to swing an ax in the fresh air, inhaling the smell of fresh wood, and get a charge of vivacity and positive energy.
Yes, and on a hike this skill may be needed. And if so, then it would be useful to learn all the secrets of chopping wood (see Which firewood is better).
Deck
This is the most necessary thing that can make work enjoyable and tireless. A log is a thick piece of log, adapted for chopping firewood. It must meet several requirements:
- Large width, allowing you to place logs of various diameters on the surface. The massive deck stands securely in one place and does not have to be adjusted.
- Optimal height. This parameter is especially important for ease of use. The height of the deck depends on the height of the worker, the length of the ax and the log. With logs measuring 30-40 cm, the base for splitting firewood should be approximately at knee level.
- A sticky wood with knots. This deck will last a long time. Knots should not be cut off completely. They will help you conveniently transfer the log to another place.
Preparatory stage
Essentially, wood fuel procurement work consists of two stages:
- preparation: this includes sawing branches and logs into logs of the required length and chopping small items;
- actually chopping wood manually or mechanized.
Sawing is done in such a way that the logs resulting from splitting logs can fit into the firebox of a stove or boiler. But you shouldn’t adjust them exactly to the size of the firebox; the length of the log should be 20-25% less. By the way, if you have to chop firewood from dry oak or other hardwoods, you won’t be able to just split a long log. You will still come to the conclusion that it is better to cut logs into short logs.
Advice. People who constantly prepare solid fuel with their own hands should purchase an electric chain saw. It is significantly cheaper than gasoline, and will bring a lot of benefits.
Before chopping, you need to prepare the tool and workplace. To carry out the work, it is best to have a set of tools on hand:
- classic powerful cleaver;
- a heavy ax with a wide blade and a long handle;
- an ordinary ax for chopping wood;
- steel wedge
Note. It is preferable when the handle of the cleaver and other tools is made of tough wood, such as maple or birch.
On a flat area that will serve as a workplace, the largest and smoothest block is installed as a stand. There should be nothing fragile or breakable on either side of it within a radius of 3 m. This also applies to people, so as not to get hit by a flying log. For inexperienced woodcutters, the distance should be increased to 5 m.
Tools
There are several tools you can use to chop wood. For this, three tools are usually used: kavun, ax and wedges. When preparing for work, it is advisable to have all these items nearby. Logs come in varying degrees of strength, and any of them can be useful.
Axe
Many craftsmen know how to effectively chop and chop wood with an axe. To do the job effectively, the tool must have a wide, heavy blade. A regular small ax is used when working with short logs. It is mostly used for cutting knots.
Cleaver
The tool is specially designed for chopping logs. It comes in two types:
- A heavy sledge hammer that requires great strength from the worker. It is easy to cope with hooks of any parameters. A dull blade acts like a wedge. The only drawback for the worker is the very heavy weight.
- The lightweight version is a cleaver with different protrusions that increase the efficiency of splitting. It is lighter and the blow is weaker. But it’s more pleasant to wave at them.
Experienced woodcutters prefer to have both tools for chopping wood.
Wedges
These items are of great help when splitting tough rocks. They are made of durable metal. Wedges come in a variety of sizes, both in width and thickness. It is better to use narrow ones at the beginning to make a crack into which a thick wedge can be driven. Woodcutters also use hardwood wedges to split firewood if there are not enough metal ones.
The more convenient it is to carry logs
Carrying logs in your hands is uncomfortable. Especially if they are wet, dirty or covered in ice and snow. The “third” and “fourth” steel hand comes to the rescue - a pincer (grab) grip.
152247User FORUMHOUSE
I was wondering if anyone has used a manual log gripper? Is it worth paying 3,000 rubles for a branded one? I want to order some for myself so I can load the logs. Is it convenient to use?
Russlanych FORUMHOUSE user
I've been using a pincer gripper for 5 years. I have never regretted buying it. I took them for 1500 rubles. My friends told me that he threw away the money, but now I don’t go to the forest for firewood without it.
When purchasing grab pliers, keep in mind that there are models with different grip widths. For example, under logs with a diameter of 20 and 30 cm. With pliers with a large grip, you can grab both large and small logs.
By the way, there is a cheaper option - single-jointed log pliers. Is it worth taking them?
wind1windSuper-Moderator FORUMHOUSE
With a single-joint grip, to prevent the log from slipping out, you will have to squeeze the handles, i.e. make additional physical efforts. On soft wood the force is less, on hard or frozen wood more. In double-jointed grips, compression occurs automatically due to the weight of the lifted log.
Well, for all home-made people, a user with the nickname 152247 offers to make a hand made version of branded pliers with a grip width for a log with a diameter of 30 cm.
In the background is a piece of paper with a 5x5 mm square.
Safety precautions
In any business, safety must come first. Failure to do so can lead to serious problems when chopping wood. If you don’t know how to chop wood with an ax or cleaver, it’s better not to take on the task alone. Before starting work, you should take precautions including the following:
- You need to carefully choose the place where you want to chop wood. There should be a lot of free space around so that nothing interferes with the swing of the instrument. If the process takes place under a roof, it should be taller than a man with an ax at outstretched arms.
- Make the deck from sticky wood with large knots. Then it will not split if you miss the log. The deck must stand firmly on a hard, level surface.
- To protect himself, a lumberjack needs to have reliable equipment: non-slip gloves, glasses, a hat and sturdy shoes.
- To prevent the blade from dangling and jumping off the handle, before chopping wood, the tool is kept in water for some time. It should be inspected for cracks and chips.
Caution: the most important condition for safety is the absence of people in dangerous proximity. A woodcutter always needs to be on guard so that a person does not accidentally happen to be nearby while chopping wood.
Double reinforced wood splitter Vuoksa-Wood
How to carry firewood into the house
Walking outside and carrying armfuls of firewood is not an option. Inconvenient. It’s easier to use containers for this, which are found in every country house.
Palych1975
I carry firewood in a metal construction trough for mixing mortar. Trough volume – 45 liters. I attached a rope handle to it. I place the logs vertically. I bring 15 kg at a time. Another plus is that sawdust and debris remain in the trough and are not spread throughout the boiler room.
Instead of a trough, you can use a construction plastic basin or bucket.
Another option from Fedor_Kotkin is cardboard banana boxes. They are convenient for storing wood chips, wood fragments, and small blocks. The boxes are placed one on top of the other in the woodshed, and the contents are used to light a stove or solid fuel boiler. When the box becomes unusable, it is also thrown into the firebox
Process and technique of work
Before you start chopping or chopping logs, you need to start preparing them. The problem is not complicated. It’s easier to buy firewood than to waste time and effort on preparation. This does not apply to villagers who do this all the time.
To avoid painfully hard work, you need to learn how to chop wood. For a novice lumberjack, it is better to start with smaller woodcuts. When self-confidence comes, you can move on to bigger ones. Over time, chopping wood will become just a pleasant exercise. It is worth paying attention to the length dimensions of the workpieces. They should be shorter than the furnace firebox. You need to choose a place where it is convenient to chop wood.
Having installed the hook on the deck, you need to pay attention to the presence of cracks on one of the cuts. The blow with a calun is applied to the widest crack. If the first attempt does not split the log, you need to repeat it. If the cleaver gets stuck, move the handle down and up to remove it. A tool that has crashed heavily into a tree will have to be pulled out using wedges. A good specialist can split logs in one go. This is an example of how to chop wood.
If there are no cracks at the ends, the blow is delivered directly to the center. A blunt cleaver will bounce off hard rock or too dry wood that has been lying around for several years. In such cases, a sharp ax will help. In cases where it is impossible to split logs in half, the problem is solved by breaking off small pieces, starting from the edge. The work is quite dangerous. You need to be careful so that the rebounding kavun does not hit your leg.
You should not throw yourself on a pile of freshly harvested logs, trying to quickly split them and remove them. Few rocks can be easily split when raw. It is better to let the wood dry. After this, it is easier to deal with him with a cleaver or an ax. By the way, it is easier to cut down a tree when it is raw.
You need to know how to split knotty wood. To split them, you need to determine the direction of the crack from the impact. It should run away from the knot.
Experienced craftsmen, when a cleaver gets stuck, use the method of hitting the deck with the butt of the cleaver. For novice woodcutters who are just learning the craft, such tricks are dangerous. The workpiece may come off and hit you on the head. It's better to learn how to work with wedges first. They are driven into a crack by an ax or cleaver. Sometimes a stuck tool can only be removed with a saw.
How to dry firewood of different types of wood
Owners of wood-burning stoves and boilers know that the heat generator must be heated with dry, not freshly cut, wood. But wood comes in different species, I wonder if this somehow affects the characteristics of its drying and storage in firewood sheds?
152247
This season, it took only two weeks from the logs to being laid out to dry. I worked alone. Does anyone dry firewood for 2-3 years? How to dry oak, maple and hardwood?
alex 2FORUMHOUSE user
I do not recommend drying birch and aspen for 3 years. The quality of firewood is falling.
Palych1975FORUMHOUSE user
My observations: if you don’t immediately chop birch or alder firewood, but leave it in logs, then within a year they will rot and become rotten. And if you immediately chop it into logs, they dry perfectly, burn hot and are stored for a long time even in an open woodpile, provided that the woodpile is folded with the bark facing up.
OlegN
This is if you store firewood openly. If under the roof of the woodshed, the birch will only become stronger. And try not to chop the oak right away. In a year it will be much more difficult.
Polar0id
Birch will become stronger depending on when it was harvested. If a tree is cut down in the spring or summer during the period of sap flow, it will become moldy and rot. Moreover, if you immediately put the birch in the woodshed, even if it is chopped. So let it dry out in the pile first. There are no such problems with food harvested in the fall; everything freezes over the winter.
More tips and observations from 152247:
- Birch has a vapor-proof bark. If it is not immediately split to dry, then, in the open air, it will begin to rot from the inside. Such firewood has a reduced calorie content.
- The user has developed the following firewood procurement scheme: December-January - sawing logs, February-March - chopping firewood and storing it in the woodpile, July - transporting fuel to the woodshed.
The more pieces the log is cut into, the faster the firewood will dry.
ign73FORUMHOUSE Member
I heard that you can’t store firewood in logs for a long time. You have to split them, otherwise they will rot. This is true?
Tom_iuraFORUMHOUSE Member
Store the firewood in a dry place and everything will be fine. In Germany, chopped firewood is dried for two years indoors, where there is no difference in air humidity. I once conducted an experiment - I checked how long it would take for a solid fuel boiler to reach full power. I threw acacia wood after ten years of drying. The boiler quickly fired up, and when I took the wood after 6 months of drying, it took longer and more fuel was consumed.
alex967
I heated the stove with chopped birch, which had lain in the woodshed for 7 years. It burns well, the heat produces a lot.
And this is firewood box 152247.
The user checked the moisture content of the firewood with a moisture meter. Results:
- Birch firewood was sawed and split after the New Year and put in a separate woodpile under the open sky. The barn was removed in June. Humidity from 12 to 16%.
- Birch firewood dried outside for 1.5 years, covered from rain and snow on top. Humidity from 11 to 12.5%.
- Pine firewood from dead dead wood has a moisture content of 10% for two months in a woodpile.
- Oak firewood dried up to 16% in 2.
152247
Firewood with a moisture content of less than 20% is already fuel.
Splitting methods
Several methods are used for quick and convenient splitting. They will help you chop wood without any extra effort, reduce the number of unnecessary movements and save the woodcutter’s energy. How easy it is to chop wood, let's look at the 2 most popular methods:
- The simplest way to split firewood while holding the split parts is a regular car tire. It is stuffed onto a deck. The logs are placed inside the tire, as many as will fit. When they are all split into the required sizes, they are removed from the tire. This method allows you to quickly manage splitting a large number of logs.
- One simple way is to split it with a wood splitter. This tool can be purchased at the store. Making your own wood splitter will cost much less. You only have to buy a cone. The principle of operation is that a threaded cone is screwed into a log that is installed on the frame and splits it. Rotation is carried out due to the operation of the engine. A wood splitter can get the job done quickly and easily.
There are many installations for performing this work, but they are very expensive.
Advantages of the Kolundrov wood splitter:
- more effective than a splitting ax due to strikes in the same place;
- easily splits even damp and knotty firewood into chips (you can sit right in the house by the fireplace);
- completely safe to use (firewood and wood chips do not fly apart, remaining inside the circuit);
- ignite a fire in a couple of minutes without paper or special liquid;
- does not require special skills or much effort;
- the tool is compact and not heavy, strong and durable (entirely made of steel with an 8-layer anti-corrosion coating);
- the blade is resistant to dulling - can be sharpened with a whetstone or a special sharpener;
- a great idea for an original, practical and unusual gift.
Organizational matters
The organization of the process plays an important role in chopping wood. If it is a hand splitter, it is important to divide the logs into those that are easier to chop and those that will be more difficult to handle. It is easiest to chop dry or frozen wood; wet wood is more difficult. By leaving them for later, you can wait for them to dry out or freeze and it will become easier to work with them. It is also important to sort the prepared firewood: for different lengths, separate chips for ignition. The optimal length of firewood for a stove is 3⁄4 the length of the firebox. Most often, firewood is collected once or twice a year.
