A Day in the Life

Frozen Logs and the Such

My 2025 teaching schedule kicks off with a Continuous Armchair class starting on Monday and I’m a little behind processing the frozen hard maple log I picked up for the class. I have had trouble sourcing hard maple for a while and was excited to come across this one at the log yard while buying white oak for the class.

I love splitting logs, it’s like a cross fit class without the hype. I’ve had my nose in the computer with the new website and video course, so getting out in the cold with a sledge hammer and wedges is especially inviting. I know splitting a log seems pretty straight forward, it’s about force. But if you will bear with me, I think I might be able to save you the frustration wedges bouncing all over the place while the log quietly mocks you.

Usually, I’d split the entire log before cross cutting. But with a frozen log, that seemed too daunting. The wedges already want to bounce right of it like bullets off Superman’s chest, so I decided to cross cut it to ease the splitting. Granted, it might have been easier to only have to start one split and then follow it down the length, but this log had some defects that I was concerned would make it hard to do. Here is a shot of the log after crosscutting.

Pretty typical and sweet. Honestly, it’s easier to source and process this material from a board, but it’s very expensive these days and I hate turning kiln dried maple. The problem with frozen logs is mostly the difficulty in starting the split. I, as usual, begin with my Estwing hatchet. I think I need new ones, the ones I have don’t owe me anything. The handles are super helpful in on a “bouncy” log and the slender profiles slip in more easily. You could use a “stave” wedge, which is just a slender wedge.

I start by scoring a deep line from the bark to the pith. This is crucial. If you don’t do this, the likelihood of the split running sideways along the growth rings is greatly increased. I alway feel like I’m tempting fate when starting a split like this. Each tap on the hatchet seems to threaten a sideways split. As soon as I can, I start another wedge in the area between the hatchet and the pith as soon.

This helps ensure the split will stay in the ray plane. The easiest way to start the hatchet is at an angle at the edge of the log, but this is also the most likely to have the split run sideways, so take it slow!

Frozen wood loves to stay together, it’s like the log is glued shut. I make thin wood wedges to help open the splits when the steel ones won’t hold. Not only is the thin shape helpful, but the wood on wood seems to hold better. Here is a good example of how hard a log can hold on when frozen. I had to throw the kitchen sink at this white oak.

Another strategy is to find where the split is already naturally occuring near the pith and drive the hatchet there. It was barely visible on this log.

But once I drove in the hatchet, the split ran beautifully.

I split these bolts into quarters, loaded them up and took them to the shop for further splitting.

When I split hard maple for turning, I like to forgo splitting along the ray plane and use a grid to lay out the blanks. It’s easier and I think I get more blanks. Again, it just takes careful scoring to get the splits to run where I want them. Even back at the shop, this log was frozen solid and fought being split.

My goal is to lay it out and choose the splits that will leave me with a 2x2 pattern, which will split spit evenly regardless of which split I do first.

A froe can handle these last splits.

I almost got three chairs worth of legs from one quarter of one section of the log. This bodes very well for my overall yield.

And what would a day of log processing be without everyones lil’ pal.

Simple and straight forward, I need more days like this.