Cleaving/riving & splitting

[THOaken]

Hello, all.

As part of my greenwood crafts unit I have to write an assignment on coppice management, timber production, legislation and so forth. One part details the wood production techniques in common use including: felling, cleaving/riving, splitting, peeling and pointing. Now I believe my lecturer described and demonstrated splitting as the process of using an axe, wedges and mallet in succession to split a large log, but every source I've found, even in reputable books such as Tabor, has that down as cleaving/riving. Every website and book I've found indicates that cleaving/riving is the process by which large logs are split into lumber using wedges. So what's splitting then? My lecturer said that splitting is when you use you a bilhook to slowly and gradually split poles/rods in a controlled manner. Tabor doesn't help in that he calls this cleaving/riving too in his book on woodland crafts.

So, just to clarify, what is the difference between splitting and cleaving to you?

 

[Toddy]

As I know it.
Cleaving is a sharp blow, precisely struck, to break timber apart. That's for small timber. For larger stuff then the axe is used to create space to insert wedges.

Splitting is the careful kedging down the length of a branch to split it evenly for making things like hurdles, basketry, etc.

Don't know if it helps though

M

p.s.
http://awalkaroundbritain.com/journey/video/skills/how-to-split-hazel-with-hopper/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaving_axe

 

[THOaken]

As I know it.
Cleaving is a sharp blow, precisely struck, to break timber apart. That's for small timber. For larger stuff then the axe is used to create space to insert wedges.

Splitting is the careful kedging down the length of a branch to split it evenly for making things like hurdles, basketry, etc.

Don't know if it helps though

M

p.s.
http://awalkaroundbritain.com/journey/video/skills/how-to-split-hazel-with-hopper/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaving_axe

Indeed, Toddy, that second link was one of the sources I'm using. I realise it's from Wikipedia, but the same is true of Raymond Tabor's greenwood book. That description of cleaving is what my lecturer seems to be calling splitting. There seems to be some sort of mix up.

To clarify, this is what I'm calling cleaving and what most people refer to as cleaving from what I've read. This image is even entitled cleaving.
https://sadeik.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/dsc05494.jpg

 

[Goatboy]

They're can be interchanged a fair bit. Cleaved from the old English cleofan and related to Dutch klieven / German kliepan. All which mean to split / divide in literary/chemistry/biology.
Split means to forcibly divide whereas cleave points toward division or cutting.
Can I muddy the waters a little more by throwing hewn into the mix? This infers cutting other chopping rather than just splitting/division.
When I used to make fences out of timber split with axe & wedge we always referred to it as cleaving.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Toddy]

This is kind of gory, but the battle axe was used to cleave…..a head in two. Robert stood up in his stirrups and cleaved Henry de Bohun head and helm in two.

So, cleave is to split in two, as a long standing meaning.

Splitting using wedges is also cleaving, but it's a further step, iimmc ? riving fits in with that, but it's not a commonly used term nowadays, and it has another meaning…that the timber is riven with splits and cracks. Sometimes you just have to work with the splits already in the timber, regardless of what you'd really prefer to split from it. Elder's a classic example of that, or dropped beech limbs.

Splitting small stuff like hazel is carefully done (I find it much harder to split fine willow evenly) working along the length. WIth practice though it's quick; edge into the end and a kind of twist with the wrist and work down.

Bound to be more experienced folks than me about this stuff THOaken

M

 

[THOaken]

There certainly seem to be many contradictions. As another example, I just looked in my Wisdom of the Trees book and the author talks about splitting, but gives it the name of riving as well, as if they are the same thing. He then goes on to discuss using a bilhook to split rods. That's what I'm taking to mean splitting, but now I wonder why he's called it riving, since I thought riving was using wedges to split logs.

I'm fine with this muddying of the waters, but unfortunately it doesn't quite work like that for the paper's marking criteria. Oh dear.

 

[Toddy]

Strikes me that this is one to ask your lecturer to clarify. Honestly, if the report is for him, and he's marking it, then his mindset's the one that matters on the topic.

Best of luck with it
M

 

[Peat]

In my neck of the woods cleaving would be controlled splitting, often in the cleaving break. So i'd cleave out fencing rails, lathes, shingles, bow blanks.... But i'd definatley split firewood. I'd split a log into billets for firewood with a sledge and wedges, but I reckon i'd cleave that same log up if I was turning it into fencing rails... I'd cleave a hazel rod too but I know some folks would rive it.

Theres lots of regional variations to these words and it'll also change person to person. That rod could also be a stick a stem or a pole. Cleaning it up could be snedding, brashing or ridding out.

I'm not trying to confuse you but point out that these words are pretty interchangable. Depends who you learnt off of and where you are in the country. So ask your master what he calls them and thats the only answer you need. The words I use are the ones I learned on my apprenticeship. At the end of the day its not the words that matter its the doing.

 

[nuggets]

The word `riving` also applies to the metal `riving knife` that sits behind a circular saw blade on a bench saw or hand held circular saw designed ! to force the fresh sawn wood apart and not to let it clamp the blade after being cut !!