Wood Splitting Method

[Two Socks]

Today I improved my wood splitting experience a lot by using a car tire to hold the wood. After noticing how I spent a lot more time bending over to pick up wood after every swing, or trying to balance pieces, I figured I`d have a go at this method I`d seen online: constructing a car tire splitting block.

First we cut a block at the right height. For me to hit the wood square, the upper face needs to be roughly 80 cm from the ground. The wood we split is on average 25 to 30 cm long, so the block was cut at 55 cm. Then we made a slot around the edge so that the tire won`t shift during splitting.

Then it is a matter of stuffing the tire full of wood and splitting away!

I guess that for many on here this method is old news, but I had never tried it and am very impressed with how much more efficient it is. I spend hardly any time picking up pieces, and no time at all balancing rounds. Just fill up the tire, walk around the block splitting every round a few times, and throw the pieces aside. I would recommend anyone who splits wood by hand to make a block like this. I sure wish I`d done it sooner!

 

[British Red]

Look great! Can I offer one improvement? Get a big spade bit and drill some drain holes in the lower sidewall of the tire, otherwise it'll fill with water and become a mosquito farm (guess how I know!).


Great photos and description!

 

[Ruud]

nice job man.

 

[Two Socks]

Look great! Can I offer one improvement? Get a big spade bit and drill some drain holes in the lower sidewall of the tire, otherwise it'll fill with water and become a mosquito farm (guess how I know!).

That sounds like a good idea. I hadn`t quite considered the summer and its flying vermin yet.
I want to drill two holes in the block as well so that I can secure the tire a bit better with some pins. I don`t want to screw it down because the bark, dust and dirt build up in there quite quickly. It is nice to lift the tire off to clear that out.

 

[British Red]

The clearing of chips is a real issue. You might want to look at wranglerstar's solution

[video=youtube;138532JYNWI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=138532JYNWI[/video]

 

[Two Socks]

He does have a nice block. Unfortunately i do not have large timber like that going spare. I could cut out a slot in the block.

 

[British Red]

That would work....only take a second with a chainsaw too

 

[Whittler Kev]

Hadn't seen that before. Top tip

 

[tommy the cat]

It's because of British Red I'm addicted to Wranglestars channel....

 

[falcon]

Plus one Dave...some great projects and an amusingly forthright support for Dave Canterbury

 

[Two Socks]

I put the contraption to good use today. The picture shows me with 13 of the 20 80L bags I filled. I love my tire

 

[sunndog]

He does have a nice block. Unfortunately i do not have large timber like that going spare. I could cut out a slot in the block.

Nice job that
looking at your block it might be high enough to cut a sloped channel out of it and stick a bucket underneath to gather the chips into.........waste not want not lol

I use old sheep lick buckets for that sort of thing. They are very low and wide and don't fall over

 

[British Red]

I put the contraption to good use today. The picture shows me with 13 of the 20 80L bags I filled. I love my tire

Excellent work. How many cubic metres do you get through in a Winter?

 

[Two Socks]

I am not quite certain to be honest. This summer I am moving from student life in the Netherlands to country life in Norway. We`ll mainly heat with wood but we have electric back-up. The waterboiler is also electric. Based on un-educated guesswork and a bit of optimism I think we`ll use about 3 cubic metres per winter. I do not have experience with the woodstove we`ll be using, nor with how isolated the house is. Long story short: I`ll make 5 or 6 cubic metres over the next few weeks and hope it is enough.

 

[Two Socks]

Nice job that
looking at your block it might be high enough to cut a sloped channel out of it and stick a bucket underneath to gather the chips into.........waste not want not lol

I use old sheep lick buckets for that sort of thing. They are very low and wide and don't fall over

I should indeed gather the chips and bark as well. There is quite a lot of it and especially the birchbark that comes off in large pieces look like good kindling when dry.

 

[British Red]

We use at least 12 cubic metres in the UK so I am assuming you have a super insulated home?

 

[Two Socks]

Hearing that number, I do hope so! Another house I have been staying in here can be heated for hours by firing the stove full once and let it burn out. At that pace, considering burning twice per day (before work and after), plus a bit of extra to prolong the heat in the evening, I hoped to get away with burning 200 dm³ per week. A cubic metre in just more than a month.

 

[Nice65]

We use at least 12 cubic metres in the UK so I am assuming you have a super insulated home?

Yep, I've burned about 6 cubes already, tiny Aarrow stove.

 

[Two Socks]

Hmm. I might have greatly under estimated this... well, I better get to work then.

 

[British Red]

We heat with wood although we do have gas heating for emergencies. We try to keep between twenty and thirty cubic metres of cut wood. I cut around ten or twelve cubic metres a year. This means that the green wood is cut and split and then gets two full years to season. Its not too bad a job with good tools, but I use a pneumatic splitter a lot of the time.