Making wood wedges

[Reid Adams]

I haven't really had a place to set up shop in a long time, so I my woodworking has been limited. Most of my tools are scattered around, stored in friend's shops or warehouses at the lumberyard where I work, or at other people's homes. I have started to gather them together, but I need some really basic stuff that has to be made. I think it will be fun, and a real challenge, to start with a bow saw, a hatchet, and a pocket knife and make some of the basic things I need.
The first step is to make dogwood wedges. Ms. Charming (http://www.thecharmhouse.blogpot.com) and I are clearing out for our garden, so there is lots of wood to work with. Dogwoods were among the trees to be removed, two were cut along with some other small trees. The next step is cutting the trunks into short lengths and sharpening both ends.

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To make two wedges from each length, the sharpened lengths were cut in half with a bow saw.

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The tops were beveled to reduce splitting when being pounded by a maul or sledge.


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The wedges range from about 2" thick and 9" long, to about 3" thick and 12" long. With the price of steel wedges today, this will save a lot of money for actual wood working projects.

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I put a sealer on the ends to reduce the splitting that may occur as the wedges dry out. This limits the effects of moisture leaving too quickly from the end grain, and causing the end wood fibers to shrink more rapidly than the fibers in the body of the wedge.

I will be using these wedges to make other projects. It would be good to have a wooden maul and a shaving horse.

[Pam Niedermayer]

Aha, gluts! I was wondering how best to make them.

Thanks,
Pam

[Steve Branam]

Aha, gluts! I was wondering how best to make them.

Thanks,
Pam

Seems to be a glut of gluts! :D

If you're going to be digging out the stumps, make mauls out of the root burls. Drew Langsner says root mauls are the toughest.

[Reid Adams]

Seems to be a glut of gluts! :D

If you're going to be digging out the stumps, make mauls out of the root burls. Drew Langsner says root mauls are the toughest.

Thanks for suggesting that! I will have to dig the roots up anyway, I wish I had left a little of the truck attached.

[Chris Fournier]

My father used to say "Wedge, the simplest tool known to man". We all knew what he meant when he called to us "Hey Wedge...".

[Tom Vanzant]

Pam,
Are you going to be working with cedar or oak?

[Pam Niedermayer]

Pam,
Are you going to be working with cedar or oak?

Probably red oak, have piles of branches stacked. Why do you ask?

Pam

[Russell Sansom]

When I was younger we loved Sassafras tea, made by boiling the bark of the roots. (now considered toxic, if I'm not mistaken ) It was a royal pain to dig them out. We finally realized how easy it was to wrap a chain around a partially excavated root and pull it out with the tractor. Best just after a rainfall. A jack ( long stick over a fulcrum ) worked almost as well if the tractor were out of gas or my dad had driven it into the lake again. No, not inebriated; rather, mowing the weeds as close to the water as possible and going a little closer than that.

[Johnny Kleso]

HF had steel wedges for $0.99 each a few years back but dogwood is more authentic :)

Just checked they are $4.99 now, should have bought more than two ...

[Tom Vanzant]

I think red oak will make the better wedge for splitting.

[harry strasil]

take a piece of rived (split) red oak, put one end in some water and blow on the other end, and you will see why red oak rots so quickly.

[Pam Niedermayer]

I think red oak will make the better wedge for splitting.

What a relief. I've never used a glut before, but my riving has been hindered by the gap closing when I move the steel splitter.

Pam

[Steve Branam]

What a relief. I've never used a glut before, but my riving has been hindered by the gap closing when I move the steel splitter.

Pam

Yikes, make sure you use gluts and always have at least two things in the gap when you move a wedge! There's enough spring force in a partially split log to snap shut and trap or crush you hand. The next time the wedge gets trapped and you have to knock it out sideways, just imagine if that was your hand in there!

[Pam Niedermayer]

Yikes, make sure you use gluts and always have at least two things in the gap when you move a wedge! There's enough spring force in a partially split log to snap shut and trap or crush you hand. The next time the wedge gets trapped and you have to knock it out sideways, just imagine if that was your hand in there!

Couldn't agree more, I never stuck my hand in the split, took some cutoffs and "wedged" them; but they didn't work as smoothly as a glut would.

Pam

[David Keller NC]

Reid - While a bit too late with the particular tree pictured, making a maul out of the stump-end of a dogwood is worth the pain of having to dig the roots out. Specifically, the end that one uses to beat against a froe (or a steel wedge) is made out of the root flare, with the handle being about 3-4 long & shaved down from the trunk above the roots. Wooden mauls aren't long-lasting tools since the wood on the surface gets chipped up by the edge of the froe or steel wedge, but if made this way they will last at least a season of hard work, or several years of occasional-to-frequent use.

[Pam Niedermayer]

LV has a newish froe mallet (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=67230&cat=1,41131) made from baseball bat blanks (actually, the ones that are overweight), which provides a couple of alternatives: baseball bats and the LV version. I had no idea wooden bats were still being used/made. Now if I could only find my old bat....

Pam

[Reid Adams]

Thanks for the suggestion David! I made a mallet from white oak last week, and dug the dogwood roots up yesterday.

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I'm trying to figure out if a short mallet can be turned from the dogwood, I wish I had thought to leave more trunk.

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[David Keller NC]

As much as I use hand tools to fell and split wood, I still don't have a root-flare maul. The opportunity just hasn't presented itself to dig up a dogwood root ball. The good news is that a maul made of straight-grained wood still works and is OK at lasting a little while, but I've disintegrated 3 of them in the last couple of years using them to hammer metal wedges. Based on Roy's advice, I'm expected a root-ball maul to last much longer, but it's harder to come by the raw materials. ;-)

[george wilson]

Ever see a magnesium wedge hit by a powerful chain saw? I did in Alaska(found one) The saw somehow twisted the wedge very severely. Pretty amazing that it had enough force. The wedge was about 3" wide,and twisted way past the area where it was 1/2" thick.

[harry strasil]

FWIW dept; The THING (root ball) has the grain going every which way which is why they were used for Mauls, but the short handled ones when used with a FROE are referred to as a club.

small club and froe for bench usage. A quarter for size comparison.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/smlfroeandclub.jpg

Often times the old gluts had a thin piece of sheet iron bent over and the folded over part forge welded its full width where its folded to make a sharp cutting edge, and then spread back apart and the wood wedge driven in and screwed or nailed to the glut. I have also seen a very old pair on an auction that had the edges of metal all along edge cut just a bit and the bottom of the cuts flared out a bit to function like anti kick back dogs.