froe vs hatchet vs what else? for splitting bracing

[Matt Lau]

Hey Creekers,

Merry post-christmas. I hope nothing crazy happened while I was avoiding the news.

I'm working on a few guitars/ukuleles, and want to split spruce braces.
Previously, I'd just use a Chinese kitchen knife "cleaver")...but felt like there's a better way.

What would you guys recommend?

Shingling froe? hatchet? something else?

[Jim Koepke]

For my small splitting needs a mini froe was made from an old planer blade:

374633

jtk

[Peter Christensen]

Would one of the Batoning Chisels (http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=67735&cat=1,130,43332,43703)that LV sells work for you?

[Matt Lau]

It probably could.

I like Jim's idea better though....likely, I'll be splitting on a brick/concrete surface...so it'd destroy anything tempered hard.

[Jim Koepke]

It probably could.

I like Jim's idea better though....likely, I'll be splitting on a brick/concrete surface...so it'd destroy anything tempered hard.

One of the best assistants someone can have when splitting wood is a section of stump to work on. If you are doing this on a floor, then a block of wood will suffice.

My "Neander Stool" doubles as my chopping block:

374642

jtk

[Matt Lau]

I like your style.

When I get access to my car again, I'll need to look for a stump off craigslist...or not.
Currently, my woodworking stuff is at my office.

Dovetailing teeth...easy.
Dovetailing wood...harder...with my setup at least.

[Todd Stock]

Any froe or froe-like gizmo will work - I used a reground firmer for a few years, but a nice smaller froe is handy for the sort of red and sitka stock I get from my suppliers. FWIW, I don't split out every brace, but instead split out a reference face that follows the grain and shows the runout at 90 degrees. A pass through the bandsaw handles the second cut, and some jack plane work gets the billet ready to rip up and plane to final dimensions. Spruce varies widely in stiffness, so remember to either mark the bracing stock with the billet of origin or do some deflection testing to watch up sticks, or - preferably - do both.

[Mike Holbrook]

The chair guys frequently make a notch in a workpiece and pull toward it with a drawknife to split off sections of wood. Several old drawknives I bought were obviously hammered through workpieces as the tops of the blades were dented and needed to be ground flat or rounded again. Not suggesting this is good technique for using a drawnife, but it does suggest people used drawknives for small splitting chores. A wedge with a wider blade and narrower bevel might work too. Most wedges you can find these days are relatively crude tools with steep bevels that are hard to do delicate work with.

[bridger berdel]

I generally use a short wide chisel. It's a bit of a juggle to balance the wood, the chisel and the mallet but for the amount of riving I do it's adequate.

[Jim Koepke]

This hatchet is also a nice wood splitter:

375012

Like a hewing axe it is only beveled on one side.

It is great for splitting kindling.

jtk

[Charles Wiggins]

So far I have only split kindling in the manner you are referring to, but I find I have more control with a froe but I get more heft with a hatchet, so which I use depends a lot on what I am trying to split.

[Mike Holbrook]

I just won an auction for a couple wedge/maul heads. I plan to handle them. The end result follows the line of thought in the two posts above. Wedges, axes, froes with handles, are easier to place, make leverage with, and remove from splits than wedges without handles.

I learned a little about splitting at Country Workshops from Drew Langsner. He used wedges and gluts on whole logs. He started partial log splits with hafted axes/hatchets (struck with a large dogwood mallet instead of a hammer) then moved to a hafted froe when the pieces got smaller (again struck with a large mallet). A hammer or small sledge may damage/crack an axe or froe. He tried to get the maximum number of billets(blanks) from any piece of wood. Splitting IMHO has become a lost art. I have been working hard on a better set of tools and skills for making splits. Tools for this work have faded away, being replaced by table saws and bandsaws. There are still a good many advantages to splitting though. If you choose trees and logs wisely, splitting can be easy and provide much improved grain patterns. Quarter sawing pales before a well split piece of wood.

in my experience thus far, our old friend sharpening turns out to be just as relevant in splitting. A sharp tool with a gradual bevel works better if you want to work precisely.

375098

Here is what I use on my concrete floor, no cracks so far.

I am working on something better:

375099

If I could just get the dog off my work!

375102

There is a reason I have been working on a larger selection of dogwood mallets, metal hammers wear or even crack the steel used in many splitting wedges, axes, froes.....still experimenting.

[ernest dubois]

I just won an auction for a couple wege/maul heads. I plan to handle them. The end result is sort of like the two posts above mention. Wedges, axes, froes with handles, are easier to place, make leverage with, and remove from splits than wedges without handles.

I learned a little about splitting at Country Workshops from Drew Langsner. He used wedges and gluts on whole logs. He started partial log splits with hafted axes/hatchets, then moved to a hafted froe when the pieces got smaller. He tried to get the maximum number of billets(blanks) from any piece of wood. Splitting IMHO has become sort of a lost art. I have been working hard on a better set of tools and skills for making splits. Tools for this work have sort of faded away, being replaced by table saws and bandsaws. There are still a good many advantages to splitting though. If you choose trees and logs wisely, splitting can be easy and provide much improved grain patterns. Quarter sawing pales before a well split piece of wood.
Splitting, or riving is truly a handy skill to develop, particularly having some insights into how the wood in your hands or at your feet is likely to want to split and then knowing how to steer or exercise some control over the split, maybe even in contradiction to what that piece itself would otherwise do on its own. The handy exercise is to split green branches, a diameter of a thumb or index finger, around a meter in length starting the split with a good knife and then simply feeling and watching the run of the split. Very satisfying activity, I learned it for myself splitting out wattle for building my workshop. Ash, willow most will do but my favorite was hazel.

[Bob Glenn]

FWIW, a froe is really a Levering tool. After the froe is driven into the wood starting the split, it is gradually worked down opening the split as you use the handle to lever the split open. The split can be steered to keep it from running out to one side by placing the wood in a brake and levering the thicker side down. Like most other skills, it takes some practice.

[John C Cox]

Yikes guys!!!!! No no no!!!! No big froes... Certainly not splitting wedges or mauls... Even chisels work poorly for carefully splitting out guitar bracing.

Splitting guitar bracing is fine work:... We split off 1/4" and 1/2" wide by 1/2" to 3/4" thick straight grain splits that are 10" to 24" long.

I tried a bunch of stuff and settled on an old dull kitchen knife. It has about an 8" long blade and is fairly thin. You don't want it sharp or it will cut the wood instead of splitting (and can cut your fingers while you are working it).

You don't want your tool fat and thick - or you can't control the split as you make it.

I used to split out all my bracing. On a good day - it's 60% or 70% waste from a perfect looking spruce billet to brace stock ready to cut to length... Often as not - it all goes into the fire....

What I do now is to establish a good split face perpendicular to the growth rings - and then saw out the bracing parallel to this face, carefully working to keep the cuts as close along the grain lines as possible. This cuts the waste down to 30-40% off an otherwise perfect looking split face billet....

[Matt Lau]

Thanks, John!

I was string at the small froe for the umpteenth time on the toolsforworkingwood site, wondering it it would make sense.

I'll likely be looking for a fairly dull chinese cleaver this weekend...it should be perfect for this.

[David Bassett]

... I'll likely be looking for a fairly dull chinese cleaver this weekend...it should be perfect for this.

I'm not sure I've seen a Chinese cleaver up close, but I've heard them described as very thin. (Hence sharp & great for slicing.) If so, it seems to me they'd be too fragile for splitting.

Also, it occurs to me, splitting on a very fine scale is a task often handled by a draw knife by, e.g. green woodworkers & chair makers.

Anyway good luck & let us know what ends up working.

[John C Cox]

Thanks, John!

I was string at the small froe for the umpteenth time on the toolsforworkingwood site, wondering it it would make sense.

I'll likely be looking for a fairly dull chinese cleaver this weekend...it should be perfect for this.

Why not just keep doing what you were doing? It sounds like you were successful enough splitting out your brace wood with whatever kitchen knife you were using....

I ended up with what I got because this one particular knife wouldn't hold an edge for the life of it. My wife kept complaining that it wouldn't cut worth a lick.. So I confiscated it for guitar duty.. ;) ;)

[Peter Christensen]

David the Chinese cleaver I have is from LV (http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=32457&cat=2,40733,40738,32457). The blade is about 0.080"/2mm across the back of the blade. Below the handle it starts tapering to the thin edge. Other may be different.

[Jim Koepke]

Now that my understanding of what is being done is better, this may be a good use for the slitting blade on a combination plane. They are often used for making the pieces for window shutters.

It would likely be easy to make a panel gauge for the purpose.

jtk

[David Bassett]

David the Chinese cleaver I have is from LV (http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=32457&cat=2,40733,40738,32457). The blade is about 0.080"/2mm across the back of the blade. Below the handle it starts tapering to the thin edge. Other may be different.

The one LV has looks much heavier than any other I've seen pictured. Given Matt's location and other comments, I'd assume he would be shopping in SF's Chinatown and finding something like Random Example from Google Search (https://www.forthechef.com/chinese-cleaver-with-8-blade-and-wooden-handle.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI663nttLB2AIVQrnACh2Q WgMlEAQYASABEgJntPD_BwE). But I don't really know, this is all hearsay to me.

Anyway, to split you need a wedging action and that seems to me to be a thicker blade. A thinner blade will favor cutting and not follow the grain as well.

[Mike Holbrook]

I started with the suggestion of using a drawknife. If anyone has doubts about what a person with drawknife skill can do with such a tool, check out Curtis Buchanan’s videos on YouTube. There are a bunch of videos, #3-Riving the Arm Rail and Spindles, #4- Carving the Spindles with the Drawknife, #5 Shaping the Arm Rail with the Drawknife are probably the most relevant to this discussion.

As is the case with using many hand tools the skill set of the person wielding the tool is often the relevant factor. I have spent a good amount of time wielding various drawknives, froes and axes. I will work many more years before I achieve the skill set guys like Curtis, Peter Galbert and Drew Langsner have. Among these experienced chair makers, you will find different guys using different tools to do similar work. These individual preferences have more to do with the individuals skill set with each individual tool. There are guys with good axe skills who carve spoons with an axe, even the “carving”.

As Curtis explains early in his #3 Riving video, the bevel/side profile of the tool being used is very significant regarding what it can do. This is an entirely different issue than sharpness. There are many different drawknives, wedges, froes with very different bevels/side profiles. Certainly a wedge shape designed to make rough fire wood is not what is needed to split out 1/4-1/2” short pieces for quitar braces. There are drawknives, wedges, froes and even axes that are capable of making these splits though.

I am working on a 8.5 lb Hewing Axe, with a 13.5” blade today. When I am done I will use it to pry/cut even thinner pieces, than those mentioned by the OP, from the sides of logs. The profile of the sides of all these tools determines what they can or can not do.

[lowell holmes]

I used to have a machete that I used to split branches and wood with.

[Matt Lau]

Most of them are about 2 mm in thickness and tempered fairly softly...especially the cheap ones.
On my first guitar, I used my kitchen cleaver and it worked fine (if I didn't sharpen the thing right before using it).

The cheaper ones work well...got to a chinatown and get a $8 or 12 cleaver.

[Matt Lau]

Why not just keep doing what you were doing? It sounds like you were successful enough splitting out your brace wood with whatever kitchen knife you were using....

I ended up with what I got because this one particular knife wouldn't hold an edge for the life of it. My wife kept complaining that it wouldn't cut worth a lick.. So I confiscated it for guitar duty.. ;) ;)

I just wondered if there's something better out there?

I'd tried a hewing axe...but it was way too big!
I'll post pictures when I get my act together.
I'll likely keep my favorite cheap cleaver for kitchen duty and find a beater tonight...since I have to go to Oakland for a dental meeting.

[Jim Koepke]

I'd tried a hewing axe...but it was way too big!

Sometimes it might be helpful to find or make a miniature version of a standard tool to fit our work. That was my reason for fashioning a mini-froe.

jtk

[Mike Holbrook]

When I read this article I immediately thought of this tool. I am in the process of moving and it just turned up. It is called a Camayiri (sp?, stylized type to the point of not being readable). It was/is made by Silky, who makes Japanese saws, particularly pruning saws. It has a blaede that can be moved in an arch. I think it was designed to split bambo. I used mine for small splits and as a brush clearing tool.


379202

I searched the Silky site but did not find it. Silky does make a selection of knives, cleavers, axes.....that might work though. Check under choppers section.