"This is basically a log on a stick. I know you can make this." I feel like a caveman being introduced to new technology another caveman has developed.
@@benjaminburns6336 the caves around here always seem to have large rocks on the floor and loose ones above. I'm always aware another could drop at any time, which would make relaxing 'at home' difficult.
Don't sweat details on a froe club - it's a consumable item, you're going to use it up and replace it often enough that it's not worth putting very much work into it ;) When you're riving, remember that the froe is for doing controlled splitting, not for splitting logs ;) You can bend your froe working oversize stock. Yeah. ;) Use the wedges and sledges to do the bulk break downs and the froe and froe club for riving out the parts for projects. Saves wear and tear on your body, as well as on your froe and club.
@@tayriggles I've always loved woodwork I have most of the old hand tools I need in the shed hung up on the wall as I like the look of them lol it's time I started using them.
We use bolo (like machete) instead of axe for removing that much waste (from that handle), I feel like it has more control in many situations. We also use bolo as spokeshave. Reminds me of my grandfather only has limited tools, and he was a carpenter: - bolo - tape measure and pencil - try square (I forgot to add this) - 1/2 chisel gouge - 1/2 chisel - small hand saw - claw hammer - wooden plane
I like Japanese nata (aka hand machete) since I am in Japan. My 20cm blade works well for lighter work, and am looking forward to a 25cm in the works. I like the single bevel design with a nose (stops the front of the blade from burying in the stump you are using as a work surface).
@@davidhawley1132 interesting, some of our bolos have the same shape as nata. I am recently looking into Japanese tools as they have high quality and accessible to my country, thanks for sharing nata 😁
Green woodworking is one of my favorite things to do. Thank you for showing this. (tip) if you chamfer the top of your gluts it will prevent them from "mushrooming" and you can do the same for your beetle. Thanks again and happy bogering .
Strangely enough, an angle grinder and a few grinding discs are must-have tools for anyone who works with older hammers and wedges made of metal, too... FOR this same reason. ...well... okay, technically it only removes the mushrooming, but the chamfer still resists better than leaving the stuff to fragment and fly off (shrapnel sucks)... AND yes, I get warned ALL the time about using "antique hammers"... BUT the antiques are HARDER than a brand new hammer... They really make the work easier, and I've seen more sparks and fragmentation from newer hammers than old ones. I say "grind off the scars and swing away"... ;o)
@@winrawrisyou Not on any hammer more than a century neglected or four pounds... If you feel like nibbling for half an hour where a buzz would take seconds, you're free to do so, but I've seen some mushrooming you obviously would NEVER believe possible. ;o)
I’ve been in love with green working forever! Very cool to see you apply all your book knowledge out in the field to this traditional craft! Great video!
Hi. How nice to see that green woodworking is picking up interest. I see you own the GB Carving Axe. So do I. Here´s a tip I´ve come up with: Instead of chopping straight along the direction of the grain, try instead to come in at an angle, say between 20 and 45 degrees, to the grain. In my esperience this is more efficient, gives a muh more controlled chop, will give a nicer surface, and provided the right skill you´ll be able to shear of big shavings in a very controlled manner almost like using a very hefty plane. I love that axe. Keep it really sharp, though.
I had two maple trees cut down in my yard. I have made maple wedges and a very large maple mallet and it works. I kept seeing steel wedges but I was too cheap to buy them.
Rex... discovering your channel has been like finding a gold coin in the garden. Content and delivery are first class. Love the current greenwood theme. Truly great man,!
I love wood mallets, also great for tree felling, seriously free wedges, make them from the hardest wood you can find. The big one you made with a handle wedged in there, might want to chamfer those corners, they like to break and split.
Your channel as long been one of the few ones I'm subscribed to. Since you've started digging into the long history of wood working it quickly became one of the best! I myself started woodworking after I started my studies in archaeology and became fascinated with ancien and traditionnal crafts. You have the perfect mix of tradition and accessibility in your content, keep it up! Thank you from Québec, Canada!
Happy to see you going down this route -- I've been split working between this and "fine" indoor-woodworking but my impulse to reuse discarded material and inherent sloppiness make this a more comfortable approach. Have you tried using your drawknife bevel down for hogging off material? For drawknives that can be used this way, it can be less stressful on the wrists, in addition to allowing more control of the angle and depth of cut. I have seen a lot of recommendations to remove bark, to deter deterioration due to fungus/insects/etc getting between the bark and the wood. It's a pain, though, and I haven't found a good way to do it very quickly, especially with wood that's fallen from winter storms. You can use your beetle with your steel wedge too, so you don't have to switch between tools and it prevents mushrooming around the head. I have also seen Peter Follansbee use a froe to score the line across the log, which works better because it's longer. For anyone needing something more portable (and wanting a bit more cardio), a vintage one-person cross-cut saw is a good alternative to a chainsaw. Of course, one then needs to assemble a kit for sharpening it, which is similar to but different enough than sharpening a hand saw, but even on the US west coast the saw & sharpening cost less than $100.
Most British bodger call a froe mallet a beetle. Love those wedges, and splitting brake. Did you realise that the Romans work bench had one built in. the bigger mallets are known as mauls but it really depends of the craftsman a which trade they are using it in. I heard many arguments over naming convention. The best was about the the shape of the head. Round is a beetle and square is a maul. I’ve name mine, With a riddle love not lies, peace not war, life not death, with it faces saying all or nothing. Seam like the right thing to do. Fantastic work Rex. As simple works best.this is great keep it up!
Nice video! A couple easy tricks that will make your life easier and wooden tools last longer. First if you make your froe thinner, from blade to spine, you'll find that it is MUCH easier to get the leverage you need to split even large rounds. Second: If you cut the tops and bottoms off of 1, 2, & 3 liter soda bottles, you'll have small, med, and large sized sleeves of PET plastic. PET plastic is some pretty incredible stuff and can be used as SUPER tough SHRINK WRAP! Protect your gluts from splitting & cracking by simply sliding a length of PET sleeve just larger than the diameter of the round end and simply shrink the sleeve with a few passes of a propane torch! You can also extend the life of the striking face of your froe club almost indefinitely, by layering several 3 liter sleeves over the striking end. Simply replace the sleeves when they wear out, instead of having to replace the whole club! The sleeves can also be used to help prevent splitting of your mallets by "Shrink wrapping" both ends. For larger mallets with larger diameter than a 3 liter bottle, you can get similar protection by carefully spiral cutting the sleeve into a 1/4 in. ribbon, which will be long enough to wrap several times around the ends, like cordage, and shrunk tight with the same propane torch! Incidentally, smaller PET bottles can be used as sleeves or ribbons in this fashion to protect or repair almost any tool handles from over strike or splitting damage!! Hope these tips are helpful!! :) Edit: You might also find that you can very effectively protect the feet of any shaving horse or stools that are used/live outside in the wet grass from rotting/ splitting by making "Socks" for the feet, by cutting only the tops off of smaller PET bottles. Use bottles just larger in diameter than the feet, drill a couple drain holes in the bottoms of the bottles, and "shrink" the socks right on!
You really need a crosscut saw and a saw buck. I made a club like that about a year ago from elm. Its really beat up, I've lost a few chunks off it, but it does the job. Use what you have readily available.
Pro tip for the wooden gluts, from someone who does bushcraft. If you chamfer the edges and create a rough angle on the striking portion, it will allow the wedges to last much longer and avoid excessive damage.
I made a maul a la The Woodwright Shop. I found a tree top that had been cut down at the campground where we lived. I cut around the perimeter to depth and started splitting with a hatchet. It's rough, but it works.
I'll have three logs on sticks by the time I start building the timber framed building. My froe was from an estate sale I suspect it's older than dirt. Just about finished with the new handle. The froe hammer is called a glut. I still need to make a glut. I've been using chunks of branches in place of one.
Can't wait to see where this series goes! With the prices of lumber at the moment, I think a lot of us will be looking to use firewood or rounds to do some projects!
I have been known to boil rawhide strips (hand cut, don't just order "lace") and BOUND the ends of a mallet-head to keep it from splitting... AND ten years later, it's beaten on axes, hatchets, and plenty of other metal without coming apart... plenty scarred, but no splitting... Good thick rawhide is necessary, and if you cut it dry, you'll need tin-snips or similar blade and leverage tooling to do it... THEN... yes, boil it... GET GLOVES... AND a couple thick dowels will help... You've got to work it hot... So use tongs to get the strips out of the water, and keeping the water hot, you can occasionally dip and pour the stuff to re-wet the strips as you go... Use the dowels as handles to you can wrap the rawhide, because hot and wet rawhide is elastic and slimey... it's difficult as hell to control, AND you absolutely MUST wrap it TIGHT... Two or three turns is about all you should need, and whether you've punched the strip at the ends or you just tie some clever knots (several to choose from) is up to you... Use SOLID UNMOVING KNOTS... AND then let it dry. The rawhide shrinks as it dries, and it'll re-harden. It'll bite into the wood (even 100 year old seasoned oak or hickory) and "set up" as hard as it was before you boiled it... Those fibers ain't going much of anywhere any time soon, I promise. I've lashed together pagodas and benches that won't move after more than a decade... The ONLY trouble with rawhide is that it has to stay dry... SO a healthy layer of shellac or poly (as much as I also like traditional woodwork) isn't a bad idea so you can keep the green woodwork out of a climate controlled space... OR in case you get caught in the rain... It won't hurt it much, but it can soften in the middle of a job... It WILL return to "normal" upon drying of course... SO you CAN always just keep a nearby fire to warm and dry the tool in such instances if you'd rather... I just don't know how "production minded" you might rather be in balancing with traditional styling. ;o)
Thanks for the green wood craft content. I am learning woodturning, but I use pretty much exclusively salvaged wood. These techniques will help a lot. And I already have a Froe !
Glad you went on Jameses live RU-vid channel the other week. Been listening to some of your RU-vid clips, been loving him this by man from England really enjoying listening to you. Especially with a green woodworking as I’ve took it up last year. I’ve made a mall. What I done with mine Georgia hole through the handle put a piece of rope round it to make a loop and hang it by my chopping block it’s always there and if it’s outdoors doesn’t matter. Also make a few at a time just in case one goes missing or breaks
I split my firewood with a maul. One overhead strike with the force of your entire body and that baby is split. i use my froe to further reduce these splits into potential spindles for furniture. I thoroughly love bucking wood. There’s a video out there in RU-vid U wherein some fellow made a safe cradle for segmenting logs (with a chainsaw). His cradle is a simple build from two discarded pallets. I’ll try to find it… Thank you for your great videos.
I made a froe hammer from a short bit of 2 1/2” copper pipe, a length of rebar, and 4 pewter beer mugs (melted on a camp stove). The soft copper & tin won’t hurt the froe and the power from 2 kg striking the froe is amazing
"Brake"... ;) Couldn't resist, thanks again! I have built/improvised a few brakes/breaks over the years and I never saw the notched beam with shim idea. Nice!
"Brake", in American English, means to stop such as the brakes on a car. "Break", in American English, means to separate such as breaking glass or take a work break or, in this case, to separate a log into pieces. Riving is the process using the froe to "break" the wood in a controlled manner vs a dish that breaks on the floor. However, it does stop the wood from moving ....
@@theTeslaFalcon lol, "stops the wood from moving"... I have just seen it written "brake" so many times, but English is so riddled with spelling variants, especially before the 19th century, where a lot of green woodworking knowledge and practice comes from, it's sort of silly to bring it up. Peter Follansbee probably has a dozen articles on his blog with mentions of many alternate spellings in the record.... I just like to stir up a good spelling debate. ;). I'm also a GIF-like-the-peanut-butter guy... Let's give Rex some more YT algorithm mojo and discuss that one, shall we? ;)
@@ATONAL6173 Considering that the peanut butter uses a J and when I first heard it, I thought they were saying "gift" which in 1995 images kinda were ... the gift that kept on giving and giving and WILL THIS STUPID THING EVER LOAD?! Interlacing saved my sanity. As to the brake/break debate, I was about ready to throw the whole thing out w decisiveness on the side of break when that last sentence came to mind. Doubt arose. I had heard of riving knives and block stops and "beadles" (not beetles), but, as you say, we're not dealing a highly refined or well educated history. Most of this was written by the intellectuals trying to preserve it vs the actual craftsmen such in the Foxfire series.
@@theTeslaFalcon My friend who introduced me to BBS's back in the day said "JIF" and so does the creator of the format, so I'm a jiffer for life. I would say, "Giraffe" as an example, but there are way more words with the "Gift" g sound, so I won't. Pre-industrial English spellings were whatever you want it seems, I think I've seen beadle too.
I love osage orange (we call it hedge). My shop mallet is a hedge head w/ an oak handle. I plan on making another one, as well as a club-style one, probably of hedge.
I'm partial to making my whacking sticks out of large knots and other convoluted grain structures; it seems to make them last longer when batoning/froing and ice breaking on the farm!
If you do not have the best wood for a maul or club, pick out of what you have, a section of log with knots in it . It may be a bit harder to work, but the knots hold it together even if your club is made of green wood. They are so easy to make, if they get trashed with use just make another. Your cleaving wood looks a bit old. The joy of splitting green ash or sweet chestnut cannot be bettered. The smell is great and no dust. Love you videos.
If you use green, wet wood for the head of the beetle, and dry wood for the handle, the head will shrink around the handle gripping it - that is a classic move in green woodworking, or so im told ;-)
Great video Rex. Question from the UK... Inspired by you, I recently got an old stanley no4 Bailey and restored it. I like it. A lot. However mine is a "Made in England" plane, naturally. Lots of people online don't rate these compared to their US made cousins. Why? I read that the casting it thick and rough (so? Just lap it as you want it) and questions on quality... but it's old Sheffield Steel, no? What more do you want? What's the history here? Why are people funny about "made in England" Stanleys? What's your view? I'd be interested to hear.
Stanley put out some rather poor examples of planes that were unfortunately the only planes that were available in the big box stores in the U.S. for a while - the Stanley 404. It has "Made in England" very prominently on the plane. I own one myself, mostly because when I started getting into woodworking that's all I could find locally (my state's only a bit over a century old, so old hand tools are harder to find here than they are out east). It's absolute crap. Yes, it's possible to polish that turd a bit and get something that kinda works sometimes, but it's a total piece of junk. And for many Americans, that's the only "Made in England" Stanley they are familiar with. So we get told to scour the flea markets and ebay for old American-made Stanleys and to avoid those nonfunctional "Made in England" planes.
Dude. Green woodworking looks like a lot of fun, and I can't wait to get to some non-stroke inducing weather to try it out (it is miserably hot and humid on the Gulf Coast this summer). Also, I want a beetle just because it looks fun to make and fun to have.
I have seen the term 'beetle mallet' before outside the context of woodworking, referring to a large hammer-like tool. It is interesting that it is actually called a 'beetle'.
Neat trick... Cut about a dozen gluts out of seasoned dogwood... smooth and all... Lay a six-foot or so log out, and just start with the iron wedge, and then dig all but one of the gluts in... DO NOT BURY THE IRON WEDGE... Just before the iron wedge is buried, knock it side to side and extract it... replaced with the last of your gluts... add rags to the spaces between and at the ends... and press them in firmly... and add water... lots and lots of very warm (not boiling... think tea or coffee) water... It takes a bit of practice, but it's a clever way to split logs into staves... which can then be used for bows, canoes, kayaks, and lots of other "out-doorsy" woodwork projects. The "trick" (other than using water instead of beating yourself to death of course) is the proportion of gluts size to the diameter of log... BUT if you get that right, logs to staves are a relatively simple (if time consuming as hell) process. ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 interesting I’ve never used water on dry timbers. I have used alcohol when carving though One thing I do try to do with green logs is strip the bark off and paint the ends. I’m either not anal enough or too frugal to go buy anchor seal, I just use whatever I have, usually some type of house paint or stain. Just to help the ends from checking. I figure they’ll be cut off anyway. I also try very hard to use the wood whilst green. It’s a lot easier to work with
@@elained9591 Okay, the idea here (just to be completely clear) is that you dry your gluts out enough that the water can make them swell... You don't want to do it too aggressively because that's similar to heat treating and really SLOWS an already time-intensive process... As the gluts swell, they naturally separate the log, and you only have to drive a few, instead of one every couple inches (which can get horribly labor intensive, on top of making all the gluts)... I've had to keep pouring warm water every half hour or so and monitoring the thing all night and sometimes into the next day before "I've done as much damage as possible"... BUT in most cases, once I got pretty skilled "eyeballing it" (the old fashioned way), it was fairly regular that I only needed an ordinary crowbar or two to finish splitting logs upwards of a foot thick... In our current day and age, it's more of an engineering challenge or an exercise in history than exactly an effective process, though... worth note, but more academic when you can find a decent hydraulic splitter or contract a custom model to fit your preference (like six-foot logs, instead of 18 inch (max) firewood)... You can also "cook" fairly thick wood so long as it's straight-grained to the greater degree, and just bend it. It takes about 1 hour per inch (25 mm) on the shortest dimension (thickness usually)... It's a tough and aggravating skill, requires care around extremely hot steam and the kind of pressure from stuffing a rag in the end of a pipe... AND you get burned both physically literally and in the more figurative sense when some pieces just snap for no fault of anyone... Once bent, you can tie it or clamp it down and then heat-dry it in a fairly regulated and monitored space (I've used attics and old green-houses) so it's uncomfortably hot and dry, but not so rough as to damage anything... In fact, old-timers in the mountains here still weight pieces down and toss them into ponds to soak for days and then start bending, but that's a REALLY tedious process... ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 Thanks! Steam bending is a bit of a challenge lol. I have seen folks put green lumber in a jig and let it stay outside until it’s formed. Takes a bit of time and one always needs to be careful of the bugs…I’ve also seen some heat walking sticks up by campfires after carving to strengthen them. I think the old way was to ah g it up inside the chimney, must’ve been before dampers as I can’t imagine how one would get a stick up past them
Hey Rex, I have been a big fan for ages. Once I move into my new apartment, I plan on joining your patreon. I very much look forward to seeing those guest videos as well. I also wanted to comment on the content of this video. While I have less experience working in a shop with proper tools for carpentry or furniture woodworking, I do have a bit of experience in green wood working. I will give you the benefit of my experience here if you do not mind: Regarding the froe mallet you made (I've heard it referred to as a maul), you could have been a lot less refined with it, saving time and a lot of effort. Given that the side of the head will get chewed up fairly quickly, your concerns about the stress at the head-handle joint were unnecessary. This tool, like many others, were considered essentially disposable. You make one from the materials at hand and refined it only as far as you needed for the job, then discarded. The same was true for froe handles. In a lot of cases for green woodworkers or for foresters their froes would not have mounted handles. The eye would be slightly flared towards the blade side allowing for a handle to be fit like a tomahawk. Moreover, with froes, the aim is to use the maul in alternating strikes to help split the wood. It is why the ends of a lot of froes are clipped - they allow for another striking surface once the back of the blade is buried too deep to be struck. Strike, lever, strike, lever, etc. Regarding your tool choice: you used a carving axe or a felling axe for a lot of your axework and I think you might have benefitted from something a little more modest. A carving axe is bit heavy for as broad as it is for the jobs you used it for. Meanwhile the felling axe was too big and too clumsy. When I have made mauls before, I used an axe about 24-26 inches in length with a head designed for forestry or hunting - something small, relatively light, and a narrow blade with a short head. This makes for a much easier time of this rough work you were doing. For the size of wood you were using, a great technique for splitting without access to a hammer or maul (useful if you are making your maul) is to pick up the wood and axe together and dropping it onto a stump or rock using the weight of the axe to do the splitting work for you. This technique is also much safer. Meanwhile, this axe could have been used to score the line used for your gluts; negating the need for a steel hammer and wedge. If your viewers were looking for a very suitable substitute for the chainsaw or to reduce the size of their tool kit, they could very easily use the bucksaw you pulled out later in the video. In green wood, freshly cut from standing trees, the bucksaw is basically a lightsaber. Apologies for the essay! I just wanted to help out if I can. Love your work as always. Thanks Rex!
You can make a "beetle" with just a friction fit. Just make the joint slightly conical and elliptical (like an axe handle) with most of the pressure in the narrow ends of the ellipse and drive the handle in with a mallet or just by hitting it on to the ground a few times. It might take some adjusting, but once it's done, it won't come off that easy. If you do this, you can make a good handle and only change the heads once they break. And they will break. Or you might want to change them. Also, don't be fooled by the size of the wood. You can, and might want to go way bigger than what Rex did. I like to store parts of a tree where the trunk splits in two, for heads. You get only one usable surface, but around 1,5 times the weight for its diameter when compared to a straight log. They also don't split from the joint.
Thanks Rex! Great content as always. I think I’ll have to talk to a blacksmith about making a froe. I’ve got some dogwood logs hanging about. Sounds like just the thing to do during the heat! Actually, it’s been so wet around here I just can’t do any outside work. Biting bugs and humid heat just do not make for a pleasant outdoor experience! But, fall is coming and I’ll be looking for just this kind of thing to do. Thanks for the motivation and guidance. :)
Nice work. A lot of great info. One of the things I found out it that you don't transfer any of the edges of the pieces that you used to strike or those getting struck. All of the Bushcraft resources that I've ever seen they always champ for the edges of things that are going to get struck to keep the edges from peeling back when you use them. Why is it that you don't do that?
Osage Orange (hedge), for all of its density and hardness, is extremely easy to split. A lot of really hard woods are, especially if they are green and have a low value on the modulus of elasticity. I've also found that yellow woods are easy to split, along with high density and great rot resistance. Hedge, mulberry, locust, persimmon.
Green wood work was low status work and the names used reflect the pre French English of the peasantry so they seem weird to us who use French loan words in English of the higher status literate folk. Before technology had allowed long thin steel pit rip saw blades rising was the only real option to make boards from tree trunks. In the old USA pioneer days a hole bored into one end of the cut down trunk was often filled with black powder and lit by a fuse. The force of the explosion ripped large splits down the log to begin the riving process. To then be finished flat with a bearded axe or adze.
If you use cedar, all you need is a chisel and a hand saw to cut around to depth then remove the access of the handle using the chisel. Dog wood and hickory may be more difficult, because of twisted grain, that is my theory as I have only used cedar for this type of mallet, and I only have not worked any hickory or dogwood.
Thanks for the video. Chop up all the Norway Maple you can- it's illegal to plant, buy, sell, or propagate here in Maine. It's deep shade kills most of our native plants, and it's extremely fecund (I love a chance to use that word). Notice the log you split with the gluts goes up to the right as you look at it. It's from a right handed tree, which is about 90% of them. Some factor we haven't determined causes the vessels and fibers to grow to the left or right as they go up, favoring the right. There seem to be factors that determine the pitch. This seems pretty consistent across species.
