It's edge is also (hopefully), slightly stuck in the block. If your wood is dry and straight grained (and worth burning), your hatchet has now cut through the end of the stick, making a slight fork. Now, lift them both and bring them both down hard on the block. Hold the hatchet in your strong hand, and lay the blade on the far end of the piece, and in the middle. Lay the piece flat on the chopping block, holding it with your weak hand. once you get that smaller piece split in half (say 2" thick now), you're pretty much not going to be able to "chop" it into a smaller split. I use a Norlund hudson bay style hatchet, mostly, but my Fiskars and GB SFA work the same way. I normally try to work off an 8 or 9" piece (iow, half the length of a "standard" 16" piece of firewood). This is important when splitting log rounds into quarters, for fire wood, but the target is a little smaller when you're trying to make kindling. how are you "splitting" your wood? Are you standing it on end, and trying to get the hatchet to drive all the way down through it? If so, there isn't much "edge" touching the shoulders of the split, and blade shape (lots of cheek) becomes very necessary to force it apart. I'm going to look at this from a skill/technique standpoint. I like to line it up on my strong side and swing the hatchet treating the pole as a mallet and the wedge as a ball, you get the picture.Īt least this is the way I do things, YMMV. ![]() For a polo wedge lay the wood so that the round and wedge are parallel to the ground. Momentum and gravity will do the work for you finishing the split. For the gravity wedge flip the wood so the wedge is facing the ground and find something solid like a rock to toss it down on. Then you give the wedge a couple of taps with the pole and you choose between the gravity wedge and wedge polo. ![]() Start the split at and edge with the hatchet and place the wedge in the crack before removing the hatchet. ![]() I also find it handy to produce a couple of wedges first if splitting larger rounds. This also makes it easier to remove the hatchet due to the decreased friction and not having sharp edges preventing you from rocking the hatchet back and forth. It can act as a wedge in the wood with less friction since only the center of the head should contact the wood up until the eye. I'm going to recommend a vintage North American hatchet with a high centerline.
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