Simple Sharpening--Oil? Water? ... and which honing stones?

[gben]

It could be the type of wood your cutting & splitting. When my ax hits in my sand and rocks a few times the edge is gone. When the edge is gone, that means it takes more exerted energy to obtain a split. I guess it's just my wood. DM

I would only have to dull my axe or maul once by running it into rocky ground to figure out that I needed to be doing my splitting on a stump or block of some sort, how long is it going to take you to figure that out???

 

[muleman77]

Its way easier to split a big truckload of wood right on the ground, axe edge be damned.
Besides the extra power in the swing you get, Its also way more work to lift every round an extra time, up on a block than just work the edge a couple times with a file and stone.
I bet that emory oak is pretty heavy.

Work smarter, not harder.....

 

[Student762]

The puck and loogey method is a sure-fire winner for in the field.

 

[junkenstien]

Yum loogey,not sure thats the consistency your looking for but that might be worthy of its own thread.Agree on splitting on the ground being much easier for sure.

 

[Student762]

Its way easier to split a big truckload of wood right on the ground, axe edge be damned.
Besides the extra power in the swing you get, Its also way more work to lift every round an extra time, up on a block than just work the edge a couple times with a file and stone.
I bet that emory oak is pretty heavy.

Work smarter, not harder.....

Not to mention if you're splitting the logs as you go quite often there's not going to be a really ideal chopping block around either.

 

[Old Axeman]

gben has claimed, in another thread, to have split 10's of thousands of logs in his younger days. Do you think he put every one of the 10's of thousands up on a block to split? What a man.

 

[David Martin]

When out cutting I don't always have a stump to stand logs on to split. So, I've been using some round limbs rolled up under the log to split it
on. Look at my recent photos in 'Out Cutting'. Then when I get them home I have plywood I can stand the logs on. Even so, using this method
after 1-2 days of splitting my wood the toe will need touching up. DM

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Using a chopping block only makes sense if you have a block that's an equal or greater diameter than what you're splitting. Otherwise the ground will end up absorbing more of your blow due to the reduced surface area contact, so splitting large rounds right on the ground is usually the best way to go, and then place the smaller pieces on a block to finish.

 

[Meek1]

When out cutting I don't always have a stump to stand logs on to split. So, I've been using some round limbs rolled up under the log to split it
on. Look at my recent photos in 'Out Cutting'. Then when I get them home I have plywood I can stand the logs on. Even so, using this method
after 1-2 days of splitting my wood the toe will need touching up. DM

Dave, I for one thoroughly enjoy your updates and photos in "Out Cutting". Please don't change a thing. You live in beautiful country and I like all the pictures.

 

[David Martin]

You ax men are greatly supportive of a common wood cutter like me. Thanks.
We have a winter storm moving in tonight / tomorrow morning and I'll be trying to keep our house warm. DM

 

[thunderstick]

Its way easier to split a big truckload of wood right on the ground, axe edge be damned.
Besides the extra power in the swing you get, Its also way more work to lift every round an extra time, up on a block than just work the edge a couple times with a file and stone.
I bet that emory oak is pretty heavy.

Work smarter, not harder.....

That lifting up gets old ... however sometimes our ground is just too spongy and absorbs too much shock. These last two years its just been super wet in our area and splitting large rounds on the ground has been non-productive.

In cases like this I vote for plywood or just cutting a large round into 8-10" pancake that can easily be moved along with the relative splitting areas i.e. move along area by area. If you keep it in the same spot it will tend to settle in and get tight. Also it's not too high for rolling a large piece onto the chopping block. Sometimes I cut the stump low and roll the first big boys onto the stump for a chopping block. This works really well. But if you have relatively solid ground, not a lot of rocks, and the wood is fairly straight-grained you make by far the best time just standing them up and busting them on the ground.