"Harvesting" Green Wood from the Side of the Road

hey so this last weekend I was out for a hike and as I was driving to the trail I passed this stretch Road where a really big nice red oak tree had just fallen and been cut up into really big locks and my first thought was that would be amazing for green woodworking but the logs were way too big Here Comes somebody who lives here yeah they looked at me really weirdly okay so uh these logs were way too big for me to move let alone get in my car they were in big lengths so I thought the best thing to do would be to come and split them into sections like quarters and halves that way I'd preserve the length and I'd be able to get them in my car and also by splitting the wood you keep all the fibers continuous cutting them up with a saw or a chainsaw would break the fibers and then they're not nearly as good for green woodworking so I'm out here on a public road taking wood from possibly private property with people driving by oh and using techniques that I've read about in a book but never actually used what could possibly go wrong here's a log that you might see and want to use for green woodworking but this is actually a terrible choice because you can see there are knots in it and there are branches that are coming out not just one or two but all over the log you're never going to be able to split this and so it's not going to make nice continuous fibers it's not going to make good parts for green woodworking as good as this log looks the size is perfect you have to leave something like this this is just firewood this is a great log for green woodworking it's about three feet long about 14 inches in diameter it's perfect size it's small enough that I can roll it but I still wouldn't be able to lift it it's super heavy because it's wet green wood it's nice and straight and it doesn't have it's got a little tree branch back here but I think I can work with that and what I want to do is split this probably in half fewest splits is better and the tools for that are going to be a sledgehammer and a couple of Steel wedges this log already has a check starting in the end from where it's already beginning to dry so I want to use that I'm going to try to continue it across this log look here comes somebody else who lives here and they're slowing down and they're looking at me and they're driving past that's what we want okay so this check starts here and continues up here so I want to split this trunk just this way and the check is going to give me a good start so I'm going to use this small wedge to continue that line and what I'm doing here is just scoring the tree because I want it to keep going in the same direction once we start and by scoring it I'm going to encourage it to split evenly okay so I've followed that original check and I've carried that as far as I can running into the ground a little there now I'm going to use the small wedge and a slightly larger one to try and open this up first I'm going to set this wedge that little wedge was too dull and I couldn't get it to set but this big one set now I should be able to start splitting it's gentle TAPS at first I wanted to get a good tight shot here and show how how green this wood is as I'm driving the wedge in all this water is coming out and I've got a good split started now so now hopefully this dull wedge won't matter so much I should be able to get it in oh yeah and that's going to help let this fella drive past again that's the utilities guy again and luckily he is not stopping that's awesome so this piece is just about to split hopefully we get a good view of this on camera I need to alternate these wedges a bit I don't know if you can hear it on the mic but there's all this crackling coming from inside the log honestly it sounds pretty cool oh it's just about ready the split is all the way down the back here it looks pretty amazing actually good having a wedge Fallout is actually good that means we're making Headway I'm going to put it back in foreign okay that wedge is totally buried okay both my wedges are buried in the log and I know you're probably thinking okay genius it hasn't split all the way now what so this exact situation where the log is starting to split and it's opened up but I haven't gotten it all the way this is why I made a pair of gluts last summer maybe two summers ago who can remember these are made out of Norway maple it's super hard wood and they're just a wooden wedge and the reason we make these out of wood is because they're not going to interfere with these metal wedges they're not going to Chip and they're not dangerous you make them out of a super hard wood like Norway maple because that way they're effective for splitting I'm gonna set it with my little Hammer these are wood so I don't want to hit them with a sledgehammer I've got a better tool for that this is called a beetle it's just what it looks like it's a log on a stick I also made this a couple summers ago these are specifically for hitting gluts like this and they won't damage them oh and now that log is splitting open beautifully add another glut down here at the bottom and give it another swing oh that's it perfect okay the log is far enough open so that I can get my wedges out and the problem now is there's a lot of connecting fibers inside this log you can see them and they're going to keep it from splitting open and I'm just going to use my regular old boy scout Hatchet to reach in there and sever those fibers you don't want to force the log open because they might tear but now that was pretty easy and now we should get a nice reveal there's the interior of the log and it's really nice Red Oak probably not quite as straight as we would like a few more knots but I can see it's clear down to about here that's good wood the reflects are good it's still really green this tree was live when it went down this wood might not be perfect but it's definitely decent it's definitely good for learning I wonder if I can stand one of these up definitely can and that's good still a little bit heavy for me to get no I could get this in the car I might just transport these exactly the way they are they're a good size I wish they had left this log a little bit longer before they cut it and they didn't cut it all the way through so I can't move it but at least it'll hold still this log is a great candidate for splitting because there's actually a big Branch coming out right here which means this whole side of the log I wouldn't use anyway so I'm going to try and split it this way because this side is clear it's a good 16 20 inches and that should yield some good wood so now's a great time for me to be careful and control my split learning from past mistakes we're not going to try and split this or score it I should say with that dull wedge because that's not going to work so instead we're going to use our Hatchet which is nice and sharp and our Beetle and I'm still going to make a score line right through the pith there's no check lines this time so that's not going to help but that's okay because I decide where it goes some folks say you can't hit the back of the hatchet I have hit this Hatchet more times than I can count the I hasn't changed the handle is fine I think if you hit your hatchet with wood you're in completely safe territory that's good that's nice and seated now I want to put my smaller wedge in here just like I did before now I should be able to alternate you might think I'm wailing the bejesus out of these wedges but I'm really not I'm hitting them pretty gently because we're trying to use leverage not impact to split this log okay little ones done move that to the side for safety now burying that all the way wasn't the best idea because now I can't get it out it's completely stuck I am going to go in here with the gluts to open this up but it's best to leave a little bit of wedge sticking out then you can hit it sideways and get it out if you need to I've got my two gluts down at the end far away from my wedges because this is where I need the splitting action wasn't expecting that let's try to go a little bit closer to the existing split there we go progress wow that flew like 10 feet I think this log is so springy because I opened it up here but not down here so let me try to open it down here a little more freed up my big wedge so we can kind of hopscotch now bring the big wedge down here where it's going to be more effective oh I hear a lot of popping inside this log that's a good sign okay so I see the biggest problem is that this log is still connected just a little bit they didn't cut it all the way through and I thought I was clear but there's still a section about this big that's still connected to the big log that's what's giving this so much Flex it would split a lot easier otherwise I might have to quarter this one off here and just take a quarter of this log because I don't have a chainsaw and I don't know if I can get in there or not let's see not to knock your wedges all the way in because then they're going to get stuck and you can't get them out and this one down here is good and completely stuck and the little one's too little oh and both the gluts are buried in there too so now we're down to using an ax as a splitting wedge I agree and it's not ideal but I'm out here in the field and this is what I've got so let's split there we go okay whoo that is a completely decent piece of red oak pretty excited about that doesn't really fix this problem though although maybe now there we go got that glut out at least and if I drive the glut in this way maybe I can open up that split and get my wedge out at least foreign there we go if I have to leave one thing behind I'd rather it be the glut I didn't pay for that now that I see where this is connected I think I can also split off this top quarter and this is nice clear wood so we're going to give it a shot this time I'm not going to bury my wedge whoops knocked that one in a little too far but not the big one so let's see if I hit the big one just a little bit more I can get the little one out and replace that with a glut and I'm going to be more intelligent this time foreign there it is oh there's another completely decent bolt of red oak nice and straight almost all Heartwood just a tiny bit of sap wood I see a bit of a knot here but the grain here is just perfect this is going to be a great piece for chair making or other green work okay camera battery is nearly dead tripod is in literally the dodgiest position I've ever had it in in seven years of YouTube but I think I can Harvest this quarter of this big log and if I could there'd be a lot of wood there let's see what happens oh there's all kinds of popping and cracking going on inside that log huh man this is hard work I know I said earlier that I wasn't going to hit these with the Sledge but too tight can't get the beetle in there okay alternating gluts okay rather not lose my wedges again turns out I actually am teachable oh that was it Hatchet to break up those interior fibers right onto my foot didn't hurt a bit now that log split as a half and I could have taken the whole half with me but I split it again into quarters because you can see this one has very twisty sort of spiraling grain this is never going to split cleanly this is firewood this piece has straight Ur grain it's definitely a little bit too curvy in the middle near the pith but out here near the sapwood it's pretty straight so I might still be able to split a couple good components out of this piece it was worth splitting so I can leave that and only take the good wood back at the shop the wood was surprisingly easy to unload take a big log and bust it into quarters and all of a sudden moving it is no big deal even the biggest pieces I got this morning were surprisingly manageable now that I've got all these logs back in the shop I'm going to take my fro and my fro club and bust off all of that bark and sap wood if this stuff picked up any rot or insects from laying on the ground that's probably going to be in in the softer sapwood Parts if I get rid of those the hardwood should be good for a long time now these long sections you might think they're going to dry out but they lose almost all of their moisture just through the end grain so if I seal that up I can preserve these for weeks or maybe months I'm going to seal them with a couple of coats of yellow glue wax Emulsion is a lot better but I don't have any of that on hand and I have so much yellow glue I've used it before and it works totally fine for this sort of thing this video is a little different than what we usually do usually I like to figure things out completely and then show them to you when they're all sorted and harvesting green wood isn't like that I'm no expert I'm figuring it out but I've gotten to the point where I've read everything there is to read on this subject and the only thing left for me to do is go out there and try and maybe fail and of course I found some things that I need to change some of my tools aren't quite what they need to be but it didn't stop me I brought back actually a lot of wood and I have some great projects in mind so stay tuned for those click that subscribe button if you haven't already patreon.com Rex Krueger patrons get everything early including this video an amazing Community free plans a ton of rewards for only five dollars a month go ahead and check that out and a big thanks to the people who make these videos possible I'll see you next week thanks for watching

Channel: Rex Krueger

Views: 61,372

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Id: uJrtRpSYyHc

Length: 18min 10sec (1090 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 26 2023