Back in the summer of 2010, this oak tree developed some kind of disease and we had to have it taken down. It probably would have lived a few more years, but it was starting to rot at the base and it was close enough to the house that if a good stiff wind came along it would end up crashing into the house and ruining the new roof and siding. It’s kind of too bad we had to remove it; the tree provided a lot of shade on the south side of the house.

As an aside, I had a heck of a time finding the pictures of this event. For some reason I thought that we took the tree down in 2009, and I thought I’d blogged about it. But I couldn’t find it in the blog, and I couldn’t find the pictures where I thought they should be. I finally decided to check the year 2010. Hey, at least I got the month right.

I call this the Facebook problem. With Facebook, I’m much more likely to post a picture or two and a few paragraphs. Writing a blog entry is more work and doesn’t have the instant gratification of people pressing “Like” or leaving a quick comment. It’s way too easy to make a quick Facebook post and move on. I had to search sequentially through the history to find the old post. Then I discovered how to search my Activity Log . . .

Anyway, back to the tree. What was left after they topped it is shown on the left: a 12-foot-tall trunk about two feet in diameter and a fork at the top. That ended up in three pieces, the largest being the bottom seven feet. I spent a couple of days cutting up the larger limbs and putting them in the firewood pile, and grinding up the smaller stuff for mulch. The larger limbs and the two smaller (if you call two and a half feet tall and two feet thick “small”) trunk pieces got stacked around a nearby mesquite tree so I could split them after they dried.

Debra and I, with the help of the lawn tractor, rolled the large trunk out of the way under some other trees. The idea was to let it dry for a few years and then carve it into something. I didn’t know what, but I wanted to try my hand at chainsaw carving.

But the log started to crack quite a bit and I didn’t really know how to prevent or even slow the cracking. So I left the trunk there under the other trees, figuring I’d cut it up for firewood (or BBQ wood) one of these days.

I did make an end table from the top trunk piece. That’s another example of the Facebook problem. I’ll have to post about that here another time.

A couple of weeks ago I got the crazy idea of trying to get usable carving or possibly building wood from that trunk. It’d be kind of cool to mill lumber from that tree and build a table or a small hutch or something. And seeing as how my little electric chainsaw would have some serious trouble getting through that trunk, I decided I’d try to split the log and see if I could get any usable lumber out of it. And, because I’m curious, I thought I’d see if I could split it without using power tools.

I started by driving my steel splitting wedge into the end of the log with a little four pound sledge. That worked well enough: a split formed at the top of the log and there and there were satisfying crackling sounds coming from the log as the fibers split. But then my wedge was stuck.

I tried making wedges out of oak branches and some scrap 2×4 lumber, but they disintegrated in short order when I tried to drive them into the crack.

A friend who was building a deck a few years ago gave me a bunch of cutoffs: 2×4 and 4×4 pieces that were six to eight inches long. The wood was Ipê: a very hard wood from South America that is commonly used for building decks. I carved a few birds from it, but the rest has been sitting in my shop waiting for me to come up with uses for it. It’s an okay carving wood. It makes excellent splitting wedges, though. A few cuts on the bandsaw and I was back in business.

Then it was a matter of driving a wedge into the log, moving a few inches, driving another wedge, etc. I had enough wedges that by the time I ran out the log had split enough that I could re-use those from the back of the line. I did have to make another trip to the bandsaw for more, though: even the Ipê isn’t indestructible. Between me whacking it with the hammer and the oak resisting splitting, those wedges were only good for two or three uses. I suspect they would have lasted longer if I’d been using a wooden hammer. I might try that if I ever split a log like this again.

When I got to the end of the log it was split most of the way through all along its length, but I didn’t have long enough wedges to complete the job. Debra hurt her finger (nearly crushed it) helping me roll the log over and it was almost dark anyway, so I reluctantly put up my tools (except for the steel wedge that was still stuck in the other end) and called it a night.

And that’s how I left it for a week. This evening I cut eight more wedges and used a steel bar as a lever to roll the log over. It didn’t take but about 15 minutes to finish the job of splitting the log into two pieces.

That’s a very strange perspective. Those two pieces really are the same length. The foreground piece is not as wide as the one in back (the log didn’t split exactly evenly down the middle), but they’re absolutely the same length. The picture makes it look like the foreground piece is longer.

You can also see the remains of the Ipê wedges there on the foreground piece. The rest of them are in splinters.

Both of those pieces have large cracks along which I’ll split off pieces, again by hand. I should end up with a about eight 7-foot pieces of wood of varying thickness. I’m hoping that I can get at least one piece that’s four inches square. I know that I will get several pieces that will allow me to cut 2×4 boards, and possibly even some 2×6 pieces. And of course I’ll get lots of stuff that’s one inch or less in thickness.

Once I get the log split into roughly the sized pieces I want, I’ll take them to TechShop and spend some time with the jointer and planer to make lumber. Unless, of course, the log is too far gone. Then I’ll just cut it up and use it for the smoker.

I learned quite a bit splitting this log. If I had to do another, I could probably do it in half the time. It was pretty interesting going through the learning process, and I have a new appreciation for how people did things before they had the benefit of sawmills that produce nice straight lumber as if by magic. Making your own boards is work.