Building Gragg’s “Elastic” Chairs — Harvesting the Wood 2

With the trunks on the ground, sectioned and ready for me, I came after supper and lit into them.  They were heavy enough that even with logging tools they were impossible to handle so I first split them along a horizontal plane, then halved the top half of that, then halved that again.

With some help from the appropriate tools I was able to extract the long wedges, which were processed further with splitting in half repeatedly.

Eventually I wound up using a froe for some riving on some of the pieces, and yielded a great many pieces.  Much to my astonishment I discovered zero nails, bolts, or fencing.  Quite a surprise for an old tree in a domestic setting.

In the end I wound up with four truckloads of splits, and piled them cross-wise a layer at a time, up off the ground.  The final pile was six feet by six feet by four feet high.  After a year in the open I sorted them and moved the best of them inside to the first floor of the barn where they remain until I need them.  The rest were also useful, they kept me warm.