Sometimes Log Is Like A Box Of Chocolates

As a practice session for the impending commencement of the second video, “Making A Gragg Chair”, I trekked up the mountain to the pile of “good” logs I had culled from the firewood-harvesting sessions.  One in particular caught my fancy, a large red oak about 24″ in diameter, looking straight and true for its seven-foot length.  I decided to work it with “wedge and sledge” to both get my stamina up to speed but perhaps even yield enough material to make a pile of useful things.

Within ten minutes I knew all I had was a pretty spectacular pile of firewood, albeit unprocessed.  After I opened a nice split on the end grain and started working down the sides of the log the core of the log separated, essentially ruining it as a workpiece.

To make matters worse, the intertlaced grain inside the log caused it to start eating wedges.  It took me more time to extract the wedges than anything else.

Oh well, as the Gump of the Forest says, “Sometimes log is like a box of chocolates.”  And this one had something unpleasant inside.  At least I’ll get another thousand pounds of firewood from the experience.

A life of woodworking is a humbling one.