Cleave 6 shakes with a froe - PEP BB woodland.sand.shakes

Here's my first cedar shakes !

Here is my submission for Cleaving 6 Shakes with a Froe - PEP BB woodland.sand.shakes:

To get certified for this BB, I have posted the following pics:  

- Wood chunk before splitting
- action pic
- 6 rough shakes, 20 inches long and at least 6 inches wide

6 shakes

To get certified for this BB, post the following pics:  

- Wood chunk before splitting
- action pic
- 6 rough shakes, 20 inches long and at least 6 inches wide

Another late upload from my time at Wheaton Labs in Spring 2023. I was doing my best to use as little of the cedar material avaible at the lab so others could do the BB too.

Starting material:



Action Shot:


Final Product:

I used cedar, a froe, and a mallet.

To get certified for this BB, post the following pics:  
See attachment 1 - Wood chunk before splitting
See attachment 2 - action pic
See attachment 3 - 6 rough shakes, 20 inches long and at least 6 inches wide

I can't believe I forgot to turn in this bb! At wheaton labs this summer, I used their froe to cleave shakes from the cedar which Mike brought.

I've been riving out lots of fencing from some white oak logs for a while now in preparation of putting it up around one of my plots, that will eventually be an oddball submission I suppose. Anything with the required length of over 42" is reserved for that project but I thought I'd quickly knock out this BB with a chunk that was going to be an off cut. Easier said than done...

The first strip shows the clear side of the forked log being split off for fencing material. The second is cutting a section off that I was hoping would still have pretty straight grain but then the cut revealed the heart of the side branch was already present. I split that off again with wedges and then proceeded with the froe. Mean Mean grain. Almost every split was more difficult than the the stuff I'd been riving over twice the length. What did split easily was not wide enough for the requirements at least with the sapwood removed. As for the wide stuff, check out those wavy grains. I had to resort to putting the block in a brake more often than not and not the type of brake I'd prefer for this type of work. I'll put in a video where the kind I'd rather use is made, I made one a long time ago but it's long since rotted away. Will definitely make another before tackling any shakes in quantity. Anyway I fought on and made 6 shakes that were wide enough and trimmed them up a bit. Took the final picture and later went to post it. OOOOPSY! I had rewatched Harry's video in the BB description before starting and had got the 18" measurement recommended there in my head and not the 20" in the BB requirements.  I had cut them all too short.... sigh.

The next day I managed to knock off some wedges from the side of the same log without the branch interfering too much. So after all that here's 6 rough white oak shakes longer than 20" and at least 6" for that amount of length. Two are quite wide.