Build a kindling cracker - PEP BB metalworking.sand.kindling

i would like to make the following suggestions for changes to this BB:

the chopping block should not be tall. it should actually be much shorter than usual, so that the blade of the cracker is about the height of your normal chopping block. that way the top of the kindling-to-be will be at the normal height and you will not have a leverage disadvantage from trying to chop wood at shoulder height.

following from that, the cracker should not be offset on your chopping block. if you still need a chopping block for using a maul, axe, or hatchet, that is best done on a block that is a different height than that of the cracker (about the height of the blade). Also, if you have many inexperienced choppers (like we do at wheaton labs), then there is a chance that someone will miss the wood (or it will kick to the side) and the maul will hit the metal of the cracker.

i understand that paul wants all objects to be made for use by giants, but chopping blocks are safer and easier to use if they are the appropriate height for the most common user.

Fred Tyler wrote:i would like to make the following suggestions for changes to this BB:

the chopping block should not be tall. it should actually be much shorter than usual, so that the blade of the cracker is about the height of your normal chopping block. that way the top of the kindling-to-be will be at the normal height and you will not have a leverage disadvantage from trying to chop wood at shoulder height.

following from that, the cracker should not be offset on your chopping block. if you still need a chopping block for using a maul, axe, or hatchet, that is best done on a block that is a different height than that of the cracker (about the height of the blade). Also, if you have many inexperienced choppers (like we do at wheaton labs), then there is a chance that someone will miss the wood (or it will kick to the side) and the maul will hit the metal of the cracker.

i understand that paul wants all objects to be made for use by giants, but chopping blocks are safer and easier to use if they are the appropriate height for the most common user.

I tried to update the wording to facilitate all of your suggestions.

Here is my attempt at a kindling cracker. Sure beats standing the log up every time I miss!

A tack weld to this old stool keeps the rebar in place while I heat and bend it.



An oxy-acetylene torch works quickly to heat 1/2" rebar.



Cutting angle iron for the feet using a metal chop saw.



Here I drill a 1/2" hole in each end of both feet. A pilot hole of 1/4" allows for easier cutting.



Cutting the legs with a band saw.



Here the unit is all clamped up. The feet have been tacked into place and the hoop is resting upon two locking pliers awaiting their turn.



Metal stamped my name into a side of one foot as per requirements.



The open hoop on our unit will accommodate 11" logs.



Kindling cracker setup and in use. It works very well on smaller dry material but I ran out of "oompf" on the larger diameter wet stuff.



This blog post can be seen in its entirety here.

forged the blade of the kindle cracker out of 9/16" coil spring i found. I didnt want the blade any longer than it had to be, but while shaping the blade the steel stretched an extra inch. Also my quench tank is only 10" long so that was also a factor.

I flattend the sides and punched a 1/4" hole on each side to mount the blade. I thought it might double as a draw knife so i didnt want to permenently weld it to anything yet.  Also because the spring steel has a high chrome content so it doesn't weld to other metals

Before hardening the blade i stamped "MADE BY FOX" in the side of the blade with a cold chisle (some day ill find my letter stamps), and did some final sharpening.

For the legs I used perforated angle iron salvaged from a shelf.  1/4" bolts secure the blade in place.

I welded together a cage from some 3/16×1 1/4 bar stock. Then welded the cage to the top of the legs.

The chopping block is a cut off of a broken electrical pole buried to a sutable hight, but the pole was too narrow for a base mount so I mounted the the whole setup to the sides of the chopping block.

I made my kindling cracker both for myself because it's such and awesomely useful tool, and to be a helpful example for this PEP BB before all the specific requirement for the BB were established.  Hence, what I'm posting here doesn't meet the requirements to the letter now that they are fully developed.  So I didn't submit it for my BB before now.  That said I'm told it could be considered as a sort of "grandfathered" in BB so I'll submit what I did for consideration of being certified.  :)  I also documented the whole thing with many more photos and descriptions as a post on my blog which you can see here.

 
This is a photo of the various bits of scrap metal I gathered to build this.  The big gear thing was from a semi truck transmission I'm told.  It's heavy, solid, and seemed to be an excellent size to use for a base.  I had it hanging around for years and decided to utilize it for this project.


Here are the parts after cutting, bending, and removing some surface rust in preparation for welding.


The always exciting action shot of welding!  I should note this project was the first time I'd ever tried stick welding.  Previously I've done MIG and TIG welding, but no longer had easy access to such welders.  However, a buddy had just bought a unit for stick welding and was happy to let me use it.  I should probably get one of my own sometime as they aren't that expensive and can be very handy for making/repairing things for the homestead.


Here is a photo part way through the welding.  It's not pretty by any means, but it's functional.


I decided I wanted a removable blade for easier sharpening and/or replacement so I designed mine to be held in place with screws.  Having used this tool quite a bit now I will say I've never removed the blade to sharpen it.  I've just been filing up the edge frequently.  Still I like that I can remove it.


One of the most time consuming parts of this build for me was making the splitting blade itself, grinding and grinding and grinding away the steel from the initial bar.  I wasn't sure if this steel bar would do the job or not since it's just mild steel to the best of my knowledge, not tool steel.  It has held up well enough though I do frequently sharpen it.  What would work better would be a thicker bar of steel to start so it had a more dramatic wedge shape to force apart the wood being split.  In my observations splitting about 4 cords of wood with this now the sharp edge is not what's doing the majority of the "work".  That edge just cuts into the wood initially.  Much of the time when I'm hammering down on the log the sharp edge itself isn't even in contact.  Rather the slopes on the side are the contact points, working to force the log apart.  So a thicker bar to force a wider spread would probably work better.


I played around with different working heights to have this at and found that for me setting the heavy metal base of it on a couple cinder blocks seemed ideal.  I didn't need to mount it to a stump because the weight of the transmission gear base is enough to hold it in place.  Mind you I do find I frequently have to nudge it back into position when splitting wood for hours.  Still I actually like the fact that I can easily enough pick it up and bring it inside out of the weather when I'm done if I wish.  The holes in the gear do allow me to mount it should I wish to.  In this shot you see an ash log ready to be split.


Here is a photo after splitting the log up into kindling.  


One final image to support that I have actually used this tool a lot.  This is a pile of firewood I've split for winter use with my kindling splitter.  I've now done about 4 cords with it.  I've found some logs with crotch areas aren't worth the effort to try splitting down finely, though oddly sometime crotch sections split fine.  If a log fights me too much I've now taken to tossing into the "future hugelkulture" pile if they are still too big to fit into my rocket mass heater.  In my opinion if you've got a RMH you really WANT to have a kindling cracker!  Even if you just have a normal wood stove this is an awesome tool to have!

Is the opening at least 8" in diameter? If so, it seems like a minor tweak or two would make it fully BB compliant. Either way ... nice splitter!!!

Mike Barkley wrote:Is the opening at least 8" in diameter? If so, it seems like a minor tweak or two would make it fully BB compliant. Either way ... nice splitter!!!

As I recall it was 8.5" roughly.  I also never stamped my name on it.  Ash Jackson had contacted me suggesting I post this now to help inspire others to make their own.  At the moment I am away from home for an extended period.  In a couple weeks when I'm back I can take a photo with a tape measure and perhaps pull out my letter stamps to add my name, but I can't do it right now.  No biggie either way.

Yeah, I'd say if you stamp your name and bolt it to a short block (maybe the one in the background under the stumpy piece of wood) and you'll have it.

I'm checking in to see if my plan will be certifiable or if I need to modify my plan.  Please advise.

I'm excited to make a kindling cracker and I'm thinking that I can make it all out of metal!  I want to do something like what David Huang made with a heavy base that can be put on a stump for height but does not require a stump for stability.  

I want to use an old tire rim as the base - no stump required.  I can add concrete to the rim/base if it needs more weight for stability but the rim I have in mind is fairly heavy.

I am planning to use a set of old blades off the wood chipper for the blade and some reclaimed box tubing for the verticals.

The photo shows the parts I want to use and some options for the upper ring.  

Opalyn Rose wrote:I'm checking in to see if my plan will be certifiable or if I need to modify my plan.  Please advise.

I'm excited to make a kindling cracker and I'm thinking that I can make it all out of metal!  I want to do something like what David Huang made with a heavy base that can be put on a stump for height but does not require a stump for stability.  

I want to use an old tire rim as the base - no stump required.  I can add concrete to the rim/base if it needs more weight for stability but the rim I have in mind is fairly heavy.

I am planning to use a set of old blades off the wood chipper for the blade and some reclaimed box tubing for the verticals.

The photo shows the parts I want to use and some options for the upper ring.  

I can't answer your question in terms of whether or not it would be certified here or not but I will note, they want me to mount mine to a stump for my certification.  If I do I will admittedly just do it for the photo to prove I can then undo for my own use.  However, what I really wanted to comment on is that I suspect your tire rim won't be heavy and stable enough on its own for multiple reasons.  With the semi transmission gear I have I'm pretty sure it's significantly heavier, the bottom also has a large flat area for lots of "gripping" surface space.  With the tire rim your weight is also going to elevated up, sitting higher, instead of all being down at the bottom as it is with my gear.  It might work, but I'm thinking it won't work as well on its own.  I'd say it's certainly worth trying, evaluating, and modifying as needed.  If it doesn't work I would think it would be fairly easy to mount to a stump through the tire mounting holes if you got long enough lag bolts.

edited to add, if I read more closely I'd see that you already suggested adding concrete if more weight was needed.  I would think that could work from a functional standpoint.  Again I'm not a certifing person for the PEP BB  so I can't say anything about that aspect.

Yup, as long as you can mount it to a stump (temporarily?) it looks like your plan will qualify.

Opalyn Rose wrote:I'm excited to make a kindling cracker ...

Thank you, David and Mike.  I don't want to try to mount my tire rim to a stump and that inspired me to pare down the supplies list.  I'm keeping the metal ring, the blades, the rebar, and the box tubing from my previous post and ditching some metal bar, angle iron, and the tire rim.  Below is my new plan - held together with welding magnets.  The rebar will be bent into a ring for the upper cage.

I think that would satisfy the BB perfectly

Ok, I'm on the homestead again and made the tweaks to hopefully get this BB.  I'm adding a photo showing the opening at around 10 inches.  That confuses me since I swear it was 8.5 originally.  I know I've bent that top ring around quite a bit with all the wood that has been hammered through it, but I didn't think I stretched it.  Anyway, it should meet the requirements.  It might have been that my actual blade length was 8.5.

Next I got out the letter stamps and hammered my name in.  It's a bit crude.  The stamps are rather crude.  I'm not going to take to them to carefully and beautifully engrave it cause the tool itself is quite crude, but highly functional.

Then there is a photo of it mounted to one of my low stumps.  It is offset though I don't think I would ever try splitting wood on the other side of the stump.  I'd use a dedicated stump for that.  The mounting is a bit unorthodox, using large eye bolts.  I discovered that all my lag bolts were "currently serving other customers".  Since I don't really intend to keep mine mounted I didn't want to drive to the store and buy more for a photo op just to prove to Otis that I can mount a tool.  That didn't seem like a good permaculture practice.  Looking around at what is available and would work seemed more in the spirit and something I believe Otis would value.  The eye bolts seemed to work just fine.  To support this I took one more photo of a log all split up on the mounted kindling cracker.  

Hopefully these extra bits along with the previous posting will suffice.  Thanks for the consideration.

Here is my submission for the kindling cracker - sand - metalworking BB.

To document the completion of the BB, I have provided the following photos:
- several pictures of my creation at various stages of construction
- A  picture of the finished product with a tape measure showing the size of the wood that can enter
- a picture of the stamped name

I believe this fits.
https://permies.com/t/150134/Making-kindling-cracker-shingle-splitter

We made kindling crackers today at the BB20 event!

Learned to weld and torch today - super fun!

Here's my attempt at a kindling cracker.

Beau Davidson wrote:Learned to weld and torch today - super fun!

Yah but how long did it take you to make the stump that it sits on? Eric wants to know so I can estimate how long it will take to make a stump for an anvil.

Eric VonRaderson wrote:

Beau Davidson wrote:Learned to weld and torch today - super fun!

Yah but how long did it take you to make the stump that it sits on? Eric wants to know so I can estimate how long it will take to make a stump for an anvil.

The tree probably grew for the better part of a century. Then I yanked it from the shop and bolted it down.

But anvil stumps - now they're a whole other story.

Adding measurement image to meet bb requirements.

Here’s my kindling cracker built mostly out of angle iron and a planar blade. Works like a champ!

Submitting my kindling cracker for approval. The idea behind this design was simplicity while utilizing scrap and making as few cuts as possible.

METAL TIME. This was my first metal working project ever... so some of the welds are bit bulky, but it sure it sturdy! I had a blast learning how to do this at the PTJ. Took me three days as you can observe from the 3 different shirts I am sporting.

Heres the photos with the proof of the awesome kindling creation.

- two pictures of your creation at two points of construction: enjoy three fascinating action shots including the astonished face of me successfully cutting metal.




- A picture of the finished product with a tape measure showing the the size of the wood that can enter: BAM 8 and a half inches lets gooooo


- a picture of the stamped name: as you can see the fine art of stamping ones name has yet to be mastered by me. But it's there.


and here's the view of the whole "situation"

Enjoyed making this! Saw Mike's and liked the design so I made one similar and it works great.

Here's my name engraved on the blade

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Here is my submission for Build a kindling cracker - PEP BB metalworking.sand.kindling

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements is to make a kindling creator:
 - cage accepts wood at least 8 inches in diameter (9 or more inches preferred)
 - bolted to a chopping block
     - lots of knots in the block if it's a soft wood (possibly a taller than average chopping block)
     - the creation does not have to be centered on the chopping block
 - stamp “made by XXXX” somewhere on it where XXXX is your name

To document completion of the BB, I have provided the following:
- two pictures of the creation at two points of construction
- A picture of the finished product with a tape measure showing the the size of the wood that can enter
- a picture of my stamped name

******For the record: The kindling cracker worked very poorly, but at least I learned how not to weld.