2019 Axe Cordwood Challenge -Completed Stack
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- čas přidán 29. 01. 2019
- Video documenting my rick of wood for the 2019 Axe Cordwood Challenge, plus a little discussion on why I don't want to make axe related video content anymore and my general frustrations with the "axe community".
For those interested in learning more about the Axe Cordwood Challenge, I recommend the following videos.
Skillcult's original videos describing the challenge and what it is for. • Official *AXE CORDWOOD...
• #WORKINGAXES, Axe Cord...
Ben Scott's video on the 2019 Challenge. • Axe Cordwood Challenge... - Jak na to + styl
you're one of the few axe users out there, please keep making axe videos regardless! It's so nice to see someone that's skilled with axes and tools in general. Also, without yourself, Ben, Skillcult etc then i would never have learnt half of what i know about axes now. People like you are essential for spreading knowledge and i know you hate all the idiot comments but for every 10 idiots there's going to be someone that actually learns something and with you guys making videos showing your skills and progression you are bringing new people into this Axe sub-community aka User community. Thanks
Please don't stop making axe content all together. Your hewing videos were really informative to me and I for one would love to see more.
If I do, it will probably confine itself to hewing related pursuits Quinton.
@@oxbowfarm5803 that would be awesome. I appreciate that you hew with the same axes you use on your firewood.
"I don't want to turn this into a rant." too late lol. Nice rant. Skills over Gear!
I thought I was nice and measured! I didn't call anyone a poser even once. I did mean to mention the spoon carving and bowl carving crowd specifically, because they use a lot of hatchets, but focus on the work instead of fetishizing the tool. But I forgot.
Agree 100% with what you said! Glad to hear someone say it so plainly.
well said content. The best tool doesn't do much good if you can't hit the same spot twice with it. I see a number of vids where the person would be further ahead by practicing technique than by chasing the perfect tool configuration. I still believe, within reason, that best tool for any job is the one in the hands of a competent worker. I think ax techniques need to be kept alive and handed down to next generations but let's face it, the most efficient processing of firewood is use of a chainsaw and woodsplitter. The ax is a wonderful thing to admire and use for it's simplicity and perhaps it's construction and it does give a good physical workout, that many of us sorely need, but like you alluded to there is no mythical value to the tools from different parts of the world. I will still watch tool videos and I have both expensive and cheap knives, axes, saws, etc. but glad to see someone else has a much needed practical approach to the subject.
I 100% agree with skills over tools as I almost fell into that trap myself. Good video.
Ash trees are so beautiful, what a shame that they will be dying. Great idea to use the big ones for flooring before they are lost.
Have you thought about planting other trees along the creek? I can't tell how many trees will be lost, but erosion could become an issue there.
That's a really neat and impressive stack and it's interesting that you're doing a square. Here we do round stacks outside... maybe an old habit that's left from coal making times.
The status symbol character of things is getting worse in so many aspects of life. It used to be houses, cars, holidays and clothes, but nowadays it really can be a competition about anything lol. I don't understand it either, I like my life to be simple. We used to split all our firewood with just 2 axes, got the job done just fine every year.
I don't think it will be necessary to replant, there are lots of young trees in the understory that will be able to fill in when the ash are gone. It will probably be mostly a mix of cherry and black locust with a few maple and yellow birch. The round firewood stacks are very interesting, but I have never tried to build one. This stack in the video is temporary, so I can get all my axe cut wood in one place to see how much of it I've cut. Afterwards I will bring it all back to the house and it will go in my regular drying racks with the rest of the firewood.
That's great that it's not going to be all trees. Cherry and maple is something I'd like to have ;) we got too much birch and boring Christmas trees in the front yard.
The round piles are pretty much the same I think, they are only temporary until there is space in the drying shed. Only difference is that the round structure does not need supports on the corners or sides. They are very sturdy and don't cave in easily.
Most of the Ash trees around here are either dead or dying. A shame, but Ash is superb firewood. A lot of ash wood has come my way the past few years, and I imagine more will come over the next 5 years. I don’t comment much on your axe videos, I find them extremely inspiring, educational and interesting but I’m unsure if I’ll ever get to using an axe the way you do. I do agree with your “ rant” about The fetishized tools that never even get used crowd, better to use crappy tools than to have beautiful ones sit on a shelf, but that’s IMHO. I saw torp tomaten’s comment about the round wood stacks, I stack wood that way and have a video about it- totally superior way to stack and store wood, but there is a bit of a learning curve. Hopefully I can make an updated Holz Hausen video this year.
Great job and really quick, how many hours do you think it takes you to cut a rick?
Agree with all your points. I similarly find it frustrating that people only care about the tool rather than the work. I can share a video showing technique and safety on these forums and get 5 percent of the interest that some black raven picture will. Really kills your enthusiasm
Its difficult to say, I am usually only able to do this for a couple hours at a time, maybe 12-14 hours? Its hard to figure if you spend a couple hours in the woods felling and chopping, how much is spent on actual axe work and how much is spent moving wood from place to place and walking/standing around? Another thing is that this is all white ash, which is ridiculously easy to split, once all the ash is dead and gone and I have to start doing this with maple and birch and black locust I think the splitting difficulty and time spent will go way up.
@@oxbowfarm5803 Yeah 12 sounds about right for me too. how anybody cut 2 cords a day is beyond me
@@benscottwoodchopper that's easy. 10 hr days, and 4 kids brushing and stacking...
@@trollforge Correct me if I am wrong, but you are saying felling, limbing, bucking, splitting and stacking 2 face cords (ricks) with only an axe in one day is easy!?
@@benscottwoodchopper no, it is a lot of hard work, easy referred to the ability to say how it was done...
Good thoughts on the user vs. the tool. Call me crazy but I really enjoy splitting the wood with a maul. My ash have really taken a hit too. It’s sad, I like trees. The blow downs keep me busy - including a huge sweet gum. Couldn’t split it once I got to the main trunk. That stuff just tears in all directions. So took the chainsaw to it and cut some pretty bowl blanks for turning...
I don't have any sweetgum, pretty close to the northern edge of its range. Supposedly there are a few around, but I've never seen one.
To me, the only thing about an axe that is important, is how sharp it is. We do heat with wood, but as we got older we did get a wood splitter! Still need to do some axe work and hatchet work. Sharpness to me is what counts, Liked your rick of wood. Not a lot of Ash here, we burn Maple fir and alder.
The more I work on my skills the less important the tool becomes. I think that goes for most hand tools. Especially if you maintain them yourself( which is a skill in its own).
Good looking pile of wood. White Ash flooring would be amazing. I can attest to the standing dead Ash going rotten quickly. I came into our property in 2016- lots of millable Ash standing dead. I milled what I could, much of it turned bad in the two years since. Totally awesome not-a-rant. We could use boys like you out at r/axecraft. In fact… posted.
I just went over to reddit and took a look. I guess I come off as a jaded axe snob? I also took a brief look around at other posts. Not my kind of place. My main point was that I was going to stop making axe content because I don't care for the engagement/interactions I get from people that comment HERE on my channel. Axe collectors can go "restore" as many axes as they want, or talk endlessly about sharpening and handle length and steel quality and speep wobble and straight vs curved handles etc. I just don't want to listen to it, and I have to every time I put some axe related video up. In a nutshell, my problem with the Axe community is that there are 50 "Axe Junkies" who will watch The Good of the Land ruin a perfectly nice axehead with his grinder in one his "restoration" videos for every person who watches onsek demonstrate total mastery of axemanship. Just my snobby opinion. czcams.com/video/sNV0bt9Midk/video.html
@@oxbowfarm5803 I agree. I'm hanging in there to echo the sentiment, "Nice axe. Use it." Over the din of, "Start with a flap disk and work your way through the grits until you get a mirror polish" and "you can't go wrong if you buy a GFB SFA for your first ever axe."
I'll listen for the sound of your chopping through the wind instead of the web. Be well.
@@LolitasGarden I mean, re-listening to the video from the perspective of someone on your reddit subforum, maybe I do sound like a jerk or something. But I was mainly trying to say, if you like axe stuff, don't bother subscribing because I'm not going to make you happy. This is not a monetized channel. I'm trying to interact with like-minded homestead/farmer types on that kind of topic, and the axe fetish people don't help me do that. That was basically my intention with what I was saying.
@@oxbowfarm5803 I am the only person who used the word "jaded" in that reddit thread. I am u/darthtagnan, one of the moderators over there. Jaded is not a pejorative, rather I used it to convey that "you have had your fill, are tired, lacking enthusiasm" - which is precisely what the word is defined as. I don't think you are a snob, and if you read my responses, saw that I actually agreed with the majority of what you said in your video. My only difference is that, while I am a collector and restorer, I do like premium items; and with regards to restorations, I take pride in converting them from rust bucket into store shelf goods of yore. That being said, I also like USING said items, for me at least, that is the whole point! I don't collect anything that I don't use. I'm not the person who sits back and admires a useless collection of things. If I can't find use for something, then it goes in the trash. Plain and simple.
I’ve really enjoyed your content so that’s a shame. The axe community has that effect, I get it.
You're planning on making a log-cabin made of stacked firewood, since you're boxing in with the ricks? :P
Gear-whoring (or 'reviews' if you like) get boring really quickly.
I think you should make occasional axe-vids, since you're swinging it at times anyways. Just tidbits that arent that taxing. You're hewing vids make for great basis for expanding the CAC for each round.
Not sure if I'll be able to enter this year, but I'd definately aim for a combo of unconventional processing to firewood, and 'rick' of roughly hewn stems (for a log cabin/shed), so it actually becomes a challenge. Hard to call it a challenge if it's something one does so often anyways that the stack emerges by default, so expanding the use of the axe seems to me a logical outset for entering the challenge.
,,, also, damn you're quick! Or is the white ash very easy to buck&split? I remember making 1/2rick from a fallen Aspen (still had to 'fell it' while down), that had a significant amount of 'Aspen Trunk Rot'. Think it took about 4-6 hours to make that 1/2rick, and a couple hours moving&stacking. How long did the Rick take you?
I think the best I could've done with a nominally sized, and soft trees (like willow), would be over twenty hours of just axing (in winter, probably way less around spring/summer), if using a 7-900gr long-shafted Hultafors. (more mass though, less time, though more fatigue)
Well what do you know,,, your not a rant was contagious it seems :/
Ash splits very easily, I don't know if that translates to bucking more quickly? I have not really tried to buck and split much wood from many other species. There are a few species of wood around here with a reputation of being difficult to split, elm and hornbeam being the two big ones. I have not tried chopping them much. Mostly because I've been focussed on the ash. Its really hard to say how much time I'm spending. I go out for a few hours or a morning or afternoon here and there. In the winter I have more free time to do this sort of thing, and this year the snow has not been an obstacle to getting around.
20$, that cannot be a good axe ;-) 100% agree :-)
I don’t understand the problem with people liking gear and tools and collecting and using them that’s the weirdest thing I have heard in a while Man. You don’t have anything in life that you life and like to collect or talk about?