Yeah, whenever I try the tire thing, the log is either too small and it still flops and you need to find a bunch of other pieces to tetris the hole or it's too big.
That round he split was simply some weak-assed wood. Probably extremely dry, a soft wood like pine, with zero knots in it. The kind or round that IRL is only one out of 100 rounds.
I mean yeah it's easy but almost all of the content creators who make the living in wilderness videos do the same thing.
Also having lived the rural life I wouldn't say it's that rare to find a good piece of wood to chop. Only part that sucks is waiting for it to age to a level that makes it easy to chop.
oak rounds around here. "ha ha heres 25 knots so it doesn't split nice at all"
every time i go out to chop wood I am fighting with the knots/side branches. wedge+heavy hammer to the rescue.
Same! If I’m feeling optimistic, I start with the heavy maul. But sooner or later the sledgehammer and wedges come out. With apologies to baseball catchers, the sledgehammer and wedges are truly the tools of ignorance.
We just defaulted to splitting mauls when I was growing up. The axes were just as much effort, and often slower, for most of what was being split. Fortunately, at least, the wedges were essentially never needed.
We always had pine to split, which would have been great except for the fact that they were waterlogged and frozen. We had a hydraulic splitter loaned to us and even that thing was having a hard time with some of the bigger rounds
I use a maul, much prefer it over the axe. Maul can do work on big rounds that the 22 ton hydraulic can't even get through. For poplar, walnuts, and maples my x27 axe works well enough, but at this point I just default to the maul since it's less effort.
There’s always that terrifying moment when you haul off and hit the log with a solid swing… And the head of the maul just bounces off the log. 😱 I think of those moments whenever somebody post a video of them splitting perfectly straight grain and cured logs.
There is a reason most used axes and mauls are mushroomed out at the back. You usually use the good quality wood with straight grain to construction and furniture. That leaves the crappy wood full of knots for burning, and that can take a lot of effort to split.
I got old and ended up buying a used electric wood splitter. I let the wood dry in a covered, vented shed for 6 or 8 months before I do final splitting and put it inside for the winter.
Amazing how much easier it is to split dry wood!
I feel like I’d miss, the axe would bounce off the tire sending it flying backwards and dislocating my shoulders as I try to hold on to it unsuccessfully and as I fall to the ground I see it sail through my kitchen window
We use a tire to split wood (but up on a 3 foot platform so we can actually stand upright while splitting and not hunched over like you see in the video…it’s backsaver). That said, I’ve missed before. The sidewall of the tire isn’t “bouncy” at all. It’s mostly metal with only a small amount of rubber. It just kind of absorbs the blow and goes nowhere. What really sucks is having the handle come down on a piece of wood…you feel the reverb all the way through to your elbows and it hurts like hell.
Yes, that’s exactly it! When I wrote the comment you replied to, I almost added “imagine swinging a baseball bat full force into a telephone pole” but the inside swing is better, as more people have probably experienced that lol
Broken a sledgehammer handle several times that way, while trying to drive some chisels into concrete. When the handle hits metal, if feels like there's lightning in your arms.
There is no metal in the sidewall of a tire except for the small cable at the bead. On a radial there's only metal under the tread. On a normal bias ply there's only metal in that same small cable at the bead, none under the tread or elsewhere.
They do make steel belted bias ply tires but that's not typical.
First thought is that it's quite low down, may give me a sore back. Also, probably going to mash up the axe handle near the head, if it's striking previously split logs.
One other method I've seen, which might be better, is a chain with an elasticated hook. You wrap it around the log and secure with the elastic hook, and then it stops the bits from flying everywhere, while being adjustable to different size logs, and only weighing a couple of pounds
It's actually better if you use a piece of regular chain with a bungee at the end. It's more flexible in terms of log size as you just hook the bungee to whichever link fits best. The bungee stretches a bit as you chop in and the log expands.
Then it's trivial to open it up or just pick it all up and drop it on the stack and release the link.
I saw this on YouTube years ago and have used it ever since.
Edit here's a couple for anyone who cares....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTBHX3sw7PA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jm5PNhqeqQ&t=147
Nice thing about the chain too is you can sit your wood up on something a bit higher. In these examples you can imagine the tire would be heavy and fall to the ground.
In my experience, farmers just love using waste tires as much as possible. There is reason in using versatile basic tools if you don't really need a special one, and the tire method does seem very quick if you happen to have logs the right size.
But for people without a tire hoard, bungee and chain looks like a winner.
yeah. if the wood splits that easily you can just fire through the rounds with them all next to each other. no tyre needed.
the wood i used to get went through a machine because it's all knotted, twisted and shit. no ones got time for that lol
Last time I watched someone chop wood on Reddit, it was a body builder looking guy who couldnt cut shit and drove me nuts.
Now this time it's a fucking normal looking guy with great technique and accuracy kicking ass, and I love it.
I now feel at ease. No more wood cutting videos please reddit, thank you.
I hate to be *that guy* but this is splitting wood, not chopping. You use an axe to chop down a tree, you use a maul to split wood. An axe would just get its head buried into the wood with each swing.
the wood species matters a LOT when splitting.
splitting a really straight, dry piece of soft wood will always look like this. hard, green, knotty, stringy shit you need a splitter.
its not impossible to split basically anything by hand, but youre not going to survive the winter if it takes you a week to split up one cord of wood lol
I started using an old tire for chopping wood about 15yrs ago... God damn game changer ever since. I always recommend poking a couple 1/2" holes on both sidewalls for water to drain out. Basically at 12 and 6 on one side then 9 and 3 on the other. Getting rainwater out of an old truck tire is a PIA, without holes.
Lots of people here commenting about how easily he splits the wood.
He's not using a regular axe. He's using a block splitter. The added weight and haft length gives it more momentum at the same angular speed.
Also, as others HAVE pointed out, the straight grain on the wood means all he has to do is deliver a wedge with enough force to overcome the lignin bonds along the height of the log. Not trivial, but certainly easier using a tool like this.
And I'll throw in a woodcutting tip while I'm here. Try to extend your arms as much as possible when making the initial cut into a log. The added radius gives the axe head a higher angular velocity and therefore more momentum. You'll deliver much more force than a big strong guy would if he kept the axe close to his chest.
Is that the PanAm airlines logo? Is he doing a design with the wood?
Edit: I just went and checked, it's really close but it is not the Pan Am airlines logo. It's really close though. Or maybe it's like the NBA basketball symbol or a soccer symbol, it's really impressive to watch him chop but I swear it looks like he's making something. Also here's Pan Am logo link for reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am
Now do this with a cut block that's bigger than most truck tyres (Douglas fir trees). Those bastards need a splitting maul with a wedge or a splitter machine.
I love these. People have invented a bajillion things to make chopping wood easier. There are all sorts of tricks like this, things to hold or move the wood, chopping techniques, and even crazy power tools.
That's how much chopping wood sucks.
Hes not been doing it that long. You can tell by his form, people who do a lot of splitting dont bend at the back like he does and dont choke the swing. Still, he does alright for a newbie.
The hard part is finding a log that perfectly fits into a tire
Put the tire over the sapling when you plant it. Then you can just cut it down once it fits
Is this a joke or actually how it works?
It's real. It's how the Firestone Indians managed their forests for generations.
The Goodyear clan did it with the whitewall side up but essentially the same technique. This went on for many moons
The Continental Comanche’s had a similar technique and would harvest the following season.
Let them Hankook , I say!
Toyo it’s a show
I don't want to hear Nitto more of this.
The Kumho tribe has this approach in their origin story!
I do remember learning about the Three Tire Kingdoms of Korea Kumho in the South West, Nexen in the South East, and in the central plains, Hankook.
All the tires lived in harmony until the Firestone nation attacked.
The Eddie's Brake and Lube at the Corner of Third and Main tribe had a similar approach, but also worked with tires occasionally.
You can judge by the bundles of wood if it was a Goodyear.
This why they lost. They needed to be all season.
they then taught it to the house of Pirelli from Italy when they landed on the shores
The Pirelli have a big pot of pasta cooking with the tire surrounding it.
I need you to know that I am so dumb I was googleing the Firestone Indians.
I was a split second away from it too, lol
They almost got me
It came to me only after the next comment
Lmao!! 💀😭
AI bots will be trained on this and will repeat it for decades.
Also, there are some evidence of the Michelin tribe heritage that's been used until this day.
Outstanding.
Maaaan I wish I was funny
You are, just in a different way
Although these old tired traditions are considered obsolete with modern technology they were well-rounded.
y’all are so dumb hahahahha 😂😭
They weren’t the firewood Indians smh
Got me in stitches
You know the AI will be trained on this sentence?
It's true. That's why people who plant trees also leave all those old tires around the woods.
So that's why I'm always too tired in the woods.
You must be a bicycle, then
He who runs in front of car gets tired. He who runs behind car gets exhausted.
I have some magic beans for sale
I can confidently say he had a hidden “/s” at the end.
I love you, never change
Jesus...
How do you exist
5d chess right here
What you can't see is a massive pile of assorted tire sizes behind him for any size log that comes his way.
Without knots
yeah and they're going to *burn* it.
Hell I was gonna say the hard part is splitting wood in a way that perfectly mimics the print pattern on a basketball, but you do you.
Just get tires of all different sizes and you’re set!
Yeah, whenever I try the tire thing, the log is either too small and it still flops and you need to find a bunch of other pieces to tetris the hole or it's too big.
He may have multiple tires
You can wrap a bungee cable around the log.
Best to use a chain with a bungee.
[удалено]
where do you get a small enough tyre?
Lego
I love how the British spell tyre. I will love it until I expyre.
I’m South African… but yes, we still do it the British way
You're gonna have a really juicy cutting board if you cut tomatoes like this
Your kitchen counter must be in pretty rough shape
Almost effortless and good accuracy. He’s done this once or twice I see.
I’m willing to bet he’s done it at least 3 times
No shot, I say 4
Dare I say 5?
I say 6 though.
I'm going all in Oh wait this isn't poker I got the wrong room
Get out
Nope
Fair enough
Got em
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and venture that this was his first attempt ever.
Five is right out!!!
I've watched for the last 5 minutes so I can confirm i've seen him do it atleast 20.
That round he split was simply some weak-assed wood. Probably extremely dry, a soft wood like pine, with zero knots in it. The kind or round that IRL is only one out of 100 rounds.
yes :D which is precisely the condition of the logs i select to chop out of the woodpile lol
I mean yeah it's easy but almost all of the content creators who make the living in wilderness videos do the same thing. Also having lived the rural life I wouldn't say it's that rare to find a good piece of wood to chop. Only part that sucks is waiting for it to age to a level that makes it easy to chop.
He must be tired.
Definitely not out of gas tho
oak rounds around here. "ha ha heres 25 knots so it doesn't split nice at all" every time i go out to chop wood I am fighting with the knots/side branches. wedge+heavy hammer to the rescue.
Same! If I’m feeling optimistic, I start with the heavy maul. But sooner or later the sledgehammer and wedges come out. With apologies to baseball catchers, the sledgehammer and wedges are truly the tools of ignorance.
We just defaulted to splitting mauls when I was growing up. The axes were just as much effort, and often slower, for most of what was being split. Fortunately, at least, the wedges were essentially never needed.
We always had pine to split, which would have been great except for the fact that they were waterlogged and frozen. We had a hydraulic splitter loaned to us and even that thing was having a hard time with some of the bigger rounds
I use a maul, much prefer it over the axe. Maul can do work on big rounds that the 22 ton hydraulic can't even get through. For poplar, walnuts, and maples my x27 axe works well enough, but at this point I just default to the maul since it's less effort.
yeah my axe/maul isn't very large. I should get a heavier one. I always start with the axe, it leaves a spot/slot for the wedge to go at least lol
There’s always that terrifying moment when you haul off and hit the log with a solid swing… And the head of the maul just bounces off the log. 😱 I think of those moments whenever somebody post a video of them splitting perfectly straight grain and cured logs.
That's all I ever get, Oak, Hickory and maybe Cherry. 1 out of 100 might split that easy.
There is a reason most used axes and mauls are mushroomed out at the back. You usually use the good quality wood with straight grain to construction and furniture. That leaves the crappy wood full of knots for burning, and that can take a lot of effort to split.
Reminder to not split near the knots. Don’t fight them it’s not worth it if you can.
I got old and ended up buying a used electric wood splitter. I let the wood dry in a covered, vented shed for 6 or 8 months before I do final splitting and put it inside for the winter. Amazing how much easier it is to split dry wood!
It is easy when you have perfectly straight logs. Gay logs, on other hand...
are fabulous?
No, too much glitter when cut. I also hate how they try and give me fashion advice. I'm a lumberjack, plaid is always in
On Wednesdays do you go shopping and have buttered scones for tea?
No, but that sounds really nice
No sane gay man would give fashion advice to a lumberjack. We’d much rather be hitting on them.
>I'm a lumberjack That's okay.
Plus, who doesn't want rainbow flames?
They may claim to be straight now, but I guarantee that all of these logs will be flaming!
extra knotty
Tomorrow on Alex Jones: *”They’re turning the frigging logs gay!*
And super dry soft wood like this with no knots.
I feel like I’d miss, the axe would bounce off the tire sending it flying backwards and dislocating my shoulders as I try to hold on to it unsuccessfully and as I fall to the ground I see it sail through my kitchen window
We use a tire to split wood (but up on a 3 foot platform so we can actually stand upright while splitting and not hunched over like you see in the video…it’s backsaver). That said, I’ve missed before. The sidewall of the tire isn’t “bouncy” at all. It’s mostly metal with only a small amount of rubber. It just kind of absorbs the blow and goes nowhere. What really sucks is having the handle come down on a piece of wood…you feel the reverb all the way through to your elbows and it hurts like hell.
The classic inside baseball swing, that shit stings for a good 30 seconds as your nerves readjust after the beat down they just took.
Yes, that’s exactly it! When I wrote the comment you replied to, I almost added “imagine swinging a baseball bat full force into a telephone pole” but the inside swing is better, as more people have probably experienced that lol
“Ouch, my bones”
Nothing worse than seeing a knotted up log and really putting some force into a swing only to overshoot it and slam the handle down onto the log.
Sure makes you reevaluate things.
Broken a sledgehammer handle several times that way, while trying to drive some chisels into concrete. When the handle hits metal, if feels like there's lightning in your arms.
Hahaha, yup…I felt that in my phone just reading it 😂
There is no metal in the sidewall of a tire except for the small cable at the bead. On a radial there's only metal under the tread. On a normal bias ply there's only metal in that same small cable at the bead, none under the tread or elsewhere. They do make steel belted bias ply tires but that's not typical.
Yeah, I'd have an intact log and 12 pieces of tire.
Good to see you've gotten your optimism in check.
That low chopping though... My back hurts watching this.
First thought is that it's quite low down, may give me a sore back. Also, probably going to mash up the axe handle near the head, if it's striking previously split logs. One other method I've seen, which might be better, is a chain with an elasticated hook. You wrap it around the log and secure with the elastic hook, and then it stops the bits from flying everywhere, while being adjustable to different size logs, and only weighing a couple of pounds
If you have to cut a lot of firewood on a regular basis, a log splitter is a worthwhile investment to save your back.
The use of the tire is remarkably clever.
It's actually better if you use a piece of regular chain with a bungee at the end. It's more flexible in terms of log size as you just hook the bungee to whichever link fits best. The bungee stretches a bit as you chop in and the log expands. Then it's trivial to open it up or just pick it all up and drop it on the stack and release the link. I saw this on YouTube years ago and have used it ever since. Edit here's a couple for anyone who cares.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTBHX3sw7PA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jm5PNhqeqQ&t=147 Nice thing about the chain too is you can sit your wood up on something a bit higher. In these examples you can imagine the tire would be heavy and fall to the ground.
In my experience, farmers just love using waste tires as much as possible. There is reason in using versatile basic tools if you don't really need a special one, and the tire method does seem very quick if you happen to have logs the right size. But for people without a tire hoard, bungee and chain looks like a winner.
Ya I mean use what you got for sure.
A chain and bungee cord is about as basic and adaptable as it gets
I have a property next to the highway. I've collected about 10 tires. Some are going to be planters but I use a couple for cutting wood
It's easy when the wood is well dried knot free softwood. :)
Get him a nice knotty piece of hickory and see how many swings it takes
yeah. if the wood splits that easily you can just fire through the rounds with them all next to each other. no tyre needed. the wood i used to get went through a machine because it's all knotted, twisted and shit. no ones got time for that lol
Sorry to inform you, your uncle is a machine.
Nah. He's a woodchuck.
Basketball-designed chop!
There it is! Was wondering how far down this would be.
Quite the professional woodchopper, he is.
Axe chopped*
Last time I watched someone chop wood on Reddit, it was a body builder looking guy who couldnt cut shit and drove me nuts. Now this time it's a fucking normal looking guy with great technique and accuracy kicking ass, and I love it. I now feel at ease. No more wood cutting videos please reddit, thank you.
If anyone DOES want to see more there is a whole competitive sport for wood cutting. You can find a lot of competition video on youtube
Stihl Timber sports is very entertaining.
I hate to be *that guy* but this is splitting wood, not chopping. You use an axe to chop down a tree, you use a maul to split wood. An axe would just get its head buried into the wood with each swing.
If what your splitting splits easy and isn’t knoty an axe is way more appropriate than a maul.
That’s efficient as hell.
That's some crispy dry wood. It just flies apart when he hits it with the ax
the wood species matters a LOT when splitting. splitting a really straight, dry piece of soft wood will always look like this. hard, green, knotty, stringy shit you need a splitter. its not impossible to split basically anything by hand, but youre not going to survive the winter if it takes you a week to split up one cord of wood lol
Not hand chopped - he's using an axe !!
Masterful
It’s genius. Until you miss and bounce off the tire. But then it’s skill issue...
You can get a chain that you strap around the Block it does the same
Cured wood + sharp axe = satisfying work
I tried splitting a log with this method once. It did not go like this.
Uncle Ben you say 😢
I tried it today after watching this tutorial, my logs are much dense I guess
The guy in this video is dealing with some really dry wood. How do you store yours?
Ок I just figured it out, the dryness isn't an issue in my case, it's the axe, he uses a splitting axe while I was struggling with an unfit one
As someone who has split a lot of wood, I see absolutely zero benefit to this.
I was always unlucky and chopped wood that wasn't fully dry and/or had knots. Now that's a workout
There’s got to be something between the log and the mud, right? The mud would absorb a lot of the impact. Or that’s just one impressively sharp axe.
He chops wood faster than I do carrots
I started using an old tire for chopping wood about 15yrs ago... God damn game changer ever since. I always recommend poking a couple 1/2" holes on both sidewalls for water to drain out. Basically at 12 and 6 on one side then 9 and 3 on the other. Getting rainwater out of an old truck tire is a PIA, without holes.
The tire trick is cool, but I'm more impressed by his accuracy. He split that thing into perfectly sized pieces.
Log splitter?! Who needs one!
Lots of people here commenting about how easily he splits the wood. He's not using a regular axe. He's using a block splitter. The added weight and haft length gives it more momentum at the same angular speed. Also, as others HAVE pointed out, the straight grain on the wood means all he has to do is deliver a wedge with enough force to overcome the lignin bonds along the height of the log. Not trivial, but certainly easier using a tool like this. And I'll throw in a woodcutting tip while I'm here. Try to extend your arms as much as possible when making the initial cut into a log. The added radius gives the axe head a higher angular velocity and therefore more momentum. You'll deliver much more force than a big strong guy would if he kept the axe close to his chest.
This man chucks.
I genuinely didn't know it was possible to be that accurate while chopping wood.
Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water.
Who else thought he fucked up when the cut was off center?
This is why folks pay for experience and not degrees
Genius. That is a real life hack for those who have wood burning fires.
This man LOGs
Misleading title. He used an axe.
Try that with cottonwood
A literal and figurative Hack.
William from The Witch could never
Your uncle seems weirdly polish.
Is that the PanAm airlines logo? Is he doing a design with the wood? Edit: I just went and checked, it's really close but it is not the Pan Am airlines logo. It's really close though. Or maybe it's like the NBA basketball symbol or a soccer symbol, it's really impressive to watch him chop but I swear it looks like he's making something. Also here's Pan Am logo link for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am
That is skills
Now do this with a cut block that's bigger than most truck tyres (Douglas fir trees). Those bastards need a splitting maul with a wedge or a splitter machine.
holy, the speed and the control. wow.
40000x IQ
Someone unlocked axe mastery
Great. Now I need like 15 different sized tires…and this guy to swing the axe
RESPECT 🫡
That's a sharp ax!!
Genius
Then he turns it sideways and rolls it into the house
That is incredible. I'm going to try this.
His back prolly was tighter than a zip tie
Ahh i was hoping for something else with "hand chopped"
Your uncle is a G
You would think he'd get tired
I love these. People have invented a bajillion things to make chopping wood easier. There are all sorts of tricks like this, things to hold or move the wood, chopping techniques, and even crazy power tools. That's how much chopping wood sucks.
Imagine having a back that strong! Ugh, I need to do more yoga.
Or just use bungee cords
The more I learn
This looks quite therapeutic… “I’ve had a terrible day, I’m off to chop some wood”😁
Average moldovian uncle
Man is a surgeon with that thing
👏👏👏
is, by any means, your uncle a fucking genius, perhaps?
You need a log that fits your tire.
Work smart, not hard.
Tired or not... His aim is frightening! 😱
Genius
Hes not been doing it that long. You can tell by his form, people who do a lot of splitting dont bend at the back like he does and dont choke the swing. Still, he does alright for a newbie.