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Wooden Rectitude

compensatory inclination block
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Relentless overhead blows with a 1.360 kg block splitter turn a big lump of wood into middlings and kindlings, either quickly and crisply or horribly slowly, depending mostly on whether the grain is lined up nicely.

But that always assumes you can make the thing stand up to be hit.

The target lump of wood approximates to a cuboid, a cylinder or a semi-cylinder, and the long faces are long in the direction that was vertical when the wood was part of a tree. Therefore, to be in with a chance of catching the grain, you have to stand it on one of its small faces, which would be fine if its vertical cross-sections were rectangles.

They are trapezia.

Therefore the target lumps lean and often topple.

If you're following this closely, mind your head.

The solution is a type of chopping block. Its rough (i.e., high-friction) wooden upper surface has three planes. Each of these planes is wide enough to carry the short face of a target lump.

They sit at 0, 15 and 30 degrees from the horizontal. This is because 7.5 degrees of lean are rarely enough to carry the centre of gravity to the unsupported side of the fulcrum. Unless the original mechanical saw, that made the lump, was swung by a gremlin with malice aforethought, the basic lean will not exceed 37.5 degrees.

To this point, the idea is far too simple. Therefore let it be turned around a vertical spindle and then locked in place with locking pins. The locking action must pari passu retract the bearings on which the block rotates around the spindle, to protect them from damage from the shock of those relentless overhead blows.

pertinax, Jul 20 2015

William Ewart Gladstone http://3.bp.blogspo.../s1600/IMG_0010.JPG
The point is that he was a pillar of stiff Victorian morality also well known for chopping wood. It's a sort of pun, you know. I'm told they can be very effective. [pertinax, Jul 20 2015, last modified Jul 21 2015]

William Ewart Gladstone - family tree http://www.wikitree...tone-Family-Tree-68
their typist has a terrible stutter (poor thing) "g-g-grandfather?" [not_morrison_rm, Jul 20 2015]

In the meantime... https://www.youtube...watch?v=H2d2GTBga6I
[zen_tom, Jul 21 2015]

[link]






       I see an old feller. Held by a lumberjack.
lurch, Jul 20 2015
  

       I thought this was going to be an idea about your arse stiffening up.
xenzag, Jul 21 2015
  

       Or, you could stack your wood inside an old car-tyre and chop it up like that [see link]
zen_tom, Jul 21 2015
  

       I gather that you and I both spent the past Saturday splitting wood in the Perthian hinterland [pertinax]? As I was doing my lumberjack impression I was thinking about producing chopping blocks from tough, recycled plastic with the top presenting varying faces with differing angles. You can always find one bit or another to compensate for the angle of the block of wood next to be split. Yours is more 'natural' but mine might be longer lasting.
AusCan531, Jul 21 2015
  

       Yyyup.
pertinax, Jul 21 2015
  

       A more zen solution would be to use the wood to break itself.   

       This could be accomplished with a suitably zenny gas-gun, some wadding and a stout metal edge. Simply fire the offending wood at the metal edge (using the wadding to achieve a good seal in the barrel), and its momentum will cause it to be cleaved in twain.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 21 2015
  

       You know it's hard to get a good visual of you and [AusCan531], chopping wood in your bikinis, on the beach with the temp nudging 100 degrees. Sweat, lots of sweat is all I see. So + for the hard earned idea. Lots of sweat equity.
blissmiss, Jul 21 2015
  

       ^Photos will be sent to your inbox for a small fee. Photos will not be sent to your inbox for a large fee.
AusCan531, Jul 21 2015
  

       Heh.
blissmiss, Jul 21 2015
  
      
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