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The Amana Colonies are a National Historic Landmark located in eastern Iowa. Known for their food and shopping, the colonies are made up of seven villages. The Amana Society, Inc. owns over 26,000 acres of rolling hills and farmland along the Iowa river. This land includes the largest privately owned forest in Iowa and that’s where I found the white Oak log that I’m going to use to build a set of dining room chairs and maybe a rocking chair or two.

As you know, I bought the log from the forestry division of the Amana Shops. I drove up yesterday morning and with the help of Larry Gnewikow and Tim Krauss, I had a tree cut down and dragged to a clearing by 11:00 am. Then for the next two hours or so, I tried to put the lessons I’d learned last spring while attending a ladderback chair class at the John C. Campbell Folk School to good use.

I’ve never tried to split a tree of this size before. In fact, except for chopping firewood, I’ve never really tried to split a tree at all. I brought with me the tool box containing all my tools that I used to build the chair last spring. I also brought along a couple of sledge hammers, two 4-lb. steel wedges, four plastic wedges, and two hard maple splitting wedges that I’d made myself.

The first step in splitting a tree this size (approx. 20″-24″ diameter) is to score a line. Well, actually the first step is to find any splits that happen naturally from the stress of being cut down. As you can see in the photo at left, I neglected to do that and had to redo my score marks after I discovered this stress crack. Trying to fight that crack is next to impossible, so it’s best to take the path of least resistance.

Once I’d completed the scoring I switched to my 12-lb. sledge and started in on the steel wedges. It’s kind of hard to see here, but once the wedges start to take a bite, the tree will split perfectly along the scored line. At least you hope it will! This tree wasn’t perfect, but it is pretty close to veneer grade. This means the bark runs straight up and down, there are no visible knots or branches, and the growth rings should be concentric and start in the exact middle of the trunk.

The split veered off just a bit at the bottom edge (photo above), but that had more to do with my crooked scoring than anything. Once I’d gotten the tree to split across its width, I started to concentrate on splitting it across its length. After about a half hour, I’d managed to get the log split in two.

Eventually, I managed to get one half split into quarters. I used an axe to split the fibrous splinters holding the two sections together. Like I mentioned, it only took me about a half hour to make the first split. The second and third splits took considerably longer! But, all in all, I’m happy with the results of my hard days work. I’ll keep you posted on how the chairs are coming along. -Joel

One of the things that I like about woodworking is that there are so many different ways to work wood. So if you’re adventurous, you can use hand tools to do almost all the work. Or even take it a step further and go back to the way they worked wood in the 19th century, and use old hand tools!

I spent most of the day in woods outside Middle Amana, Iowa today splitting a six-foot section of veneer-grade white Oak. Man, was that a lot of work. You may remember that last spring, I took a ladderback chair building class at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina. During the class, we started out with a small quarter section of a red Oak tree and rived it into chair parts. All of the work of felling the tree and splitting it into quarter sections was done by the instructor for the class, Lyle Wheeler. Lyle is a big, burly guy and now I know how he got that way!

Anyway, I contacted Larry Gnewikow, forester for Amana Society Forestry. Larry manages the largest privately-owned hardwood forest in the state of Iowa and one of the largest in the midwest and he agreed to sell me a 5-6 foot section of white Oak. Larry and forester Tim Krauss were waiting for me at a clearing where they had been logging white Oak for a veneer factory in northeast Iowa. Normally, the factory takes 8-12 foot long logs, but Larry explained that occasionally they’ll find trees with only 5 or 6 feet of veneer-grade trunk that the factory won’t accept. Since that’s all I needed, I took the good stuff and the rest will most likely be sold for pallets. Note the knot about 6 feet up in the photo at left. That’s all it takes to get rejected.

Tim started by surveying the best location to fell the tree. Then he cut a notch on that side of the tree. Next, he removed the taper at the bottom of the trunk so that it wouldn’t roll around when I got ready to split it. Tim knows his work and it took less than 10 minutes (with chips flying everywhere!) for him to drop the tree and have it ready for the skid to pull it out to the clearing.

I’ll tell you how I split it tomorrow. -Joel

I’ve got to get back in the shop! After spending most of the summer working in the yard or on the house and very little time in my woodshop, now that the weather is starting to turn cooler, I want to finish up some projects. Unfortunately, I find it hard to make it down to the shop in the evenings. Especially during the World Series!

Last weekend, I told my wife I was going to start spending at least one hour per day in my shop. I may not get too much done, but at least I’m going to make the effort. So here goes. Read the rest of this article »

Cabinetmakers use a “story stick” (or story pole) to record dimensions for a project on site, then the dimensions are used in the shop to build the project. Two sticks are made, usually from a piece of scrap plywood or particle board, one for the horizontal layout and one for vertical. Read the rest of this article »

I chose the ladderback chairmaking class at John C. Campbell Folk School for a couple of reasons. First of all the timing was right. I needed to use up carry-over vacation days before June 1st. Secondly, I needed to get out of the cabinet shop, where it’s often over 100° during the summer… Read the rest of this article »

Day One — Dead Head to Kentucky

Day Two — Berea

Day Three — Asheville

Woodworking schools are just like any other business, you have to find your niche and provide a service that is unique, educational, and hopefully, entertaining. You want the students to come back. That doesn’t seem to be a problem at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. Read the rest of this article »