New shaving horse and riving wood.

For a long time now I have wanted to make myself a shaving horse. And as the tent that Louise and I are working on is almost finished, I am definately going to need a shavinghorse for making the tentpoles. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to do something about it.

I called the local forester and bought a 5m long trunk of ash. And thats what I made this beauty from :-)



I have been reading alot about greenwood working lately, so I decided that it would be interesting to try making "The horse" from fresh riven wood. Hence the call to the forester.
With help from a colleague of mine I got the trunk sawn in to smaller pieces, that I could work with.

I then split the wood into quarters, that I could transport home (also with the help of my colleague and his trailer).
At home I rived the quarters into eights, wich were shaped into planks that I could use for making the bench. For that I used a small single bevel axe that my dear friend Jesper (Ildsmeden) made for me last year.

When riving large pieces of wood (that you want to split evenly down the centre) start by scoring the wood in a straight line across the end of the log. Make sure that the two halfs are of equal size.



Scoring the end of the log will create a plane of weakness through the wood, that will guide the split.

Start riving from the edge of the wood with the wedge set at 45 degres.



The wedge will open a split across the end and down the length of the log. Open this split further using wooden wedges, set into the split running down the side of the log.



Continue hammering wooden wedges into the split until the log cracks open.
You will need an axe to clear out crossing fibers in the wood.



The result should be two halfs of equal size.



And here is a picture of how clean the split can actually be.
It's pretty incredible if you ask me!



For more info on riving and greenwood working, take a look at these sites:

Greenwoodworking.com

Peter Follansbee, joiner's notes (Blog)

Bodgers ask & anwser forum