Thread: Froe left or right handed?

Suggest you contact Stan Ceglinski for advice on that. He will know more on the topic than anyone else I know of.

The Billinudgel Wood Working Company



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My two have bevels on both sides.

I've only seen about 5 or 6 old froes, and it seems to me most had a single bevel, which faced the person holding it if they held the handle in the left hand. I assume most right handers would likely hold with their left hand & bash with the right.

Thinking about the bevel, I wonder if it matters a hoot if it's single-sided or symmetrical, for most applications? Did they put a single bevel on them simply out of convenience, or does it really make a difference having one side flat? The instructions I once read on using a froe didn't mention the bevel, they were only concerned with the way you levered the handle after you'd begun the split, to keep the split following the grain. The advice was to lean against, or away from, the line if it started to run off, but can't remember which way you were supposed to lean to pull it back on track. I guess it's something you'll soon discover when you start using it.

When I'm splitting billets for turning blanks I'm not too concerned with super accuracy. The main thing is to let the split follow the line of least resistance, which is usually parallel with the grain, but can go in very strange directions in wild-grained wood or around large knots, etc. If you are after spindle blanks for chairs or anything structural, it's best to toss those pieces aside, anyway - you don't want any cross-grain in a chair leg!

Cheers,

I checked with the master Curtis Buchanan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTQ2...Al37lx&index=4

Have a look at this. He says it needs a tapper on both sides with a slight convex shape. He uses them nearly every day.

Kate

I think this is the Pandora's box of woodworking.

There are three questions.

Should there be a single bevel or a double bevel (or possibly even a taper as opposed to a distinct double bevel)?

Should in the case of a single bevel it face you or

Should in the case of a single bevel it be on the far side with the flat face towards you?

My natural preference as a right hander is to hold the froe with my left and wallop away with my right. Clearly the double bevel will suit a right or left hander.

Although I have just made up some single bevel froes I don't have enough experience in using them to say which side the bevel should face. My intention was to have the bevel face me, but if I was a leftie I would use the froe with the bevel facing away.

It may all be a matter of preference and there is no right or wrong way. A case of whatever works for you.

Regards
Paul

Froes used here in the shake making business from blocks of western red cedar have a single bevel.
That faces the slab which is to be split off. The back face is flat so it drives straight down with no
off-center wedging action.

I buy the blocks directly from the mill. My froe was smithed like the standard design.
My froe is designed to be held with my right hand, the split slab coming off. facing me.
My mallet is a disposable length of alder log.
Some people want to lever the slab from the off-face. So be it.

What RV says seems logical. For making shakes, having a flat side towards the slab & the bevel forcing the split-off-piece out, makes some sense to me. I reckon this would be most applicable where you're splitting a relatively thin sliver off a much larger chunk (at least to begin with). When splitting chair spindle blanks out of a billet, you are hiving off somewhat more solid pieces, where the wedging action is likely to be more even & a double bevel would probably work as well, or possibly even better than a single bevel. If I may point out the obvious, the wedges used for splitting large billets of wood into fence-posts & rails have a "double taper".

Anyway, although I've split a lot of wood into everything from fence-posts to toothpicks (the latter more by accident than design ), I have only ever had a couple of quick goes at using a froe. Most of the splitting I've done in the last 30 years or so has been either firewood (no finesse required!) or for chair-spindle material. For the latter, I've managed to get by with a hatchet, a mallet and some crude wooden wedges, which works well enough in wood that wants to split straight, & splits reasonably easily, but it gives me very little control of the split when things go awry, as they sometimes do. Fortunately, I have plenty of raw material, & MIL's fireplace happily accepts the rejects.....

Cheers,

I think it depends a lot on the wood that you have to work with. Western Red Cedar splits like a dream.
There's no other conifer like it for the ease of splitting. Just pops open, wet or dry.
Very popular because of it's durability to weather and rot as well as the gray color.

The shake blocks are 60cm tall by maybe 30cm wide and however thick you can get (18 - 30cm). Shakes for houses (roofs and walls) are about 3/4" (18mm?) thick.
I've needed quite thin pieces for some carving projects, with a shorter dry block, I can split off 1/8" (3mm?) like nobody's business.
The edge of my froe is about 1mm blunt. Do you do that so it splits instead of jamming in a cut?

The mill has a power froe to slab off the sap wood = useless, rots easy.
Frightening thing to see in operation, nothing stops it. Bang, bang, bang, done.
Lots of locals here use a Log Wizard to skin off sapwood. I don't see it as being very controllable.