Splitwood Fire with a Gransfors Bruks Outdoor Axe.

Hey guys, Joe here again. Thanks for clicking on the video. I wanted to do a splitwood fire today, an old-fashioned splitwood fire, but let's use a Gransfors Bruks outdoor axe and a fire steel, which is in my pocket. We won't use a saw, we won't use a knife, we won't use anything else other than the axe and the fire steel. We'll go from the process of selecting the right kind of wood, cutting the tree down, bucking it up, splitting it making shavings striking the fire steel on the axe to get the fire going let's do that today okay so this is a great tree to use it's a maple it's got a natural check in it it's about wrist thick the one next to it's even better but it's a little bit big so you can do a couple things really I could probably pull this down but let's make a couple chops just to make it easier and overall after all I am I am trying to show you how to do it with an axe so you guys probably already know this but it's a smart idea to move away all the debris and stuff near where you're going to chop so you don't mess up so you don't trip over it so you don't chop into it and bounce off or anything like that i'm putting the sheath in my pocket always last thing you want to do is lose a brown sheath on the ground it's all brown leaves so just clean it up a bit i want to chop low to the ground to use two hands you can if you want to with this small axe But I like to chop in the same direction. I'm not gonna be going like this and coming up It's just not necessary for these small trees back. Stop crying So you see how if I keep chopping the same direction and I move the axe from up to up to the bottom It's still taking out chunks as opposed to a V notch and it's such a small tree Like I said, that's all you need watch out for falling objects and just give it a yank Move move move and half the time this will happen. It's just gonna break out at the bottom Anyway, no big deal. Like I said, I could have pushed it out. Put my axe in my axe pocket, and I'm good to walk back carrying my stick. So now, next up is bucking it. You can do this a couple ways too, and I'll show you a couple ways that I do it. Again, my sheath is going in my pocket or in my bag, somewhere where I know it is. The first way is you're gonna hold it, and you're gonna actually hit it in midair. Hit it while it's standing up in the air with your feet away. And then the second way, you're gonna lay it on a log and buck it that way. and I'll show you that too. Let's go find a log first because I'm at my camp now where there is a bench and there is a log that I've worked at before, but in all honesty, in reality, if you're doing this exercise for real, you're not gonna have any of this stuff. So let's go find a suitable log that we can either bring here or do the work at the log to use as a workbench. So I found my log, but before we do that, let's do this standing up way because it works better as a longer pole. So I'm actually gonna flip it around because I've got that chopped part at the bottom and I don't want that giving out on me as I'm chopping. So I'm standing my feet back. I'm swinging right-handed. I need my dog to get out of the way so I don't put an ax in his face. Down, good. So I'm swinging right-handed, right? My left leg is way back here. My right leg is forward, almost like a bow drill stance. So if I miss, hopefully I'm not hitting anything, right? That's the idea. So can you see there? Yeah, so I just want to make like four cuts at the most probably one or two will do this part of it I'm just gonna go on a 45 hard, okay, that was kind of broken that doesn't count, again hit two in the same spot You're gonna turn it, you can turn it on its side and do four all the way around But I know if I just hit on this side, it's gonna go. So there we go, three, leave it, leave it, go on scope Okay, so this will be the most dense part of the wood again. I'll try to do it for four hits, four hits I mean one, that was kind of bad, two, three, four, okay, so you can see how that worked now I'm going to buck it up on the ground I might actually have to get a little bit bigger piece because I kind of split up all my wood already We'll see what happens So this piece of wood here is almost too short to buck up to split our sorry to buck up Lengthwise, but we'll do it in half just to get my point across so again. I'm not making a V I'm not swinging towards myself let's go let's go lay down but I'm not swinging towards myself so I'm always gonna swing away my knees out of the way my hands are out of the way again I'm hitting it in the same spot and then I might flip it over do it again and that's that so there's usually a natural crack in the wood a crack if the wood is seasoned and I'll always try to aim for that I'm gonna put my blade right in that crack I'm gonna lift the wood and throw the wood down as opposed to like burying my as opposed to burying my axe into the wood that's fine too but it just takes a little bit different technique so i'm making sure my hands aren't going to get pinched in the middle by doing this and moving up a couple hits and then a pry and it's broken right let's try to split this piece the axe way swing the axe down on it it's gone it just needs a little pry this piece is kind of punky oh i'm so glad he didn't knock my camera next i want to make some shavings but i need to find something to collect the shavings in because i'm not going to be able to make proper feather sticks with my axe and leave the the fine feathers on the stick so let's go find a piece of bark that we can collect our shavings from on here's a stump of an old ash tree the emerald ash borer has wiped out all the ash in my area i can definitely use that as a collection device even just that much collect all my shavings right on there just gonna put it here on this other side of the log that way I'm do my shavings they'll fall right onto the onto the bark these have to be broken down more anyways but I like to do my shavings first so that I don't make the pieces too small and they're breaking out and all that stuff so fine ones collect those maybe put them in a separate pile then your bigger ones so that at the end you don't have to sort through them to try to find your thin ones I've got all the shavings I want it's time to split it down to tender size kindling size rather which would be pencil lead pencil and thumb size this stuff is actually chipping out on me it's not the greatest wood this maple it's all like in a early stage of decay so it's grain is gone that's why it's chipping chipping off on me but we'll still get it to work these pieces aren't so bad at all but then like this this will chip out so yeah all I'm doing a lot of times to here is I'll just line up the the axe right on the on the wood down the middle of it bring them both down together i'm not trying to like hit it just bring them down together when it's this small it'll work fine so i'm all set up i've got my my small fine stuff here my shavings and my curls all here i've got my thicker coarser curls here i've got my pencil size here and my pencil lead which was supposed to be pencil lead here pencil and thumb and actual fuel here so we'll get this all going right now so before i do it I just want to show a close-up of how I'm going to do it. Here's my axe I got it braced against this log in front. This log is the integral part I'm gonna put my knee on the axe and I'll pull away with my fire steel right on the blade I know some people don't like to do that, but it's really no big deal And I'm gonna shoot a video on field sharpening on how to fix that right after this video So what I want to do is look for my finest curl Probably this one here stick some of that in there and I'm going to just put it right above my axe blade and again, I'll brace my ax with my knee, pull back. Nice. Okay, so while it's still going, place it on the brace, put your other thicker curls on top. Hopefully you don't smother it. Tools go away. And this back piece will now become part of my fire, this backlog, which is no big deal. You wanna brace everything up so that there's air underneath it. And as soon as that starts to go, I'll just be laying, oh, actually I got these pieces to go on next. So I'll just be laying them crosswise, crossways, crossing the other ones let that build and we shall have a sustained fire I feel comfortable putting on big thick pieces like this it's sustained it's not going out now I can go do whatever I need to do like dig up a sassafras root for some tea so there you go not the most efficient not the most convenient but definitely fun and a really good skill to know so my looking at my axe it's no worse for wear off that fire steel it's a little rusty and stuff but I am going shoot that second video right now i'll probably title it field sharpening tools and i'll sharpen a scandinavian grind convex scandinavian knife convex knife and then my convex axe all in this video so in this video to come so if that's something you're interested in make sure you tune into that video thanks for watching guys i hope you learned something and i'll see you soon on the next one goodbye