Splitting and adzing seating for our fire cirlce!

Its been a lovey, warm and sunny week here at Rowen.  Dave and Sue have taken advantage of the weather and been making some seating for our fire circle out of two ash logs we had lying around!

To split the logs Dave used his trusty sledge hammer and iron wedges.  To begin he hammers in the first wedge at the base of the log and soon a crack will appear in the log.

The idea is to work with the natural grain of the wood.  Further wedges are inserted into the developing crack and hammered in.

As the wedges are hammer in you can hear the timber slowly but surely cracking apart.  Splitting this large log this way took less than 5 minutes.

Once the timbers had been split Sue started to smooth off any surface bumps and sharp splinters using an iron adze.

Once this is done they will be positioned and set on a stone base (to keep the ash off the wet ground) and be ready as a vital part of our 'idea exchange centre' (sitting around a fire and chatting!).