Small Wood Splitting With Axe: Reliable In Camp & On The Trail

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Split wood being used as a griddle in camp underneath frying pans - great campcraft — Split wood has a multitude of uses in camp and on the trail. Photo: Paul Kirtley

Split wood has many uses in camp and on the trail.

From dry kindling and feathersticks to improvised grills, small-diameter rounds of dead, dry wood split down into smaller sizes are an important resource for fire lighting and fire management in particular.

In circumstances when you stop for the night in the woods but cannot find dry wood in a suitable condition for starting a fire, splitting out dry wood is a reliable means of obtaining the small-sized fuel you need.

Even in cabins when there is plenty of firewood in the woodshed, you still may need to produce small splints for kindling from heavier rounds.

Plus we’ve all experienced popular camping sites, where small sticks are at a premium.

Being able to take dead standing wood, cut it to length then split it down, provides all the sizes of fuel you need without any fuss or stress.

I’m putting an emphasis on splitting wood for fire lighting and fire management but the techniques below are by no means limited to just this purpose. It is, however, the purpose for which you are most likely going to be using them.

Unless you are using modern camping stoves with liquid fuel or gas, fires for cooking and warmth are an everyday requirement, especially in the colder months of the year. So, these techniques become an every day practice. I’ve used these axe techniques most when winter camping but, as illustrated here, they are useful year-round, in fixed camps and on the trail.

Kindling, hearth and feathersticks in Northern Temperate woodland, all produced from split wood. Photo: Paul Kirtley

Split wood fire in the boreal forest in winter. Photo: Paul Kirtley

The Basics – Working On A Stump

As emphasised in my axe safety in camp article, kneeling is the best way to mitigate risk of injury when using a short-handled axe on a low block or stump.

Most splitting techniques are very dynamic, requiring fast movement of the axe. They also require good aim – hitting the wood in the right place to split it. If you are standing a round of wood on its end, aiming to hit it with an axe, this becomes increasingly difficult the smaller the diameter of the wood. It also becomes harder to balance the wood on the block in the first place.

The technique I’d like to share with you now involves much less dynamic movement of the axe combined with easier aiming. In fact you do the aiming first, before you swing the axe.

What you are going to do is place the bit of the axe onto the the round of wood at one end. The handle of the axe runs pretty much parallel to the wood you want to split, along the line you want to split it.

Splitting wood in hand with axe — Kneeling in front of the low block, hold the wood you want to split over the block. Taking the axe in your dominant hand, place the bit of the axe over the end of the round of wood that is furthest away from you, holding the wood and axe together. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Side view of body position and how the axe is placed on top of the wood. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Detail of where the axe bit is placed on the wood, all above the low block. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Axe handle hand position for small wood splitting technique — Detail on hand positioning. Avoid smashing your knuckles between the axe handle and wood. This is easier if the wood is longer than the axe handle. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Small wood splitting technique with Gransfors Bruk Small Forest Axe — Now lift the axe and wood up, keeping them together, before returning them to the starting place on the block with more speed. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Small axe head embedded in a round of wood as part of splitting technique — The weight of the axe combined with the sharpness of the cutting edge will embed the axe into the wood. You often need to do little more than tap the wood and axe down together to achieve this. With easy-to-split pieces, this will be all you need to split the wood. But there are other things you need to know… Photo: Paul Nicholls

Make Life As Easy As Possible – Be Efficient

Knotty wood is harder to split than wood without significant knots. From the perspective of splitting, knots effectively create a peg through the wood, holding it together. This makes a knotty log, even a small, relatively thin one, harder to split. So try to select the least knotty pieces of wood to split. This starts with how you cut the wood down to the lengths you want to split.

sawing some wood — Pines and other conifers often have concentrations of knots in one section of their trunk. Start by removing these from one end of the piece you want to split. These can always be burned once the fire is started. Photo: Paul Nicholls

More sawing - turn on images to see this photo — Being intelligent in how you section up the wood you are going to split will save time and effort later. Making the splitting easier also makes it less likely to result in an injury from the axe.

Small wood splitting on a stump — A knot free, small diameter piece of wood should be the easiest to split. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Once the piece of wood is split down most of its length, the split can be completed by prising the axe and wood apart. With easy-to-split pieces of knot-free wood, even using a light touch, it is likely that sometimes the axe will enter the block. With tougher, knotty pieces where some force is required, it is very likely the axe will end up in the block.

So, right from the start you should get into the habit of generating the prising action by moving the wood, not the axe. Trying to move the axe handle horizontally after it is embedded in a block will result in you trying to rotate the whole block, putting considerable stress on the part of the axe where the head is attached to the handle. Over time, this can work to loosen the mating of head and handle.

wood and axe — Here the axe bit is embedded in the stump. By twisting the wood horizontally relative to the axe, the split can be opened and the splitting of the wood completed without putting undue stress on the axe. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Small axe, small wood splitting — Moving the wood, not the axe to open the split. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Once the round has been cleaved into two, exposing the grain inside, splitting tends to become easier from this point onwards. Even so, we should work to be as efficient as possible. In particular we should think about the ease of maintaining the axe placement on the wood.

Axe bit on wood — It’s easier to balance the axe bit on the flat side of the wood, than on the curved side. Photo: Paul Kirtley

axe on wood — Same technique as before – place the axe on the wood, then raise the two together, returning them to the block with sufficient force to split the wood. Photo: Paul Kirtley

Wood twist — Again, remember to turn the wood to open the split, leaving the axe static. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Axe technique for spliting splints — When we get down to quarters, it’s easier to place the axe on the curved surface than on the apex opposite it. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Splitting very small splints with axe — On smaller pieces still, it can be tricky to get the split to run the full length without running off to the side. At this stage, turn the piece on its side and split from there. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Small splint splitting with axe — You can split down to really quite small splints with well-selected material and good, efficient technique. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Various sizes of wooden splints having been split out with axe — Examples of the fuel sizes needed for establishing a camp fire. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Dealing With Difficulties

Every piece of wood is unique. Some pieces harbour unseen knots. Some species of tree split more easily than others. Employing this splitting technique won’t always be like putting a hot knife through butter.

First off, you should know how to remove the axe from the round of wood, should the wood not split. The critical point is to keep your fingers well out of the way. Levering an axe versus a piece of wood creates an excellent guillotine for your fingers. Make sure they are no-where near the axe head.

A second concern, but also important, is what the axe will do when it is free of the wood. The more force you are applying, the more it can accelerate as soon as there is nothing to oppose the force. Make sure the axe is not going to come out towards your arm or drop onto your leg once it is free.

Removing axe without cutting myself — When levering an axe from a round of wood, make sure your hands are nowhere near the bit of the axe. Also make sure the axe is not going to spring free towards you, particularly onto one of your arms legs. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Extending the split with axe — With the split started, you can attempt to continue the split by placing the axe further back and opening it up further using the same technique as before. Note, however, how the wood has been moved forwards so the axe bit remains over the block. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Splitting wood with axe — Once split, it’s back to the same basic technique. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Splitting gnarly wood — Gnarly bits of wood don’t always split cleanly. Don’t stress though as this wood is not going to make good feathersticks anyway! Photo: Paul Nicholls

Knotty wood — Knots cause the most problems for this technique. You might have split the log in half no problem but then a knot like this can cause one of the resulting halves to be difficult to split. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Here you can see the knot going right through to the other side of the piece. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Attacking a knot with the axe — The answer to knots is usually to attack them directly with the axe and split them too if possible. Photo: Paul Nicholls

small diameter wood splitting with axe — Success. To finish the split, again the piece is turned while keeping the axe static. Photo: Paul Nicholls

What If There Is No Block?

Unless you are camping at a spot where you or someone else has previously left or created a chopping block, you will not have one to work on. Unlike other splitting techniques, which depend on a log being balanced on a flat surface, the technique we are examining in this article does not require a flat surface. You can work onto another log, even a relatively small one.

Paul Kirtley splitting small diameter rounds of wood on low log — Applying the same technique as before but now onto a small diameter log. Photo: Paul Nicholls

A note of caution here, though, you should make sure that once the piece of wood has been split, your axe does not continue onwards towards the ground. On rock, the damaging results should be obvious. But even soft earth will contain small stones and sandy particles, which will dull or even damage the cutting edge of the ace.

There may also be more substantial pieces of rock hidden beneath the surface. So, where you place the axe over the piece you are splitting and the log you are working on is an important consideration. Keeping the axe bit, wood you are splitting and log you are working on all in alignment also provides the most effective transmission of force in generating the split.

axe bit, wood and log base all in alignment — Make sure the axe bit, wood and log are all in alignment. Photo: Paul Nicholls

More splitting with axe — When the axe goes all the way through the round you are splitting, it hits the log underneath, not the ground. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Yet more splitting - if you do not have images turned on in your browser this article will not be very useful. — If you need to encourage the split along the piece of wood, make sure you re-position the wood so the axe bit remains above the log you are working down onto. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Splitting on low horizontal log — Even cutting across the grain of the supporting log, the axe can become embedded. Photo: Paul Nicholls

Moving wood relative to stationary axe — As always, keep the axe stationary, rotating only the piece of wood to leverage the split. Photo: Paul Nicholls

The tools and the results - axe, saw and split wood — With a small axe and a folding buck saw you can quickly and efficiently process small rounds of wood into all the sizes you need in camp. Photo: Paul Kirtley

Snowtrekker tent in use in Sweden with wood processing area in front — Winter camping in northern Sweden. Note the firewood processing area, including the horizontal logs for splitting onto using the technique in this article. Photo: Paul Kirtley

Everyday Axe Skills For Camp & Trail

The above splitting technique is one of the most useful I know. It’s certainly the most frequently used around camp, whether close to home or on wilderness journeys. I’ve used it from canoe trips in Canada in the summer to winter camping trips in the far north of Scandinavia. For producing suitable fuel sizes for campfires or stoves, this technique is particularly valuable.

split wood and stove in a heated tent for winter camping — Splints and other sizes of fuel stacked neatly alongside the stove during a winter camping trip in a heated tent. Photo: Paul Kirtley

Moreover, due to it being less dynamic and more controlled than many free-hand splitting techniques, this splitting technique is relatively safe to use in confined spaces and near to other people. I hope you find it as useful to have in your repertoire of axe techniques as I do.