Wedge pounders for big trees.

[Al Smith]

Maybe after you've rolled around on the ground for ten minutes .

 

[Cold Logging]

If my strip is a good ways off the road or a long walk from the landing. I use a 26" handle 5 lb raftein ax. It really chaps me that Collins ect.stopped making the 5 lb rafting ax. As a bushler I don't make money beating wedges so I don't make a habit of doing it. But , sometimes it can't be avoided. A lot of time I will just cut a mallet.
Cut a 6-10" understory tree that has a good limbfor the handle. Buck a mallet out that is 8-12" long. About 8" diameter is good and the limb has to be a good one at just the right angle. It helps if you slow down just a bit to make sure you make nice square cuts. .
I pack 1 10" smooth, 1,12" Hard Head and 1,15" smooth Double Taper wedges when I'm production falling on the coast. . I keep 1 spare 10" and 1 spare 12" in my Alice pack which is what I use for a fallers pack.

 

[Cold Logging]

I like a mallet a lot more than a club. A club can ring the stuffing out.of your hands and jam your wrist. A mallet almost never does as long as you make a good one.

 

[MasterBlaster]

How do you make a mallet?

 

[Cold Logging]

Just fall an understory tree. And find the mallet in it. I usually try for .
about a 30" limb handle. A faller from Montana named Butch, taught me that trik

 

[stig]

That is one neat trick!
Never thought of that, now I can't wait to try it out.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I think I know what you're talking about... what's a understory tree?

 

[Cold Logging]

In the old growth forests on the coast of Alaska the timber is mixed age. . The understory are the young trees most of the time. . We call them whips ect. Often several of them have to be fell in the swamping out process of falling timber.
I always pack my rig builders ax on my belt. And 80% of the wedging I do it is sufficient for. But once in a while I need to lift a tree. So I just cut a mallet.

 

[Cold Logging]

If I Know I will have to beat wedges a bunch then I will bring the 5 pounder. Like having to wedge my timber up out of a crik or away from the cut line. . Usually the bull buck will give a guy a heads up on that if its a new strip.

 

[NickfromWI]

What's a deadblow hammer?


love
nick

 

[Tucker943]

I have cut MANY mallets. Or clubs with a tapered handle and a larger head. I'll even go so far as to say Ive gotten good at it.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I have a 3# dead blow for up the tree if needed.. Rarely need it...but still one in the truck.

 

[woodworkingboy]

it isn't just the tool length, you have to know how to ht things. Surprising how many guys have been whacking something for years and still bounce the head of the hammer or whatever they are using. Why someone came up with the bright idea for a dead blow. The same applies to constructing furniture, where not hitting properly will send vibrations through the work and have a greater potential to cause damage. More damage potential with less force, no point in that.

 

[Jack]

What's a deadblow hammer?


love
nick

DEADBLOW HAMMER
is a specialized mallet helpful in minimizing damage to the struck surface and in controlling striking force with minimal rebound from the striking surface. The head of these hammers are commonly hollow and filled with sand or lead shot, which both absorbs the impact of a strike and concentrates all of the energy of the blow in a focused point.

.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

And .......

"not to be used on Hard Head Wedges."

Don't ask me how I know..

 

[MasterBlaster]

Will it bust em?

 

[Cold Logging]

I've heard that a few years ago some guys were breaking their hard head wedges. But, the only way I've broke them is by using them for a hammer setting other wedges. And that took a few months.
They might tear up the striking face on a plastic dead blow hammer tho. . ?????

 

[CurSedVoyce]

They might tear up the striking face on a plastic dead blow hammer tho. . ?????

Exactly!

 

[gf beranek]

A dead blow delivers a softer hit. The weight floats inside the head and delivers the actual force micro seconds after the initial strike.

 

[Al Smith]

A dead blow is especially handy for beating on stuff you don't want to screw up with a steel hammer .Like an axle shaft for instance .It makes a good hammer for forming sheet metal too as well as a wedge driver if you don't live on the left coast with all those axes .

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I use it for tipping tops when needed (rarely but....). One time I was wedging a top over, it was being stubborn in the wind, had a pull line on it.... crispy so it was being a PITA... I started wedging it with a 3# when the head came off and almost hit a roof.... Made a decision right then.. One piece unit JIC..... And with the dead blow, you just hit and the energy is transferred, no big swing required when you are up close and personal on the stem.

 

[Cold Logging]

I've never owned one. Are they expensive, ??

 

[MasterBlaster]

Nope.

http://www.craftsman.com/craftsman-dead-blow-hammer/p-00938359000P?sid=ISx20110429x00002

 

[woodworkingboy]

Do they really do that much more than keeping a tight wrist when you make contact with a regular sledge or axe?

 

[MasterBlaster]

I'm good to go.