Bucking with a HB Cruiser Ax Wood Craft on a Budget Part 16

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Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

evening guys I'm Dave Canterbury with the Pathfinder school what we're going to do this afternoon is we're going to continue in our wood craft on a budget series we're going to talk a little bit about using a larger axe to tackle larger pieces of wood and the reason that's important is because we may have to at some point deal with larger logs a given scenario would be you are traveling down an ATV trail or you're driving down a trail with your truck to go hunting or whatever the case may be and there's a tree falling across your path and you can't simply drive over it at that point you're going to have to move that log which may involve bucking the log or cutting it into smaller more manageable pieces to move it from the trail and if it's got an 8 10 12 inch diameter that can be a chore without a chainsaw this log has already been bucked down with a saw to a smaller more manageable piece but for demonstration purposes it's the right diameter for something we can tackle easily with the cruising axe so what we want to do to buck this log or cut this log in half is we want to come in from both sides understanding that we may not be able to roll the log we want to come in from the sides in two 45-degree V's or be cuts and then cut it in the middle we don't want to try to cut through one side because that's not an efficient that's cutting it from both sides that we can but we may not be able to roll it over the beaver to our way through it so two cuts is going to be our best bet to save calories and energy now our axe needs to be very sharp it needs to be as sharp as our nice a sharp axe is going to take less energy to cut this log it's also going to be safer because you're not going to be able to swing us hard to make this thing actually cut the law so keep your axe as sharp as you can always keep a mask on your axe when it's not in use that's just good axe safety now let's talk about this log for a minute if we're going to try to buck or cut a log this big into two pieces there's a couple ways we can go about that if the log is large enough and stable enough that we can stand on top of the log which this one is not that's what we want to do and we want to keep our cuts below our feet going here if the logs not stable enough to do that then we may have to come up and cut it over the top that's the worst case scenario we don't want to have to do that unless we have to because we're not going to be able to get that V cut to the inside very easy and get both sides even to be able to split it in half so if we have to cut it while it's on the ground and we can't stand on it and we can't roll it then we may have to cut from here and here and get that three-quarter split and then break it from there now understanding that we can't stand on top of this log we still need to make our V cut as far down this space as we can without risking hitting the axe handle on the log itself so we kind of have to judge that by eye and then we'll have to come over and do the same thing on the backside to get this thing bucked we want about a 10 inch gap we want to keep our swings or our strikes at 45-degree angles and we really want to start low on the side go low high and then medium low high and then medium and that will help us to get a better wedge out of this log we're going to spread our legs out we're going to put our strong hand on top our weak hand on the bottom and when come up we're going to slide our hand up the axe handle and back and when we come down we're going to slide our hand down the axe so our first cut will look like that our second cut like that and our third and final cut was a little bit off so I'm going to hit it again then we want to do the same thing over here low medium high

low medium high low medium high [Music]

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okay so we're pretty far down into this heartwood now and we're clear down in here on our log got a dog coming over here but now I'm just going to try to clean this area here out it's not going to take near as hard of blows to do that and then we're going to switch sides cuz I'm pretty sure we're halfway through the heartwood here at the pinch point [Music]

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okay there's no question that's the center of our log right there [Music]

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get down a little bit on the force of my swing all right so now we know that we're through the log here so we've got to be more accurate with our swings because we don't want our axe went into the dirt or a solid ground either so we're just going to control it with your short creepers see I've got that stump back there to catch that axe and it just went through right there okay there she goes okay guys well we had about a nine nine 1/2 inch piece of oak hardwood here that was wet which both of those things make it a lot harder to cut and a piece of softer wood but you understand that the job can be done easy enough with the cruiser style axe and it can be done very safely the key element to remember here is it takes a lot of calories and energy to do this stuff and you have to be in shape it took me a good six eight minutes continuous chopping to cut through that log on both sides it will wear you out fast if you had to buck an entire log down to manageable pieces by yourself that might involve making four or five of these cuts in a short amount of time physical fitness is a big part of wood craft bushcraft survival the whole nine yards but in this series on budget wood craft I wanted to talk about the cruiser style axe talk a little bit about safety when bucking logs with your axe I'm Dave Canterbury for the pathline school I appreciate you joining me today for the short video I thanks for everything you do for our school for our family for our business for all of our sponsors affiliates instructors and friends and I'll be back with another video since I came thanks guys [Music]