As you’ve seen I’m re-posting my old “Tools of the Trade” series where I introduce most of the tools that I use.
But: Before the froe and before the shaving horse and the hatchet and the hacking stock… there is a tool that I use that may be the humblest of all of them.
Wedges and Gluts
Wedges are Iron or soft steel; while Gluts are the hardest/cheapest wood that you can scrounge up. Both are wedge shaped and perform the same function. but it’s difficult to start a split with a glut, as the point of the Glut will usually just mash against the log, while the Iron wedges excel at starting a split, and following them with gluts is usually how they are used. So you can get away with 1 wedge and a handful of gluts if you need to.
Iron wedges are usually not very expensive and can be found at most big box DIY stores. Pick the one with the pointiest edge.
No one makes gluts commercially. You will take branches and make your own with a hatchet. Although any stick of wood will do; In northeast USA pick slow growing woods like the smaller varieties of beech and Hickory often called “Muscle wood” and “Iron wood” if you can find them. The bigger Dogwoods also work well, and I have one that I made from a very slow growing Japanese cut leaf maple that is as hard as… as the farmer I used to work for said: these woods are “harder than the hubs of hell”. (I think it was a reference to the wheel of Ixion).
You have your bolt or but or length of wood but it’s too big for either a froe or a hatchet, and if you pound an ax into it to split it you will eventually deform the eye of the axe, ruining it. You might use a splitting axe, but it’s just a wedge on a stick. Besides you cannot exactly place a swinging axe right where you want your split. But you CAN put a wedge right on a line.
to drive either the wedges pr gluts you want a sledgehammer or a heavy froe club will do.
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