Always fun to blow stuff up.

Where can you get one of those?

Probably nowhere.

Schedule 80 steam pipe, a lathe, and a really good welder- - - - -make one!

My grandpa had several.
Never saw them used, but he always said the hardest part could be
finding the wedge afterward. His were different, they were tapered,
Not can-like. The opening was about 1 1/2" across. Knowing Pap
he was probably lubricated when he used them and used too much
powder.

Powder must have been darn cheap back in the day. I remember
$5-6 but even that would have added up 40 years ago splitting wood.

Guess they would be good for people working with hand saws, or Stihls.😁
I'd of flopped that on its side and let the Husky split it.
Gather up the noodles and use them for fire starter.

Old man is packing, guess he can shoot the fuse man if he’s not in the clear before the fuse is lit.

Have several, most of them have a chain that you attached to a tire to find them. Most were used to split rails for fencing

Have blasted several big trunks by plunging a chainsaw into the middle and filling with powder with a fuse then tamp ing them with dirt but that was when powder was cheap

How about using a big Forstner bit in a battery powered drill motor and some Tannerite? Drill a hole a few inches deep, pour in the goop, and nail a piece of 1X4 over the hole. Back off a hundred yards and hit it with a .30-06. Not very practical, but FUN!

Owner of some land we rented when I was a kid hired a bulldozer guy to clear part of the lower ground. It had several BIG stumps left after logging years earlier. He had a big spear point, 3-4" diameter and several feet long he hooked on the dozer to poke holes under the stumps. Then he mixed nitrogen fertilizer with diesel fuel and filled those holes, adding a quarter stick of dynamite with a long electric line to set it off. He had us hide behind the dozer a couple hundred yards away and hit the plunger to ignite it. Next thing I knew the stump hit the ground 50 yards past the dozer. Dad decided we had chores to do back home.

Looks like fun but he probably spent $10 in pyrodex to split wood worth about a buck.

It is intended for blowing out stumps and not simply splitting firewood.

Back in the day blasting powder an dynamite was cheap and available. Times have changed

You can make anything fun when you add gun powder!

Not, wedges were splitting not blowing out stumps

Ones I've seen used were much longer. A hollow barrel about 2 ft long fitting over wedge with a long round stem welded to the top. The explosion forces a wedge through the log and barrel might travel a dozen ft or so. Used for splitting posts and fence rails from straight grained western larch.

ANFO- - - - -same stuff McVeigh used in Oklahoma City. It takes a pretty strong kicker charge to set it off.

I made a few black powder splitters back in the mid-70’s. Going from memory here…I think I used 6150 steel…about an inch and a quarter in diameter, one end tapered for about an inch and a half to about a quarter inch radius … the other end square and drilled out about 5/8 x 3 inches deep. Touch hole about an inch from the end, sized for cannon fuse and a cross hole drilled through around the middle for a wire with an orange flag to help find it. They were used to split log lengths. The tapered end was driven into the end of the log an inch or so, it was charged and fused then lighted off. I was skeptical when the guy brought me the drawing, but I went up into the woods where he was working that winter to watch and it worked.

That’s about $5,000 of black powder per cord….I’ll continue to do it by hand. I find it therapeutic while splitting especially when I have some stress to relieve. A week or 2 back I must’ve had a lot of stress because I cut and split 3 cords by hand in about 6 hours of time (including breaks). The pile looks burly but it was alder and not madrone (Arbutus) so it was actually fun. 😉

It would be cheaper and easier to hire a couple Mexicans for an afternoon and get it stacked too.

Back in the old days, they generally didn’t do things the way that cost more and took longer.

Splitting rounds is a lot easier at 20 degrees or colder. Really pops apart at 20 below. Usually.

Did I miss something or was they beating on that thing with the charge already in it ?
Seems with an open top a bit of powder could bounce out onto top plate and get smacked , may get into charge , may not .
Kenneth

I was thinking the same thing. There's no way I'm beating on a charge of powder like that.

What could go wrong with filling a steel container with black powder and hitting it with a steel maul??

I remember a friend of Dad’s using one. I was probably 8 or 10 years old at the time, so I don’t remember how much powder or anything. I just remember the bang and gathering up the split wood and loading it on a truck.
He’d pound it into a chunk and then place another chunk over the wedge, or turn it upside down so the wedge wouldn’t go flying off.
That guy also had a homemade black powder cannon. About 3 feet long and the bore was suited to fire a pop can full of sand or cement. IIRC, this thing took an 8 ounce charge of 2f.
I remember we put a popcan through a ‘65 Chevy Caprice longways! Through the trunk, both seats, dash, firewall and out through the grill! Never did find the can!
7mm

Coulda saved him alot of money by cutting it closer to the ground, duh.