Primitive Archer

A pair of broke in work gloves and eye protection are your best friends. Bring a couple pledges, 8 pounders are perfect, and as many wedges as you can, I use 8, an ax and a hatchet. Its gonna be a marathon not a race. Split it starting at the small end always, it helps the split track center better. Also, a chainsaw to start a small kerf can help start a wedge. Drink plenty of water because you WILL work up a sweat! Make the staves big and wide as you can carry, then deal with splitting those out at home. I make them 5 or 6 inches wide, then I can get a belly split stave, then split the 5 or 6 inch stave in half. Gives you 3 high quality staves when you would have only got 2. Works great.

Not 28" - but I split this one.  Brute force and awkwardness were my main tools. 

I have split bigger. Best thing to do is cut the logos to length, paint the ends, let it sit a few months then start splitting. Sometimes ill start a split and leave it for a few weeks with the wedges in it. It will dry where the split is and open more on its own. When they get that big, you let science do some of the work for you. Even a day or two left with wedges in a split can make a huge difference. Where are yall at? You may have a few folks on here close enough to help.

I hope most of yall have seen this already but some may have not. We are doing an end of year giveaway with several ways to qualify. All of the items are donated by our very wonderful members here.and they are fantastic! Click the link here to learn all about it  😀 http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,73299.0.html

That’s what I’m thinking too gonna sinew it today. Hopefully we’ll end up around the desired weight after sinew and dialing in the tiller