Now splitting wood with a chainsaw is the way some folks routinely get D-Shaped logs from a solid log. Yet to achieve the natural flow of the grain and / or you haven't got access, the old-school ways can be used just like our ancestors of old when they crafted wood back in the day... First step is getting a mallet made-up: Once the mallet is ready you can use it with the froe for shingle-making and for aiding the splitting of wood. However for large, thick logs a froe, even a large one will struggle to achieve it. This is where the steel and or wooden / plastic wedges come into play. A steel mallet is also effective. From there you can get stuck in and get splitting the logs into 'D' sections or 'half logs' This was filmed in the remote Rocky Mountain wilderness, no on-grid power, wild bears and hard-core weather etc.
OTOH, a pit, two men and a saw is much less labor and makes better wood planks or cribing. sawing logs into planks in a pit with two men youtube.com - Yahoo Search Results
I have a froe, foot-adze, broad-ax, draw knives, wedges, buck and cross-cut saws in my tool shed and use them on occasion. It is good to know how to use traditional tools, even with all the modern things available.
Also have primitive tools--Used them as a kid coming up on the farm. For mauls/wedges you can use dogwood stumps. Burn them to make them really hard. Few years ago the troop elected to build a small log cabin for the scout show. Made it 10X12 with home made (fro/maul) shingles. We took lots of pics as the cabin progressed. Day of the show I hauled it to the show on a trailer. We won first place with it. The lads made shingles for the roof and explained dove tailing/etc to folks. The front had a 4' porch over it and we hung traps/etc on the wall. Really looked nice and was very interesting to all.
