DIY Kindling Splitter

Nothing will ever beat a sharp axe.

awesome…love that it catches the kindling…you’re not chasing sticks!! Great job!!

Hello and happy new year. I built your kindling spliter this afternoon, and it is amazing . No longer am I chasing bits of kindling around on the floor. I hope you and your family have a wonderful new year. Thanks, Ben from Nova Scotia

For those who don't have an electric welder it is possible to construct a "holder" for the metal splitter out of hard wood that is bolted together. Also it is possible to use an old axe head as the metal splitter .

Great concept, as already stated I think you should cut the bottom of the pail with a custom fit that goes over your splitting wedge. When the pail is full just pick it up and take it to your stove. A little too much video on you shaving that piece of wood down, just saying.

Excellent evolution of bringing your vision to fruition. There are several manufactured kindling splitters that I have seen on KZhead, but there is a certain satisfaction & pride related to making your own!!!

I like how a lot of the comments on here are people saying that this can't be diy because they can't afford the tools needed to do this project. Lmao. Not everything revolves around you buttercup. I think this is pretty cool, although I just use my hatchet, a hammer, and an old level log on the ground to chop up some kindling, seems to do the trick well, but this certainly would speed it up some.

Nice job! Reminds me of my days working construction. Loved how you handled that torch!

Ya know that's a great idea and I appreciate the fact you can do it yourself. Trouble is not everybody has welding skills or the equipment to weld so for most people it's just cheaper to just buy a kindling splitter already made. I did find it very painful watching you scraping the bark off that piece of wood with a hatchet and big knife. I would have taken that wire wheel used to clean the rust off bottom the plate to remove bark mush faster.

Steady hand on that torch and a great idea, thank you for sharing 🙏 A little OCD on plumbing the wedge but I do like perfection, awesome job!

Just a suggestion , next time don’t add music the music made me want to stop watching. For the rest good video.

Now I have a project to show my wife that will show her I really do need a welding and cutting outfit. Super cool idea.

Yup! Imma have one of these next to the fire box soon. Fabulous idea, I'm sick of picking up kindling after hit with the hatchet and it squirts across the room. Thanks fir sharing

That's a pretty smart idea.

Great job, great idea. Probably the simplest I've seen yet

Brilliant idea! Well done! Thanks for showing us this video!

Very nice work! I have an extra splitting wedge, maybe even a hatchet blade. Another thing on the list of to do's!! :-)

Great, video, great idea. I am going g to build one on the next stormy day we get. All the best, Ben from Nova Scotia

Nice project. Ignore haters sir. They are just here to try to get under your skin, don’t even respond to them.

Love it! Got the original, saw how small it was, returned it for the XL. It splits my ~7x16" firewood into smallwood and kindling in a flash. kzhead.infoUgkxSRemO77LrM90rx_It_Wh6ZnKAS0H2A8t Good for debarking too. It's so fun I now have too much kindling and have to fight the urge to split the big pieces. I usually split dried cedar, but I've split dried oak too. The edge on mine has stayed razor sharp. I mounted it on a couple pieces of pressure treated 4x4 to hold it steady and quiet the ringing. Several reviews and videos show people having trouble keeping the wood straight. How do I put this gently?... You have to be smarter than the wood. Don't try to split knots, or badly curved grain. And hold the wood (with leather gloves) and tap it once to set it on the blade before giving it a good whack. And you have to know how to swing a hammer. If you don't know what wood grain or knots are, and you can't swing a hammer without hitting yourself or things around you, I suggest buying firewood and kindling pre-split. But if you're smarter than a log, this beautiful tool will make splitting firewood into kindling safer, faster and way more funner! I highly recommend it, and get the XL.

Thanks, I love this idea.

That’s an absolutely great idea, thanx def gonna make one

Awesome instructional video!! gonna make one for my wood pile reduction efforts!!

Simply loved this tutorial vid. Raw, real, entertaining and useful. Was considering buying one of those cast iron gadgets for $80+... Now I'm going to build one of these before the snow flies here. Thanks...oh, and good beats!

Nice work with that torch. Good idea you have here with the bucket too.

Absolute GENIUS!!! Holy shinola...this is simple abundance!

I just use a double bit axe stuck in a log end. But I sure like the way your rig keeps the kindling in the bucket.

👍👍👍 A very good idea. For those without the relevant welding and steel cutting equipment, one's local Engineering Works, given a template, should be able to rustle up something at a reasonable price. I needed a tow hitch height adjuster for my caravan / new tow vehicle. Measured it all up (thrice 😏), transferred the measurements to a stiff cardboard template, down to my local engineering works and 'bobs your uncle' .. appreciably cheaper than those on offer at the Caravan Dealership and customised for my setup to boot.

Thats a great idea. Wish I had that as a kid growing up chopping wood.

Awesome. Simple. Functional. Great for a situation where safety is a bigger concern than speed (this should always be the case). Especially for an elderly person, kids, etc.

Great idea! The modification that I will make is cutting a well-fitted hole in the bucket, bolting the wedge plate directly to the wood, and slipping the bucket OVER THE WEDGE. This way, I can just lift the bucket and all the kindling and dump it into my kindling bucket all at once instead of having to pick them out and restock them. It is supposed to be a labor saving device, no?

Excelent device!!I will make one for a friend who lives offgrid. Cheers from Romania!!!

Solid free hand skills!!

Enjoyed the ideas, if I ever get to the place in life where this would be used I would opt for a brick bolster for the additional width.

For car camping I use a parallel wood clamp to stand up a small axe and use it in the same way with a make shift wood baton. Sometimes I get fancy and lash a rock to the baton with paracord for extra weight.

This is the best splitting apparatus I've seen IMO, cuz the bucket catches all the mess. Pretty darn cool brother, you could probably build that into a TikTok and KZhead ordering site for ths who cant or don't have the equipment to accommodate, just sayin

Great idea

Excellent. Better than those for sale. A lot better.

Great idea! I almost bought the popular commercial splitter but this is much better having the bucket to contain the kindling. On my bucket list to build this winter in the shop. I'm pretty sure I have all the parts so $0.00 cost other than electricity. Subscribed hoping you make the big 1000 soon - I know that is a milestone in the KZhead world. Good luck and happy holidays.

Next time try cleaning the metal base to promote better welding adhesion and cut the base of the wedge flat to make the best connection; use used this type of tool on my farm some 50 years ago, Lincoln welder, old stell plate and a wedge from Producers Co-Op, made making kindling quicker and easier, great to see it used again, thanks!

Awesome idea!!

This is awesome mate, and reminds me of the Kindling Cracker product but the bucket is a brilliant addition!

I made a four way axe to split logs a long time ago, but this bucket idea is nice.

Nicely done Sir!!!

nice brother. theres a good feeling of accomplishment after u get done. i think i will start mine this weekend. built not bought!.

Great project! Saves the back too!!

Don't get me wrong,.. I love the project it was just that never ending debarking session that needed a little editing. Actually, I have a similar method with an old fashioned Christmas tree stand with a wedge in the center and that sits inside an old garden tractor tire. It's set up so that I can split slab wood pieces. But, I like your idea a whole lot better and will be improving mine. Zo thank You for posting your method.

Man you are good with a stick welder.

Nice project, good idea, thanks for the video. I can't work that fast! 😁

Looks like it works well. The only change I would make is to use a rubber mallet to avoid damaging the sharp edge of the wedge. Perhaps a short piece of wood would do the job as the mallet.

I did same thing but used concrete. Worked awesome thank ub

Nice idea.

Great video. Thank you

Nice DIY idea.....awesome video, and simple welding that most people could do.....If not, then surely they can get inspiration to build a similar tool using different materials or methods....!

The time and the effort you put into this was impressive ! You could make a lot of money making and selling these because I would definitely buy one . Ps subscribing to your channel .

Great video. I wish I had all the tools to do it though

Ooooooh ! That’s a very nice project ! 😃

Excellent!!

Best one I have seen but I think I will find an old rusty looking bucket for mine. I just like that look.

Nice idea

Love the music. Very Neil Young like.

Cool idea! BTW, nice torch work.

watching just for that gnarly guitar riff.

Love the tunes

Nice work man. The only thing I would adjust if I did it would be to make the base bigger and rip that bark off of it MUCH faster, but solid work my friend

Excellent idea! I am a kind of wing it girl myself lol We just bought our daughter and daughter-in-law a Kindling splitter because I thought these were ingenious tools 👍It’s for their camping trips. I wonder if I can sit in a bucket like your idea? I love that you stored the hammer in it too. Question what was the spray you sprayed on the wood piece? And what does it do to the wood.What is its purpose?TIA. Keep up the great work

Clearly not your first go around with steel and a welder. Nice to see measurement and squaring done during the tack welds. Looks great. What rod did you use and amps?

Nice cutting torch skill.

I built one of these years ago and it's still running strong made mine an 8" length of a cylindrical pipe 30" off the ground on legs The kindal sticks just fall out the bottom.

Epic genius mode! 😎

I like this a lot, though personally I wouldn't fix the bucket to anything. That way you can carry the kindling to the fire - or wherever you want to stack it.

Neat. I could definitely use something like this

A good video and a great idea, but the video could have been half as long and still just as good. Brevity .... it's the soul of wit.

I made this. It works perfectly.

Cool video!

Very nice idea. I've seen one similar to this from New Zealand in the past. Based on their design you could make yours safe by adding a "guard ring" above the blade. That way you would still be able to feed logs through the ring but your hand would be stopped by it.

Man...I wish I had your tools. I could do so many things if I just had more tools...

THAT WAS GREAT

Easy and FREE solution for those who don't have a torch kit or 3/8" plate Steele at their disposal... Use an old disk brake rotor. They are scrap and have no use after they're turned down. they're perfectly round, weldable, a better, weight and the holes are already drilled into them... Any hobbyist, farmer, automotive shop will have rotors laying around. They would also tack your splitting wedge to it for a couple of bucks whereas, you might have trouble getting someone to fabricate the entire metal disk for you You could get your own together in less time than it took to watch this video ;-)

Nice 👍

We just got a fire pit for our lanai. What a great idea! But why take off all the bark?

I can't remember the last time I used kindling. I just use the crap you generate splitting the wood.

Nice job! Only thing I’ll do different is paint the log ends.

All I need is an acetylene torch and a welder...Maybe I can hire you to build me one? Cool tool.

First time I seen anybody on youtube use a torch!

If I made one, I think I would mount the plate directly on the post and make a hole in several buckets. Place the bucket on the wedge fill it, take it in the house, when nearly empty fill another bucket.

Nice project- a drawknife would speed up the de-barking a whole lot. Maybe make one from a lawn more blade or file?

Do you know where you got that nice bucket from? Thanks

For the way you are using it, it would be a lot easier to plant a double bit axe in a chopping block and split off of that.

Agreed

What’s the sound track ??? 5 stars awesome ,

used to work for NASA? It's a kindling splitter. You did do a great job, but precision everything wasn't all that necessary. I never seem to have much time on my hands. I might make one of these, but mine will be rougher but won't take as long to make.

Did you weld that with 7018

I can guarantee that at some point you're going to wish you were wearing a leather glove on the hand that holds the wood in place. I only know this because I saw Wranglerstar get the "mother of all splinters" using a similar device without a glove on. It was pretty funny because it happened about a second after he commented on how nice it worked and how safe it was.

Where did you buy the axe piece? Thanks

Very nice tutorial video, right to the point. I made one similar, but just welded a steel ring as a surround for the wedge. Works fine, but doesn't contain the chips and splinters the way yours does, so you can consider your idea STOLEN in that regard!

It's cool, but when most people think "DIY", an arc welder isn't the first thing that comes to mind.

There is one on the market , all made and ready to use out of the box "Kindling Kracker "

Good build and great music! Why can't more background music be like this!!

OK here’s the deal you should’ve made the stand and the chisel point all in one piece then cut a simple slit in the bottom of the bucket slide the bucket over the chisel once the bucket gets full lift up the bucket and all the pieces will still be inside and you’ll leave that weight behind so you can carry your kindling where it’s needed.