you've got to be kindling me!

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While it may not be for everyone including me, I prefer my X17. The kindling cracker was invented by a little 13 year old girl for her school science fair project after watching her mother cut her finger while doing kindling. So even though I personally wouldn't buy it myself I have to give props to the little girl for thinking outside the box and inventing something that many may find useful.
 
How odd to see this item pop up for discussion here! I just read an article on Facebook about it the other day. Apparently it was designed and built by a teenage girl from New Zealand who decided to make a "safe" kindling cutting tool after she saw her mom chop up her finger with a hatchet while splitting kindling.
 
How odd to see this item pop up for discussion here! I just read an article on Facebook about it the other day. Apparently it was designed and built by a teenage girl from New Zealand who decided to make a "safe" kindling cutting tool after she saw her mom chop up her finger with a hatchet while splitting kindling.
I feel like I read a similar post at 10:04 this morning...WTF?
 
As you all may know, Ontario is the birthplace of the canoe and we've been making them for well over a hundred years.
There are many wood craftsman here and one paddle making company nearby in particular that sells off the wood scraps bagged in 50lb onion sacs for $4 a bag.
I just buy my kindling cheap. I buy one or two bags a season and I'm done.
Does look safer than a hatchet though.
 
Kindle for me is pallet runners cut to length and an electric splitter.
You can split 8 or so at once and make a mountain of kindle in an hour or 2.

Well worth 100$-200$ to buy a used electric splitter just for kindle.
Nice thing is the electric will also kindle softwood rounds if you run out of pallet runners.
 
Yep.
I love my electric splitter. Paid $150 half price for it from Canadian Tire 8 years ago.
I just sit in the basement and run it with my radio on and split any extra pine, spruce or birch I have laying around to add to the stuff I buy from Upper Canada Paddle Company.
I usually split the straightest looking grained pieces and also do some hardwoods to have some medium sized starter pieces too.
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I tried it , still have all my fingers .

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Marine5068,

Now that sounds like me on a rainy day.
Sitting indoors listening to tunes making a mountain of kindle.
All that within reach of a few frosty ones :)

The little electric splitters are much tougher than most people think but you are sure right about picking straight grain stuff to split.
Twisted sisters and electric splitters are a combo for no fun.
 
The inventor is learning a sterling lesson in dog-eat-dog capitalism, having tried her best to keep this product NZ made. The current NZ foundry whom her and her dad contracted to make her product was recently bought out by a steaming pile of private equity 'investors' who sacked the director while he was out of the country at a conference, noted the production volumes of this product were going through the roof so they now had this girl and her dad by the short and curlies, and decided to not only hit them with a sudden, unilateral sixty bloody five percent cost increase, but also refused to give them back the tooling which they own.

I sincerely hope the new foundry investors get their arses served to them on a plate now that the girl and her father are having to go to offshore foundries under extreme urgency to fill the orders that were running at about 10000 per month.
 
Kindlin you say? The stack is all the way to ceiling now. All pine scraps from pallet mfg. Come in 48" lengths, cut in 1/3's to 16"......I got a pallet 4' tall full too, not sure they will be burned for a few years tho. Use 4-8 in morning over coals and they get going fast.
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That's awesome. Good spot to keep them too, under stairs.
I do the same when I have pallets kickin' around.
Some are even solid White Oak ones.
I just hate taking nails out of them.
 
tla100,

Your kindle stack is great, your star case not so great.
At some point someone has removed the column that holds stairs from bowing and the back support of the stairs looks pretty drinking party installed.
IMO it's a temp staircase that the construction crew forgot to finish.
You should check the level of the floor above the staircase, I bet it's not level.

Noticed it right away because my set of stairs to the downstairs looked similar.
Took me a couple column jacks and a bit of support lumber to correct the floor above sag.

Even if your floor turns out to be fine I would sister a board to the top of the staircase over the structural lumber above it.
Remove the 3 scrap pieces joining the stairs to the structural lumber and put a solid joiner piece full length.

I bet 3-6 nails are all that holds you from having the top of the stairs from dropping as you walk up and down it.
 
tla100,

Your kindle stack is great, your star case not so great.
At some point someone has removed the column that holds stairs from bowing and the back support of the stairs looks pretty drinking party installed.
IMO it's a temp staircase that the construction crew forgot to finish.
You should check the level of the floor above the staircase, I bet it's not level.

Noticed it right away because my set of stairs to the downstairs looked similar.
Took me a couple column jacks and a bit of support lumber to correct the floor above sag.

Even if your floor turns out to be fine I would sister a board to the top of the staircase over the structural lumber above it.
Remove the 3 scrap pieces joining the stairs to the structural lumber and put a solid joiner piece full length.

I bet 3-6 nails are all that holds you from having the top of the stairs from dropping as you walk up and down it.

Heh, thanks for your concern. They are actually really sturdy now, from what was originally in the house. The top stair is level. It is an OLD farm house moved on a crappy block basement. The original stairs had all different level steps and was so cock-eyed one direction it was horrible. It has supports/steel poles all over the place. The back header is actually one piece of the old stairs, paint looks as if there are 3 pieces. It is anchored to the block on the far side. Like I said before, it is sturdy, I can jump up and down and it won't flex a bit. I have hauled butt-load of wood down them stairs.
 
Well I received a Kindling Cracker for Christmas. Tried it out w some tough,wet,recently split White Oak cut down this summer. It seems to work pretty well even though the splits I cracked into kindling were close to 24" long and I had to pound on a few of them. A 4 lb hammer works well. Shorter, seasoned wood should be no problem to split w one blow. I like to cut up Oak pallets w a cordless circular saw, cut through the middle of the spans and pop the wood loose w a hammer. Takes just a few mins. to turn one into kindling w a hatchet. If the nails stick in the boards I just burn them and take them out w the ashes.
 

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