A New Year, A New Chopping Block

I confess, I’m fudging the dates a bit here, but essentially, I ushered in the New Year with a new chopping block.

I can’t remember how long I’d used the last block. I looked through the blog (useful as it is, as an informal diary) and found one other reference to changing the chopping block, this post from 2010: In Search of the Perfect Chopping Block. I know that the block I just retired was not either of the “new” blocks I described in that post. It had to be one that came after that. Based on some quick and dirty estimation, it looks like I go through a chopping block in about 4 years, on average.

Chopping blocks

The new chopping block (l) and the old one (r) (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).

I’d been thinking about chopping blocks for weeks. Aly told me she needed her own block for the cottage, so I’d been looking for a good cut from the big tree up the trail that I’d felled last autumn (see 30/30″ and Snow Day). I got her a good one from near the top of that tree, just her size, not as big in diameter as the ones I use, but with a good set of massive knots around the base to help hold it together.

To make matters more urgent, the old chopping block had turned against me.

The process of using a round of wood as a block compacts the surface immensely. This block, over its many years of service, had compacted to the point where it’s formerly flat face had been crushed into concavity. This became unhelpful at best, dangerous at worst. The cupped face absorbed much of each ax blow. It also, at unpredictable moments, allowed the chopped piece to slip off the face, often at high speed. A bad chop sent one round crashing into my shin just below the knee cap. This happened several weeks ago; since then, the spot has been extremely sensitive to touch, but the bruise hasn’t come to the surface yet—it was quite deep!

That convinced me the time had come to replace the old block with a new one, and to honor the old one with a cremation in our wood stove.

chopping blocks

The old block in the foreground shows the cupping and compression on the face (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).

I found our block a little farther down the trunk of the big tree on the trail from the section that gave us Aly’s chopping block. I’d intended for it to be just another round of firewood, but after Aly and I bucked it with the Swede saw, I realized that we had cut it very nicely square at the end, and  it had knots throughout it. These not only hold a chopping block together through a lot of hard hammering, but they also make that round far less attractive as potential fire wood. It would take a lot of time and effort to chop it into stove-sized wood!

So now, it’s my new chopping block. All ready, the face has begun to compact, which makes it a harder surface on which to chop. It’s a good thing to have, and a great tool with which to start the new year!

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2 Responses to A New Year, A New Chopping Block

  1. Eva says:

    You needed a new one Mark! This post really reminded me of my childhood. I grew up in the Ozark Moumtains in southeast Missouri. We only had wood heat and I remember my dad’s chopping block..just like yours. My job was to pick up the kindling for the wood box after he cut it up as well as the wood logs he would split with a chisel. Every evening after school, I had to “fill up the wood box” as part of my chores. To this day, I love the smell of wood smoke..brings back great memories.

  2. Mark Zeiger says:

    Eva, didn’t I though? What a wreck the thing had become! I had thought that the dip was handy for chopping thin branches up, but it only took one try to remember that a flat face is better for that sort of thing.

    I wish I had a youngster around who would chase after the kindling I chop! It would sure ease my aching back some days. Aly’s here again, but she does more splitting than chasing. Guess I shouldn’t complain . . . .

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