Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

^2CAMPING AND WOODCRAFTabout ten Inches long). From this, forward, shavedown the handle, which should be twenty incheslong. Thus balanced, the maul will not jar one'shands.Gluts (Fig. 42) are simply wooden wedges.Thebest woods for them are dogwood and hornbeamor Ironwood, as they are very hard and tough, evenwhen green; but use whatever Is handy. Chop asapling of suitable thickness, and make one endwedged-shaped ; then cut it off square at the topand so continue until you have all the gluts you;;^•^'^^ ~^.^.!^£^Fig. 41.—Maul Fig. 42.—Gluts (edgeand face)want. It takes no mean skill to chop a glut to atrue wedge shape, and much depends upon gettingthe angles and surfaces correctly proportioned. Anovice is apt to make a glut too short and thick, butit must not be quite so slender as a steel wedge, forit would splinter too readily.In splitting timber, one must observe the grainand structure of the wood. Naturally, he would se^lect stuff that is straight-grained ; but that Is not alLFig. 43 shows the end of a log that has been sawedoff square. Observe that there are four kinds ofstructure to be considered: (i) the bark, (2) thelight-colored sapwood next to the bark, (3) the maturewood, (4) the dark-colored heartwood. It Isseldom that heartwood splits evenly. Outside of itwe notice the concentric rings of annual growthalso the medullary rays, radiating from the centerlike spokes of a wheel. Both of these continuethrough the sapwood, though not so shown here,as they are less conspicuous in it.Now the natural lines of cleavage are along the