[barnetmill]

There was a time when explosives were commonly used in everyday work such splitting wood and blowing stumps.
Historically in the southern USA as the yellow pine forest were cut down, people returned to extract the stumps, Perhaps it was with heavy machinery or they simply blasted them.
The problem for survival one would need black powder and today normally it is only available as the black gun powder that is expensive and there are legal issues to accumulating a lot of it. One cannot go to the local hardware and buy 25 lbs of blasting powder these days and even dynamite is closely controlled with typically federal and states regulations.

 

[Shoots High]

I have an antique powder wedge that is like new but very different than that one. I also have a home made one that I have used a few times, but I'm telling you, those things can be dangerous. A friend of mine was using one and had it go off in his face. He now looks like Morgan Freeman. Also, it's risky using a steel maul to drive that in without the fuse port being plugged - sparks can fly.

 

[barnetmill]

I have an antique powder wedge that is like new but very different than that one. I also have a home made one that I have used a few times, but I'm telling you, those things can be dangerous. A friend of mine was using one and had it go off in his face. He now looks like Morgan Freeman. Also, it's risky using a steel maul to drive that in without the fuse port being plugged - sparks can fly.

I was also wondering if black powder is completely insensitive to shock.

Black Powder is very sensitive to flame and spark and can also be ignited by friction and impact

I would used wadding to make sure none of it spilled out to be compressed by the edges of the wedge as it is driven into to the wood. I also would use a longer fuse and light it with something longer with a face shield and through some sort of shielding.

 

[frick]

Can you describe the construction of the splitter, obviously, a heavy steel round but what's inside, is it basically just a bored hole with the lips on top to pound into the stump?

I have a couple thunder mugs, and it would be easy to weld on the flange to convert it.

 

[PRD1]

Try looking-up 'Thunderbolt stump splitter'.

PRD1 - mhb - MIke

 

[frick]

Try looking-up 'Thunderbolt stump splitter'.

PRD1 - mhb - MIke

It didn't show any great detail, but the ones that are a tapered rod appear that they would be easier to drive in, especially if you drilled a starter hole.

I wonder if there would be any commercial interest?

 

[frick]

I think my lathe can chuck 1.5" or so, thick that would be big enough to start with?

 

[SfcRet]

well, if you want to remove stumps the "survivalist" way.....do what the pioneers did back in the day, use an ax and hitch the stump up to a couple of mules and pull it out of the ground.

no need for black powder, just your brawn some ropes and a mule

that's how they cleared thousand upon thousands of acres of land for farming.

you're welcome, glad to be of help to you

 

[barnetmill]

well, if you want to remove stumps the "survivalist" way.....do what the pioneers did back in the day, use an ax and hitch the stump up to a couple of mules and pull it out of the ground.

no need for black powder, just your brawn some ropes and a mule

that's how they cleared thousand upon thousands of acres of land for farming.

you're welcome

Well first thing the pioneers would need some mules that I assume were a lot more expensive than oxen, especially for feeding. oxen are ruminants. And it really depends on the stump. If I was intending to not just cut the tree, but to also take out the stump, I would use the mule or oxen team to pull down the tree to uproot it. I have seen the rear end of a good size bulldozer go up in the air tying to lift a stump out of the ground. What I read was often the trees were girdled and people after a fire the settlers planted around it.
Then it would make sense to wait a couple of years for some of the roots to rot out before pulling it.
With pine stumps and my small 1 ton kubota I have a box blade attached to the 3 point hitch. After about 7-9 years or so in the ground I back into the stump to loosen it and try and break it loose from the soil and lift it up with the box blade and often after several tries can get the rotten stump out of the ground. Pine takes a long time to rot or least the pines here in my part of Florida do.

 

[Sidney Smith]

Seems like a waste of powder. I have mails and wedges that'll easily split a bigger diameter log than that, simply by driving them into the stump. Sure, takes a little more elbow grease, but you get a netter workout that way.

But, this video does show a novel way to get rid of worthless Pyrodex.