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I'd like to have a froe for some of my woodworking projects and thought it would be fun to make one. I have metal I can use, but no welder, which would be ideal for attaching the eye to the blade. I do however have a simple forge (with minimal forging skills) and thought that with that it would be pretty straightforward to make a froe with a hidden tang at a right angle to the blade. Just cut the blade and tang out of a straight piece of metal and then bend the tang upward.

Would this be strong enough to do what is expected of a froe?

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    I have been woodworking for a couple decades, but had to look up "froe", I learn something every day! I am guessing that there is a disadvantage to your idea in that the ring and wood handle will handle lateral forces better than a flat steel plate with a wood cover. I think your plate design will be more likely to bend or twist.
    – Ashlar ♦
    Commented Sep 26 at 22:44
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    No experience, so this isn’t an answer, but… what have you got to lose? A leaf spring and some time? Go for it! (But make it a full tang so you have lots of strength for levering.)
    – Aloysius Defenestrate
    Commented Sep 27 at 0:50
  • I think the fact that you don't see froes built this way tells you something. Or to put it another way, the way froes are (all?) built tells you something. There are tools where a bend in the shaft/tang area is present, but they are for work that requires (relatively) less strength and, very much so, need to withstand substantially lower levering stress in use. And yet even so failures are known. The way a froe is commonly used, it's all about the levering as you know and they're built like tanks to withstand it. So I see this somewhat like the difference between a machete and a [contd]
    – Graphus
    Commented Sep 27 at 4:44
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    Now all that aside, do you need a full-size froe for your expected uses? Could you make do with a lesser splitting device? Both common knives (chiefly camp knives or hunting knives) are used to split smaller pieces e.g. with batoning, and they can do so reliably for a long time. There are also splitting knives, purpose-made for 'light duty' splitting (I use the term advisably, since the only one I've seen in the flesh was not build lightly, being at least 6mm at the spine).
    – Graphus
    Commented Sep 27 at 5:14
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    All good points @Graphus. I hadn't thought about a splitting knife. That would probably work for what I'm wanting to do. I could easily make that out of what I have on hand and then if I end up needing more, I could invest in a proper froe.
    – byl
    Commented Oct 1 at 16:33

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I'm afraid it is just going to give you a headache and not work how you want. At least not without pinning the tang in the handle (2 or 3 pins), and even there I'd reinforce the handle on the outside with some steel plates at the pins. This will probably get you along for a while but I suspect you will be rehandling the froe a bit more often than you'd like.

Having the tang flat 90 degrees to the froe would give the handle less wear, but there is a reason froe's are designed the way they are and it's because it works best that way.

And either way you have the tang, it is going to be the weakest point of the froe and will eventually break there from stress and use.

So if you just want something to play with and try it out, any of them would work for a little while, if you are making it with the intent it should last for months worth of hard work, I'd either make one with the eye or just break down and buy one. The eye also allows for much easier replacement of handles, you can just grab a stick and a draw knife and have a new handle in no time.

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  • Excellent Answer! I think the last point is such a great one. The type of worker who typically has use of a froe is just the kind to be able to grab a stick or bit of kindling and whip up a new handle in double-quick time.... like literally 5-15 minutes later, bingo, new handle. Now to be fair if a ferruled handle were tried for the proposed design that could also be quite quick, but if you do this right you might not need to replace such a handle within any reasonably timeframe.... I suspect the point of failure is likely to be at the bend in the steel (where even drawknife handles can fail).
    – Graphus
    Commented Oct 1 at 6:00
  • Agreed. I hadn't thought about the ease of making a new handle. I will probably try to go with a traditional froe then if I think I need one.
    – byl
    Commented Oct 1 at 16:34
  • @byl, think you might not have realised this yet, you might be able to make a trad froe with your setup and skills. Instead of thinking of the eye as a ring you weld on, think of it as a curled over end of the strip you're using for the blade {just need to ensure it's not hardened during quenching, or you soften it more during the tempering phase). Many many froes are built this way still, and it was the original method. In the meantime, hatchets or smaller axes make very successful splitting tools for smaller-scale work....
    – Graphus
    Commented Oct 2 at 4:40
  • I have thought about that. I've just usually seen that people forge weld the end of that loop back on to the end of the blade, and I don't know that I have the skills for that. I have been using a hatchet, but I'd like to have something that can make a long, straight cut in one go.
    – byl
    Commented Oct 2 at 19:45
  • Yes it is obviously preferable to close the eye, but build thick in a good tool steel and it could well be strong enough; certainly preferable in numerous ways to the bent-tang idea :-) Had you though about having it welded welded post-forming? Although a lot of people now seem to take it on as an additional skill (to judge by YT at least) because welders can be so much more affordable now it's apparently easy to outsource welding once you start looking for it. And a well-done basic stick weld is better than no weld.
    – Graphus
    Commented Oct 3 at 6:00

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