Merry Christmas from all of us at Lumberjack Planet! Since we know all of you were dreaming of smashing some 8×8’s this upcoming season and hopefully conquering the wizard here’s a bit of guidance to help you along your way.

Let me start this article by saying that this guide is not intended for the novice axeman. Unless you are a seasoned competitor, please don’t follow any of the advice in this article. Use it instead, as a look into how in-depth some competitors study each event to try to gain a winning edge. As a beginner, you should focus on learning how to properly cut round wood scarfs with consistent, powerful hits. Worrying about racing 8×8’s will only hurt your chances of advancing in the sport. Please understand that the training articles on this site are generally meant for teaching the fundamentals of the sport, and I will never use this site to give away another competitor’s secrets unless he or she wishes. Since this article is based purely on my own experience, I have no issue sharing this method with you.
Chopping the 8×8 is somewhat of a joke in the lumberjack community. It is a very small piece of wood and therefore, take less skill to chop. But in my opinion, 8×8’s get less respect than they deserve. Although they can be chopped without much technique, I would argue that sawing them is more difficult than round wood. For those of us in New England that are subjected to square wood at every show, we realize that because the races are so tight there is very little room for error. Cutting 8×8’s is a drag race, plain and simple. One mistake and you’re done.
In college, 8×8’s were chopped at almost all of the shows that I attended. Looking for that winning edge, I developed this method for chopping the 8×8 standing block and have since polished it up a bit. I’ve chopped hundreds of these experimenting with several methods, so I feel pretty confident that this is the most effective (at least for me). The basic theory is that I can “cheat” them to some degree to be able to cut any 8×8 in 12 or less hits, regardless of hardness. Every single hit is intended to not only do the maximum amount of damage, on a hit-by-hit basis, but also not stick in the wood (the kiss of death in 8×8 chops). Let’s take a look at how I cut them, for soft, average, and harder blocks. Please keep in mind that this method is assuming that you are capable of hitting properly and powerfully with a decent sized axe.

Stance
Many competitors swear by chopping these logs diagonally, others chop them square. I’m not an advocate for either. My method is a mix of both, but much closer to chopping the log square. I don’t like the idea of cutting them diagonally, because it is a waste of axe on the opening hits. I approach my block so that, to the outside observer, it looks like I am chopping them square, but I actually can’t fully see the far wood until I’ve pulled out my near wood chip. It gives me the advantage of being able to pull out a deeper chip on my initial one-and-one, without having to worry about wasting the width of the axe as competitors do when truly chopping a log diagonally.

Slope
I always use a lot of slope when cutting 8×8’s. Usually I shoot for my opening hits on each side to be about 45 degrees, and any additional hits to be between 40-45 degrees. This is especially true in harder logs. The conventional wisdom on chopping firm blocks is to open a smaller scarf and chop them with less slope, because otherwise you won‘t be able to pull out a chip. That doesn’t apply to the 8×8, because the wood is small enough that you don’t need to worry about it . Even a big scarf on an 8×8, 11 inches or so, is a really small scarf. The bottom line is that cutting with a “mean slope”, meaning a lot, will drive more wood in harder blocks. For that reason, you never need to sacrifice your slope when cutting 8×8‘s. Granted, you may occasionally run into a log that is so soft that your slope won’t even matter, but it’s best not to worry about such things.

Pattern
If I know that I have a soft log, I always plan to cut it in 8 hits. On average or firm logs, I hope for 10 hits but plan for 12. Regardless of how firm the log is, I always cut the front side in the same manner. The pattern is a one-and-one, followed by two drivers. I’ll draw a 9” scarf on both sides, although I may adjust it on the back. I’ve found 9 inches to be ideal because it’s big enough that you don’t have to worry about pinching, and small enough that you’ll pull a significant chip. My opening hit on the front is an up-hit, ideally just barely hanging the axe on the near-wood. The second blow is a down-hit in the same fashion. The reason for this is simple, I want to pull as wide of a chip as possible as it will increase the effectiveness of my far-wood driver before I turn. After the initial one-and-one, the third hit is a near-wood driver. It’s important to hang the axe more on this hit than you did on the initial one-and-one. The reason is that you don’t want the toe of the axe to get slowed down by the far-wood that hasn’t been chipped out yet. So if I hang the axe 1” on the first two hits, I’m looking to hang it 2” on that near-wood driver. My final hit on the front will be a far-wood driver hanging as much of the axe as possible. If there are two inches of uncut wood on the far, I’m only going to use 3 inches of the axe for this swing.
The reason for hanging so much axe is because it allows you to cut a ton of wood with one hit. The heel is the easiest cutting part of the axe, especially when you hang half the axe out of the wood. Normally you would never want to do this, because it would cause the axe to get stuck. But with my method, it doesn’t matter because you’re turning on four hits no matter what. The most valuable part about hanging the axe on this fourth hit is realized on firm logs. Even on a firm block, with a good powerful hit, you’ll still be able to bury the axe with that fourth hit. That makes a tremendous difference when you draw a hard stick.
After delivering the fourth blow on the front, I follow the axe around the block and determine how far I got in the front. If I’m sure that I got halfway through, I’ll attempt the same cut in the back. A one-and-one, then a near down hit (hanging more axe than the one-and-one to avoid the toe of the axe hitting the uncut far wood), and then a far wood down hit to punch it off. It’s important to not hang too much axe on the fourth hit on the back, because it will cause the axe to stick. It’s fine to do it on the front, because you are turning anyway. If you do it on the back, and don’t punch it off, that axe is going to hang up really badly costing you valuable time. Occasionally, on exceptional wood, I may try to take the back off with three hits (near up, near down, far down), but that usually doesn’t work.
For logs where I don’t reach half-way through on the front, I make an adjustment. Instead of opening up a 9” scarf on the back, I’ll open it up 11” to avoid getting pinched on my near-wood. My pattern becomes- near up, near down, far up, near up, near down, far down. Usually that won’t cause the axe to hang up and will take the log off if I’ve done it properly. Also, if I need additional drivers, I’m perfectly set up for taking them if I need the full 12 hits.

Bottom Line
Chopping square wood is the worst thing that you can do to improve as an axeman. Unfortunately, it’s a reality for some of us. As you can tell from watching the videos above, your pattern is an important part of cutting 8×8’s. Because this size of wood is so small, having the most effective pattern puts you way ahead of the game. Now that I’ve given you my secrets, try not to beat up on me too bad at the shows this year. Good luck!