Head scratcher!

[Gareth jones]

Dismantled a little silver birch this morning and this happened when i was sending the top out!

... Have done hundreds with a gob and hinge this size and never had this happen. The hinge actually looks thicker than it is because the back of the "chair" broke off when i chucked it down! Thoughts?

[Stephen Blair]

The saps down, timbers cold and I bet it took a bit of shoving to get it over .

Birch is the king of hingyness.

[daltontrees]

Strange one! Did the top have a lean on it on the gob side before you cut it? Maybe gob wasn't wide enough to allow transfer of momentum into a pull on the hinge to rip the wood there, so the top split vertically instead.

[Gareth jones]

I recon its a mixture of all of the above... It did have a lean but just enough to get it going by itself. You are right tho... the gob should have been bigger! Not enough to get momentum to snap the hinge...

As small as it was lol