if one wanted to get really fancy one could take some old wrought iron
wagon wheel tire (tyre, jeff), forge an eye on it (easy peasy, wrought
loves to stick to itself), and split it to receive an old file.  forge weld
the file in, taper the wrought blade heavy at the top and fine at the file,
soak it in muriatic acid for a few hours, and you've got yourself a pretty
pretty little froe.  as the learned mr. groves mentions above, you won't
even need to harden or temper the file bit, since you don't want it
particularly sharp.

michael, do you think jim austin would teach a class in this? :)

on a not dissimilar note, herr suwczinsky helped me forge some 3' long
pintle hinges a number of years back.  i didn't have a forge, you see.  we
whacked barrels on a couple of pieces of 1/4" x 2" mild steel, and didn't
seal the barrels (we could have turned them out and forge or otherwise
welded them).  they're on, holding a heavy gate and not opening from their
final cylindrical-ness.  the point is one of those wouldn't have been too
hard to convert to a froe (cut to length, taper the barrel, taper the
blade, cut off an old baseball bat for a handle, and robert's my mother's
brother).  for as much as anyone among us might use a froe, excepting the
outlier or three, i'd bet that'd be enough to split your greenwood for
years to come.

bill
felton, ca