new axe design

[taliv]

http://www.geek.com/news/physics-exploiting-axe-splits-wood-in-record-time-1591725/

supposedly safer and faster. looks interesting. wonder if they make a lefty version haha

 

[Sam Cade]

I've been eyeballing these for a while now and I have a couple concerns.

How is this going to behave on wood that isn't cut perfectly square with nice straight grain?

What happens if you try to use this thing without a pair of heavy leather gloves? It would seem that the rotation would rip the calluses right off of your hands.

 

[19-3Ben]

Whoa. Very very interested.

 

[back40]

color me skeptical.

show me someone using that to split a cord's worth of wood. and not perfectly seasoned, knot free, balsam either. it seems the rotational action would lend itself to fatigue rather quickly.

i need a hands on demo before shelling out $215 for a splitting tool.

 

[hso]

The fact that it has to twist in the hand means you have to loosen your grip at the point of impact or you put a lot of sudden strain on your hands/wrists/arms. If you can get the timing down it might be a better "mousetrap", but...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBsNxfB9ZCM

OTOH, good technique with a splitter and straight grained wood can be nearly as fast without the torquing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLULLzZuMn8

 

[hartcreek]

Any of the dozen axes I have hanging on the wall will split those dry pieces of strait grain wood that are shown in the demo plus there have been axes out with a wedge on the side for deckades. And what is with the way he is splitting that wood up......bout the only reason to split it so fine is if he is still using a wood cook stove with one of those puny fireboxes that you have to pack tight. Then you still need you standard axe for limbing chores cause that thing wont do limbing.

 

[hso]

It is just a splitter and isn't a general purpose axe.

The Scandinavians are fanatical about firewood and there is a lot of incentive to advance the hardware.

 

[Nom de Forum]

The way that thing looks I guarantee sooner or later it will show-up as a super weapon in a B-grade Sci-Fi or Fantasy film.

At two points in my life in two different states I used a wood stove as a primary source of home heating. I never had a problem easily and efficiently splitting 12" diameter logs with an 8lbs maul so I have to wonder if any increased efficiency is worth the much greater tool cost.

 

[yzguy87]

I'll keep my maul and wedges.

 

[craftsman]

Years back, I broke an indestructable Oregon 12lb maul. Can't see spending nearly $300 on that. Besides, now that I'm old, I switched to a pellet stove (and no, Can't fire them from an Air Rifle! LOL - different forum thread anyway!)

 

[taliv]

i can see that thing ripping open calluses for sure

 

[CaliCoastie]

growing up i split wood with an axe and sometimes a maul, i perfer an axe when the wood is green. even a few years ago i started splitting wood to make it easy for camp fires and smoking some barbaque. i still perfer an axe for 95% of the wood, even oak with knots.
That think looks off balance and ackward to say the least.

 

[jrdolall]

I have two hydraulic splitters. One is "homemade" and the other cost $1k or so at Lowe's. I have a couple of those "wedge axes" that do work pretty well on splitting a small chunk. Much of the wood I split will just laugh at a conventional axe.

I probably split 50% of my firewood with a maul and wedges. There's something about the challenge of splitting up an oak or hickory tree that is too big to reach around and doing it by hand. I guess it's the challenge because I have had logs too big to get on the splitter that I worked on with the wedges until I whittled it down. The chances of my buying one of these aren't very good. Maybe if a friend gets one and praises the results.....

 

[JShirley]

Tom, I think we had a thread about this thing about a year ago.

Frankly, it scares me.

And I've done a lot of chopping.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Previous thread-

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=719001