Axe Help Please!!

[tueller]

So I just moved to a much more rural home. I now have a wood burning stove and a fire pit in the backyard. I have a lot of woods, down trees and some (but not a lot) of trees I am going to drop.

In the past, I have only needed hatchets/ axes for camping trips. Now I need more of a home set up and a larger axe. I already own a H&B Forge tomahawk, Council Tools Hunters Hatchet, Council Tools Boys Axe and a Poulan Chainsaw.

I am looking for my next axe purchase and want to stick with Council Tools. As you can guess, I need something bigger. I will mainly be using it for wood splitting but this is my concern. A maul would be the obvious pick but I am thinking that a heavy Daytona Felling Axe would be more multi-purpose for me until I get a maul.

So should I just get a Council Tool Maul or a large Council Tools Daytona Axe? Will I be able to efficiently split wood with a large felling axe or do I really need the more task specific maul? Also, please recommend the size axe (5, 6lbs?) or maul (5, 6, 8lbs?). I am 5'9", 160 but in good shape.

I appreciate any help / thoughts. Thanks!

 

[mhutch]

If you're gonna be doing a lot of splitting, and splitting anything over 10-12" in diameter, the maul will make your life a lot easier. I assume that you're going to be doing a lot of splitting since you have a wood burning stove, in which case I would say a good maul is almost a necessity. Spend a few hours splitting wood with an axe, then use a maul and you'll see how big of a difference a good maul can make.

 

[300Six]

Up this way an ordinary axe will split straight grained wood easy and mauls and wedges are used for dealing with the ornery stuff. I keep retelling the story (on this forum) about my WW II Vet hunting buddy that grew up on a no electricity farm during the Depression who lifetime cut and split everything with a 'pulpwood' axe (same as 'boy's' axe in USA). Even in his 70s he could split firewood faster than any of us young bucks using only his 2 1/4 lb axe. He was a master at 'reading' the wood, he always chopped around the edges (never across the middle) and he used a deft flick of the wrist at the end of every stroke. His son worked for me for 10 years in construction and we cut down and cut up residential trees regularly. Just like his old man, and using my Iltis Canadian 'chainsaw' axe (what boy's/pulp axes are called now in Canada) he could generate 'ready to go' firewood as fast as I could chainsaw the logs into rounds. There weren't many types of trees that would slow him down.

 

[Axe Master '94]

There are lots of ways to go at felling and splitting, but I'd recommend a 4lb axe (with a slightly fat bevel) paired with an 8lb maul. That's my go-to set, and around the edges is the best strategy I know of to take on 18+" logs.

 

[Old Axeman]

A 4lb Dayton (fat bevel) with 36" straight handle and 8lb maul are all you should ever need to split firewood. For the wrist flick method with the 4lb Dayton look at the USFS video "An Ax To Grind". Do not try the wrist flick method with anything that weighs more than 5lbs though.

 

[Square_peg]

My primary splitter is a 5 pound axe. There is very little that you can't split with a 5 pound axe that you can split with a maul. My mauls rarely get used. I think one of Council's 5 pound Daytons would do you well.

 

[300Six]

My primary splitter is a 5 pound axe. There is very little that you can't split with a 5 pound axe that you can split with a maul. My mauls rarely get used. I think one of Council's 5 pound Daytons would do you well.

I would imagine you're right about this. What I appreciate about mauls is the secondary ability to pound wedges with the hammer end. Much easier to control energy expenditure via uniform pounding on a wedge than it is having to kill yourself in trying to overcome a big knot or gnarly section via swinging any kind of splitter.

 

[cityofthesouth]

I pretty much second everything everyone has said. I did want to add that Jerseys (though I'm not sure all of them are this way or if the CTs are) often have a more wedge shape than some other patterns and I've found them particularly good for splitting. When I say wedge shape, I mean, if you look at the profile they are practically a triangle from bit to poll, widening all the way.

 

[BG_Farmer]

I would imagine you're right about this. What I appreciate about mauls is the secondary ability to pound wedges with the hammer end. Much easier to control energy expenditure via uniform pounding on a wedge than it is having to kill yourself in trying to overcome a big knot or gnarly section via swinging any kind of splitter.

Sledge and wedges or maul and wedges is my vote. I've never had any of that soft, easy splitting, straight grained wood, at least for firewood! Note I'm not contradicting anyone's experience, as wood types and quality varies by region.

By the time I've determined that the axe won't do it, then the maul, I can split with wedges...

 

[300Six]

Sledge and wedges or maul and wedges is my vote. I've never had any of that soft, easy splitting, straight grained wood, at least for firewood! Note I'm not contradicting anyone's experience, as wood types and quality varies by region.

By the time I've determined that the axe won't do it, then the maul, I can split with wedges...

Obviously you've "been there, done that". Too many Hollywood cowboy movies and other homespun idyllic settings helps make-believe that any enthusiastic/energetic 'green horn' can persuade a gnarly chunk of elm to split entirely through Zen concentration and how much testosterone or adrenaline is applied.
Doesn't work that way in reality.
The wizened old guy methodically chopping and/or resorting to pounding away on wedges does not wear himself out and yet his woodpile continues to grow at a steady rate!

 

[Square_peg]

I split with whatever tool I believe will do the job with the least work. Most of the time that's a heavy axe. But I'm in the NW where we have a lot of softer woods. But if I'm splitting some Elm or London Plane or something hard to split then I'll probably go to sledge & wedges when starting large rounds. Once I see that the pieces are getting easier I switch back to the axe. Occasionally I find stuff that is easiest with a maul.

So........


Sledge & wedges will split anything but they are slower.

Heavy axe will split most stuff with the least effort.

Maul will split some stuff that the axe can't handle with less effort than the sledge & wedges.


Take you pick or picks.


And Tueller, you mention you now have a wood stove. Some stoves prefer shorter wood. Shorter wood is easier to split. If you're cutting your wood to 12" then an axe is probably all you'll ever need.

 

[300Six]

...you mention you now have a wood stove. Some stoves prefer shorter wood. Shorter wood is easier to split. If you're cutting your wood to 12" then an axe is probably all you'll ever need.

The oldies I hunted and fished with for years always referred to 'cookstove' wood (12") or 'Box stove' wood. For that we'd cut pieces 16-20" and you're right; a foot long piece is much easier to handle and to split.

Definition of a "face cord" here is 4 x 4 x 12" (stove face cord) or 4 x 4 x 16" (firewood face cord).

 

[Bo T]

The oldies I hunted and fished with for years always referred to 'cookstove' wood (12") or 'Box stove' wood. For that we'd cut pieces 16-20" and you're right; a foot long piece is much easier to handle and to split.

Definition of a "face cord" here is 4 x 4 x 12" (stove face cord) or 4 x 4 x 16" (firewood face cord).

You're still running 128 cubic feet per cord??

 

[300Six]

You're still running 128 cubic feet per cord??

Sorry about that! I goofed on the definition. I could go back to the post and edit but won't.
A 'Full Cord' is 4' x 4' x 8 feet = 128 cu feet. 'Face cord' is a long-standing sales gimmick for selling fireplace wood in cities, and pretty much corresponded to the amount of wood in the roughly-filled bed of a now-vintage pickup truck. Lots of newbies buy via lowest price and many of them get suckered in by lower-priced Stove Cord VS Face Cord (most ads even abbreviate ordinary "Face Cord" simply to "Cord"). In reality it would take 4 rows of stove cord wood to complete a Full Cord or 3 rows of face cord wood.
Folks that are in the business of selling firewood only distinguish 'Full Cord', 'Face Cord' and 'Stove Cord'. But if you're really into it you can order 'Bush Cords' which are 4' x 4' (width x height) piles of uncut/unsplit 8 foot long debranched tree trunks.

 

[Norse Steel]

Why buy a new Council axe when you can restore an old one and rehang it with enough money left over for a used maul. It's a fun project and the best way to find out what works best is to try both and make up your own mind. Winning!

 

[rjdankert]

. . . I've never had any of that soft, easy splitting, straight grained wood, at least for firewood! . . .

One of my uncles had a wood burning kitchen stove. To fuel it he cut down Red Oaks on his property. He cut the butt logs into rounds of a length to fit the stove. He was aware that the logs had a commercial value, but that was the way he wanted to use his trees. Anyway, he used the stand the rounds inside an old tire and split with a splitting maul method. A friend of his had a powered hydraulic log splitter. My uncle offered a bet with his friend that he could split wood faster by hand then the friend with his machine. My uncle, of course, would choose the wood. The friend didn't take the bet.

 

[neymarjunior]

wow...