If you had to pick one splitting maul ...

Mauls have names ?! Who Knew ?!

I have 6# and 8# . I just use them for camping now, which ever one I grab first. With all the beetle kill pine, campfire wood has been pretty easy to come by. The 8# is has elliptical faces instead of the simple wedge of the 6#. I think the 8# works better, but 8# and a 36" haft is getting heavy for an old phart like me. Aim is critical in splitting. Both have axe eyes instead of sledge hammer eyes.
 
How Shane discovered splitting mauls. This was a few years back. Our hunting camps were side by side on an oil lease . He had a 10 horse fifth wheel with a commercial sheet metal wood stove and I had a wall tent with a tin airtight wood stove. He noticed how quick and easily I got my wood done. The next year he had a splitting maul.
 
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I like my 5.5lb Rinaldi. Has a great penetrating geometry that allows it to plow through wood that thicker mauls want to bounce on, and weighs a half pound less than most "light" mauls on the market. Because it uses a slip-fit eye I can use the long stock handle for splitting rounds or slap this shorter handle in it for splitting smaller stuff. It'll cut clean through tough knots, and I've even done some minor bucking work with it before 'cause it was what I had. Pops chips like a maniac, as you'd expect!

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I have found that having a variety of mauls is best depending on the wood species and wetness ... but if I had to pick one it would be a standard 6# maul with an axe eye. This has been the most versatile one I have found to date. With the axe eye I can split with a twist. I have it re-profiled and sharpened so that it will penetrate much better that the typical out of box maul but it will still extract easily if a split does not start. I would prefer an occasional bounce over getting stuck. Frequent sticks really slows down the process. While this maul isn't always my first choice I have never found it to be a bad choice.

I have discarded the philosophy of a "dull maul is best to avoid sticking." A maul should be as profiled for as much penetration as possible without sticking and at that profile it can be sharpened and it will only help splitting by cutting the fibers and will not typically stick. Sticking is caused more by the profile than the edge. If the maul edge tends to knick up due to knots you can just lightly file off the sharp edge and let the edge a little thicker and still split good with a good profile. I have found that the right profile for splitting and not sticking, to be the right angle to support the edge from excessive chipping-therefore I keep mine dressed to a sharp edge. I like a sharp maul for cutting those nasty clingy strands without picking up another tool.

I use a leather handle saver saturated with beeswax for a cushion and then use Hockey tape as a replaceable sacrifice layer.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
I like my 5.5lb Rinaldi. Has a great penetrating geometry that allows it to plow through wood that thicker mauls want to bounce on, and weighs a half pound less than most "light" mauls on the market. Because it uses a slip-fit eye I can use the long stock handle for splitting rounds or slap this shorter handle in it for splitting smaller stuff. It'll cut clean through tough knots, and I've even done some minor bucking work with it before 'cause it was what I had. Pops chips like a maniac, as you'd expect!

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That's a nifty little tool with a unique design.
 
I also prefer the rounded profile edge with a forward center as is on most traditional mauls over a square edge that you see on Fiskars. The rounded corners will rotate free more easily.
 
I keep my mauls and metal wedges sharp. They'll cut through knots (mostly) instead of trying to blunt force trauma them to death.
 
David Martin said:
On 42's, I would not call that a splitting maul. I would call it a splitting ax. DM
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You're kidding, right? It's VERY much a maul shape, not that of a splitting axe. The only thing that makes it out of the ordinary is that it has a slip fit eye. It's not even listed under the axe section of Rinaldi's website--the literal translation for it from Italian is "splitting mallet", much like how the German term for splitting mauls is a "splitting hammer".

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It's good n' chonky like a good maul ought to be, but I love how little of a shoulder there is through the cheeks--it's almost a linear wedge. The hollow bit/eye transition is surprisingly useful--if you manage to sink the bit that deep without having already split the wood completely it forms a two-point contact that greatly reduces friction in the wood while giving a significant degree of increased deflection and it just blows the wood apart at that point. And if it's really twisty or gnarly wood that won't bust apart even then, the keen edge finishes the job by just cutting clean through the obstacle. It's so much fun to use. :D
 
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You don't consider weight or any subtleties of shape to differentiate a maul and an axe. The difference is that a splitting maul is a type of hammer. So if it's not designed to drive splitting wedges it is not a splitting maul because that is what 'maul' means. A maul (from the Latin malleus, for hammer, same root as mallet) is a hammer or club shaped percussive tool that is typically used for driving another implement. Examples of mauls: Fro maul (drives a fro), rawhide maul (made of rawhide, drives leather punches etc), spike maul (drives railway spikes), greenwood maul (drives gluts), grab maul (drives grabs/dogs that fasten timber in a raft), post maul (drives stakes and fence posts), ship maul (aka top maul) drives pins etc. on ships, and splitting maul (aka wood chopper's maul) drives splitting wedges. The splitting axe/maul distinction is not a quirk of English, it's also in German, Italian, Swedish, Czech, etc. Originally, "splitting mauls" were big wooden hammers like a commander or beetle. Later the modern steel version developed and it had an axe blade added. In this way, a splitting maul is like many other hammers in that it is a two sided tool with a flat percussive face and an accessory tool on the back (e.g., carpenters hammers with nail pullers or a brick hammer with a masonry chisel). The meaning of the word maul was recently broadly understood, which is why axe catalogs often warn users not to use an axe as a wedge or a maul, and why Mann and others used 'maul pattern' or 'mauling pattern' to refer to the rafter type heads with hardened polls "for use as a maul" (i.e., as a hammer).
 
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Since this thread got resurrected it's worth noting that Council recently came out with a VERY nice 7lb maul to replace their 6lb and 8lb models (the dies wore out) and it has a tapered poll intended to help finish out incomplete splits without fear of making the bit eat dirt. I haven't laid hands on one yet but I intend to.

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The Old No. 7 looks good and people seem to like them but it's not a maul because it is not designed to drive wedges and only the bit is hardened.
 
axes of keevil said:
The Old No. 7 looks good and people seem to like them but it's not a maul because it is not designed to drive wedges and only the bit is hardened.
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No, it's very much a maul. A hardened hammer face is not a prerequisite for a maul. It's also not that it's not designed to drive wedges, but rather a priority was placed on deformation over energy transfer--Council themselves call it a maul and do not tell you not to strike wedges with it. Similarly, when finishing a split with the poll it's still being used as a hammer. Your definition is overly narrow compared to the historical scope of the tool.
 
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