Please help me pick axe size combinations!!!

tueller

tueller

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So I have been stuck on this for a while. Please help me decide. I just moved to a rural house and will be chopping a lot of wood for an outside firepit and an indoor wood burning stove.

All I have right now is a boys axe. Should I get a 5lb axe and an 8lb maul or a 4lb axe, 6lb axe and a 8lb maul. I would not be getting them all right away but knowing the set I eventually want will help me with my immediate purchase or purchases. If those combinations are not doing it for you, what else would you recommend? Since I have a boys axe w/ a 2.25lb head, my choices would consist of 3.5lbs, 4lbs, 5lbs, 6lb axe, 6lb maul, or a 8lb maul.

I will probably stick with Dayton styled axes but let me know if you recommend something else. Think I just need 2 more size options, 3 more, etc?

I am 5'9" slender but in good shape. I live in the northeast and own a poulan chainsaw.

Thanks for any help. I really want to decide and get an order in so I can be to work!
 
My suggestion would be a fat beveled 3.5#, a narrow 4.5#, and a well sharpened 8# maul (as well as a 12-20# sledge with grenade wedges). That covers you pretty well, and you're always able to adjust your arsenal as you go along as find what you like. My splitting set is pretty much what I suggested- a very fat 3.75#, a narrow 4# with high cheeks, and an 8# maul almost sharp enough to slice skin (as well as 7 wedges and sledges from 4 to 16 pounds). That's gotten me through maple, oak, elm, cherry, crabapple, chestnut, and others. There will be rounds that require a pneumatic splitter, but there's very few 16" tall rounds that can't be worked through. The "around the edge" slab technique usually helps, too.
 
If your primary purpose for the axe is splitting then I'd go with at least a 4-pound, maybe a 5-pound. That should be your first purchase. Then add an 8-pound maul and wedges.

A 4-pound axe will be more general purpose than a 5-pound but the 5-pound will be a better splitter.
 
If you're going to heat the house, and it's just you doing the work, and you're looking for hard woods for the heat, then get a maul and/or hammer and wedges. I heat with wood but I basically have a team - my brother and my father and myself all either cutting wood, splitting wood, or whatever. Hard woods and/or gnarly twisted stuff that's great for heat, isn't going to be much fun to split with an axe. However, part of heating your house with wood is a constant daily routine of wood splitting, and in that case, an axe is vital. Your typical 3-1/2lb axe will stretch into heavy splitting and light splitting both. It's the all purpose tool for your day-to-day splitting or essentially, medium duty splitting. My heating situation is with a wood burning furnace and for me, you need about 4 different sizes of wood plus whatever you start the fire with if you need to. I don't typically need to start a fire once one is started many times over the winter, but that will depend on your situation. You'll need to split down what I call fuel wood in a few different sizes and you'll need whatever on top for long lasting heat which can be un-split rounds, or half rounds or whatever, depending on the trees you have available. I guess what I'm saying is, "splitting" to me, is a couple different kinds of jobs.

I know for me, that straight wood that splits like butter on youtube doesn't grow where I live. None of it is straight, all of it is hard. Plus, you're trying to make heat, you don't want garbage wood, although, if it burns, I burn it. :) It takes a pretty good supply to heat a house.

Bottom line, a full-size axe is a must have but I wouldn't get hung up on a half pound here or there. Like Square-peg said, if you've got a 5lb axe, you might find out that you don't need anything else and a typical 3-1/2lb axe is very multipurpose. The maul can be your hammer for starting out but eventually it'll serve you just as well to go ahead and get a hammer. That's a toss up. If you're dealing with big trees, then I would skip the maul and just get a hammer and wedges. Unless it's monster wood, I don't see the point in a crazy heavy hammer (just get multiple wedges).
 
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If it were me and I was just splitting I wouldn't get an axe. For reducing firewood sized chunks into smaller kindling the boy's axe will be just fine. For real splitting I use a maul and wedges depending on my mood. A maul if it is a big piece that I feel will split without too much trouble, or wedges and a 4lb hand sledge for tough stuff. If you are on a budget you can get a wedge or two, a hammer and a maul all for $15 if you look around. I would go with a 6lb maul BTW. And get a tire.

This isn't the only way but that's how I do it and it gets you out cheap.
 
cityofthesouth said:
If you're dealing with big trees, then I would skip the maul and just get a hammer and wedges. Unless it's monster wood, I don't see the point in a crazy heavy hammer (just get multiple wedges).
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I'll second this. Large hardwood calls for wedges. But you can still let the maul be your hammer and use it once the wedges have simplified things. Most of my splitting is done with a 5-pound axe. Where the axe won't cut it I'll almost always turn to wedges. There is very little that won't split with a 5-pound axe that will split with an 8-pound maul.
 
Brother-in-law showed up at a camping trip last week and produced an 8 lb maul made 35 years ago by BNT Canada. This was serious overkill for the oak firewood we had on hand (we used my Pulaski instead) but at one point in the woods I did prepare some straight pieces of foot-diameter dead ash by using a Swede saw to reduce the fallen tree into 3 feet lengths. A couple of sound smacks with that maul and they were halved!

My gripe is with the blades on Swede saws. They're designed for live wood and want to bind in dry wood.
 
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