- Joined
- Jan 15, 2007
- Messages
- 554
I suppose that some of you are like me ... I keep working on profiling my maul and axe collection to cover various scenarios. Recently I have been focused on efficient wood splitting. I have a bevy of mauls now with optimized profiles for different species and different degrees of wetness and seasoning. By this I simply mean that when I fell a tree and start splitting I have a couple mauls that I initially try and then settle on one as an optimum profile for efficiency on that tree.
In the last few years I have more trees coming down from wind and ice than normal. The power company has been taking a wider swath down to protect their lines and leaving the main logs behind. The ash bore is getting some too. Anyway this means till I get to some trees in the lowlands they have a high moisture content. All this has made my axes largely ineffective splitters even on some of the smaller rounds. Profiles that work well in drier wood get stuck in the wet wood. I like the option of splitting at least the smaller rounds with an axe.
This past Saturday I went head hunting at a large flea market and picked up a promising splitter axe head. It has a quickly widening profile with a raised center and a slightly thinned poll behind the eye. I looked at the head I thought this ought to be good. The widening profile along with a higher center should facilitate extraction when penetrating. Additionally the thinned poll would allow the wider eye to work as a pivot point for extraction for easier extraction.
I put a 36" handle on it Saturday, fire treating to raise the grain and increase handle grip, and then profiled the head. I have a thicker (but sharp) cutting edge. I then thinned out the poll even more to ensure that the high center pivot point would transfer to the thicker eye pivot point without dragging on the poll on a deeper split that didn't completely separate the wood. It handles splitting dry wood with ease.
Today I further tested it by cutting up a wet log and splitting it. I was very pleased. Here's some pics.
Wide profile
Thinned Poll
My new splitter
In the last few years I have more trees coming down from wind and ice than normal. The power company has been taking a wider swath down to protect their lines and leaving the main logs behind. The ash bore is getting some too. Anyway this means till I get to some trees in the lowlands they have a high moisture content. All this has made my axes largely ineffective splitters even on some of the smaller rounds. Profiles that work well in drier wood get stuck in the wet wood. I like the option of splitting at least the smaller rounds with an axe.
This past Saturday I went head hunting at a large flea market and picked up a promising splitter axe head. It has a quickly widening profile with a raised center and a slightly thinned poll behind the eye. I looked at the head I thought this ought to be good. The widening profile along with a higher center should facilitate extraction when penetrating. Additionally the thinned poll would allow the wider eye to work as a pivot point for extraction for easier extraction.
I put a 36" handle on it Saturday, fire treating to raise the grain and increase handle grip, and then profiled the head. I have a thicker (but sharp) cutting edge. I then thinned out the poll even more to ensure that the high center pivot point would transfer to the thicker eye pivot point without dragging on the poll on a deeper split that didn't completely separate the wood. It handles splitting dry wood with ease.
Today I further tested it by cutting up a wet log and splitting it. I was very pleased. Here's some pics.
Wide profile
Thinned Poll
My new splitter
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