Splitting maul history

[Kevin Houtzager]

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[FortyTwoBlades]

Mauls as we know them today probably didn't come into use until the industrial revolution, I'm guessing. They're a humble tool that uses a large amount of iron/steel, and so until the raw material was sufficiently economical most folks were probably using splitting axes and wedges as a matter of material economy. Heck, in the early 1800's most rail splitters seem to have only using two steel wedges and the rest were gluts because they were so much cheaper (free) compared to the steel ones.

 

[Old Axeman]

40 + years ago there were rail splitting contests held in Penn., Virginia, West Va., Ohio, etc. Some of us used the historic technique, which was; start with these tools: commander, 3 dogwood gluts, steel socket splitting wedge with dogwood insert, and a poll ax. When the gun went off you started with the socket wedge driven into the large end (on an angle) by the commander, when the split opened you grabbed the gluts and commander and worked your way down the stick driving the gluts as you went, when the split opened all the way to the small end of the stick you grabbed the poll ax to cut any fibers that were still holding the split together. Once it was split completely in half you rolled the two halves flat side down and repeated the operation two more times until you had four same size quarters. there was one and two man rail splitting, one man is a bitch.

 

[300Six]

40 + years ago there were rail splitting contests held in Penn., Virginia, West Va., Ohio, etc. Some of us used the historic technique, which was; start with these tools: commander, 3 dogwood gluts, steel socket splitting wedge with dogwood insert, and a poll ax. When the gun went off you started with the socket wedge driven into the large end (on an angle) by the commander, when the split opened you grabbed the gluts and commander and worked your way down the stick driving the gluts as you went, when the split opened all the way to the small end of the stick you grabbed the poll ax to cut any fibers that were still holding the split together. Once it was split completely in half you rolled the two halves flat side down and repeated the operation two more times until you had four same size quarters. there was one and two man rail splitting, one man is a bitch.

Thank you for this. Age-wise I could have watched (and even participated) in such a competition 40 years ago (and didn't) but there are hundreds, if not thousands of miles of split rail fence still in active service in eastern Ontario. Current farm operators are constantly felling encroaching White Cedars and manage to sell some of the material as premium fence posts but the remainder is towed off into brushpile burns or off into the woods. Were these 'newbies' aware of how much time and money they'd save on fencing this whole industry could be resurrected. Cedar is not necessarily peculiar in working properties but it twists (corkscrews) in length and no sawmill or bandsaw operator can ever 'cash-in' on this, whereas a simple 'rail splitter' procedure can, and wastes nothing.