suggestions for splitting ax

While I have "many" cool vintage axes, for a dedicated splitter I don't think you can do much better than a fiskars splitting axe. I bought mine before they had number designations and it was called the super splitter or the super splitting axe or something like that. It is 28" in length. today it is called the X25. They later added one with a 36" handle and it's called the X27. So if you are tall or like long handled axes get the x27, if you are shorter or prefer shorter handles (like me) then get the X25.

I recently tried the fiskers isocore thing and really didn't like it.

While I do dramatically prefer wood handled tools to synthetic, the handle on the fiskars axes is not that bad at all. I've split a million cords of wood with my x25 and I've never felt any shock or reverb or anything. Fiberglass handles are pure garbage and should be illegal, but somehow the fiskars handles work. except for that isocore monstrosity, I'm not sure what's up with that thing.
 
I've only been splitting for a "few" years, (I got a hatchet for my 4th birthday!) but the best budget splitter I've used is a 6# Council maul that I got for $1 at a yard sale! I spent an hour or so thinning the bit, put it on a 36" handle, and have probably split at least 50 cord with it in the past 8 or 9 years.
 
I use a six pound maul on a synthetic handle. No matter how careful I am I end up chewing up wood handles when splitting. I did thin out the profile on the maul a bit. I also have a felling ax with a plastic/ fiberglass handle as well. Both were pretty basic hardware store models, nothing fancy. That's my splitting kit. I don't like wedges as I've often as not had them go spinning off and hit my leg or something else I don't want hit. I do about half my heating in winter with a woodstove. Mostly red alder, doug fir, and broadleaf maple with the occasional western hemlock. Only the hemlock tends to be difficult. I just use the ax for the alder which is about the easiest splitting firewood I've come across.
 
When I started splitting, I was using a splitting axe. It didn't fatigue me and swung quickly and accurately. It had a tendency to get stuck in the larger rounds, though.

What I have found is that, as long as you keep a maul moving throughout your whole swing, a maul splits everything that an axe does and some stuff that an axe won't. If I can't split it with my maul, I pile it along the fence line for my neighbor to split with his hydraulic splitter. The maul splits the vast majority of my rounds, though.

If you do go the maul route, as O oldandfatbutstillgotit noted, the Stihl-branded Pro Splitting Maul is actually made by Ochsenkopf (the Ochsenkopf-branded original is like 50 percent more expensive 🤷‍♂️ for whatever reason). The design is pretty good, I have found, and the collar is thick enough to have protected the haft from some pretty hefty overstrikes on my part. At $100 locally, it is a good value for the money. It is worth a good look.
 
Square_peg said:
With alder you just show it that you have an axe and it falls in pieces all by itself.
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I've met folks who turn up their noses at alder as firewood. One guy I know will only burn doug fir. I think it's great though, particularly if you are the one cutting it. A 12 in or so diameter tree bucks up easily with a modest size chainsaw and there's no sticky sap gumming up your tools or later on coating your chimney with creosote. It has nice straight grain and splits easily along any axis. When seasoned it burns with almost no smoke, even in an open campfire, and is excellent to cook over. It has a mild, fresh smell when fresh cut and an equally mild, pleasant scent when burning. The only downside is that it must be burned withing a few years if stored outside as no sap = no rot resistance and it will dryrot in your shed.
 
Agreed. With all that. Like you I mostly burn alder, Doug fir, Oregon maple and Hem. That's what's most common in the Puget Sound lowland, discounting cedar which I won't burn indoors. I've learned not to turn my nose up at black cottonwood, either. It's denser than other cottonwoods and once fully cured it burns great. But tough to split. Lacking my own wood lot I usually gather storm fall. Looks like we might be in for a bounty tomorrow when this freezing rain comes.
 
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