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New axe design uses lever action to make splitting wood easier

vipukirves.fi

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Re: New axe design uses lever action to make splitting wood easier

#11

Post by cam_l »

bprater wrote: post #8

Knotted wood is much more challenging to split. Even with a hydraulic splitter, chunks of wood with lots of branches can stall a machine pressing with tons of force. Great demo, but unrealistic unless you only chop beautiful limbless tall oaks.

Yeah, that wood looked like stiff butter.

I used to split ironbark logs to sell for firewood. Your aim had to be pretty accurate, first marking a groove with an axe and then a few good hits with a log splitter. If you hit a knot the bloody thing would bounce back like it was made of rubber.

Re: New axe design uses lever action to make splitting wood easier

#12

Post by Someone »

hrkristian wrote: post #6

I've spent nearly every winter growing up swinging axes, and I cringed a bit when I saw him strike branches. For the most part the axe does a wonderful job against anything, and that guy has ridiculously good aim, but anyone who have at some point been bad at chopping wood probably knows those twists to the side can do a real number on your wrists and hands. It seems to happen quite a bit. It's still an amazing innov…

The article is a waste of reading time, but you can click through to http://www.vipukirves.fi/english/description.htm, which is marketing material, but way more informative.

Re: New axe design uses lever action to make splitting wood easier

#14

Post by StavrosK »

claudius wrote: post #7
hrkristian wrote: post #6

I've spent nearly every winter growing up swinging axes, and I cringed a bit when I saw him strike branches. For the most part the axe does a wonderful job against anything, and that guy has ridiculously good aim, but anyone who have at some point been bad at chopping wood probably knows those twists to the side can do a real number on your wrists and hands. It seems to happen quite a bit. It's still an amazing innov…

I have no idea about axes in general, so please acquire a large piece of silicon dioxide before reading on. That said, it seems that the problem with traditional axes is the large amount of friction from penetrating the wood. This requires a firm grip of the handle and long swings to induce sufficient kinetic energy in the head of the axe. With the rotational design, much less energy is needed, allowing for a) a loos…

Silicon oxide? Take it with a grain of... quartz?

Re: New axe design uses lever action to make splitting wood easier

#15

Post by graeham »

StavrosK wrote: post #14
claudius wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea about axes in general, so please acquire a large piece of silicon dioxide before reading on. That said, it seems that the problem with traditional axes is the large amount of friction from penetrating the wood. This requires a firm grip of the handle and long swings to induce sufficient kinetic energy in the head of the axe. With the rotational design, much less energy is needed, allowing for a) a loos…

Silicon oxide? Take it with a grain of... quartz?

Sand. Probably meant a grain of sodium chloride! :)

Re: New axe design uses lever action to make splitting wood easier

#16

Post by jtheory »

ghshephard wrote: post #4

That has to be some of most seasoned knot free wood ever split. I wonder how many logs he had to go through to find stuff that split that well - 20 logs for every one that did that? Sledge Hammer, Splitting Maul gets the job done 95% of the time. "Eccentric Axe" the other 5%. Well - maybe, 85% Splitting Maul 12% Eccentric Axe, and 3% splitting wedge (which typically has a torsion in it to create a turning effect to s…

For those who aren't familiar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_maul -- but I have to laugh to notice that the "related" tools listed are Sledgehammer, Axe, and War hammer.

You're offering solutions that take significant strength -- someone who can't safely swing a splitting maul or 20lb sledgehammer could still use this axe and get a much better result than a normal axe, I think. A maul is great until you get tired and hit a glancing blow; at which point you've got a heavy steel wedge flying off at high velocity, and you'd better be strong enough to hold on the other end of the handle.

My brother and I split a lot of wood as teenagers; our family heated our house in NY with a wood-burning fireplace insert, using wood from the forested acre or so around the house.

We definitely just powered through problematic logs, though -- e.g., splitting maul, and we'd swing it hard. We had a couple of steel wedges and a sledgehammer but hardly ever used them; normally it was faster to just beat the heck out of the knotted/wet/whatever log with the maul.

I'm certainly curious to see how the eccentric axe handles bad wood -- though in any case I suspect it'd decently handle the same logs a maul would, but requiring less strength. You could always fall back to wedges plus a light sledge (and patience) for the really nasty logs.

Re: New axe design uses lever action to make splitting wood easier

#17

Post by dirktheman »

Accurate axeman, but with that kind of neat log I guess you can have the same results with a regular axe and a good technique.

It's very hard to improve something that has been around for the past 35,000 years, I guess. Maybe they're better of working on that car tire so that it can accomodate logs of different diameters.

Re: New axe design uses lever action to make splitting wood easier

#18

Post by binarymax »

I, as well as others, have a history of strained wrists when splitting wood with a traditional axe. Clicking through to their website they recommend a loose grip when the head is about to strike, allowing for the rotation to take place. This makes sense because before you'd need a strong grip to hold onto your axe to make sure it doesn't slip out of your hands when giving a swing strong enough to split. Since you are swinging much more gently, this may actually work! At the very least I am glad that I don't need to split wood these days otherwise I'd give this a try in a second.
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