I’ve chopped some wood in my day, and I’ve never seen any wood chop quite that easily. It makes me wonder if that wood is a special wood that has had the moisture baked out of it.
Combined that might make for some easily chopped wood. Most wood outside is not completely dry, and does not chip anywhere near that easily.
If it truly is the new axe, I’m all for it. That would be a great improvement to say the least.
I think its white maple that has a ripple grain that makes it exceptionally hard to split. I have a couple of planks laying on the ground to cross a small creek in my yard. They’ve been laying on the ground for around 15 years and are still rock hard.
When I worked at the saw mill we build all our catwalks out of white maple. We had to use a nail gun to get the nail started then pound them in with a hammer.
I have split a fair amount of wood. The example of wood given seems frozen (easy splitting), straight grained (easy splitting), short (easy splitting) and sized to be contained in the tire (allows for multiple fast strokes).
I can see how the physics might work, but you cannot drive stakes or spikes with it (no flat back end), it takes up more space, and is more expensive. It is a replacement for a splitting maul, not an axe.
Give me a woodpile and a couple of hours with it, and I would let you know.
Hydraulic ram splitters are pretty nice, too, and only cost a few hundred. My father made one up before the were commercially common.
I have wood that will not split like that. I never saw wood like that before. I have knots in mine. The wood is frozen and quite brittle.
ping
Looks like maybe alder.
Agreed. I’ve probably split 30 or 40 cords by hand and they never split any where near that easy. I usually split elm and oak.