Splitting maul history

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Beachlogger

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Dec 27, 2015
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there seems to be plenty of old axes and hatchets around but looking at splitting mauls most have the tell tale wear eye protection. So what did people split firewood with back in the olden days?
 
The warnings started in the 70's, I believe. But splitting mauls (often historically called woodchopper's mauls) were common way back. They just didn't have ready access to safety glasses back then like we do now. The march of progress, and all that.
 
I suspect that worn out felling axes were relegated to splitters once the blade angle became too obtuse to easily reprofile. With the flick of the wrist chopping method there is no need for a splitter to have an unduly heavy head.
 
300Six said:
I suspect that worn out felling axes were relegated to splitters once the blade angle became too obtuse to easily reprofile. With the flick of the wrist chopping method there is no need for a splitter to have an unduly heavy head.
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Only if the wood is appropriate for that splitting method. Not all wood permits for all methods to be employed.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Only if the wood is appropriate for that splitting method. Not all wood permits for all methods to be employed.
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Which probably also explains why there are so many heavy hammers (for pounding on ultimately expendable metal wedges) to be found. The four or five now-30-year-old splitting wedges I have are so beat up (mushroomed) that no collector would profess an interest in them and any time I replace one it'll merely get tossed into the woods at the hunt camp or into back of a dead car destined for the scrap yard.
 
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Screenshot of a HS&B catalog page from 1891:
content
 
There were splitting axes (look somewhat like modern splitting mauls) in the 18c and early 19c, they were called Holtzaxe. Look at figure 8, page 3, of An Ax To Grind to see what one looks like. All the Holtzaxes I have used have axe handle eyes, none had sledge eyes.
 
Old Axeman said:
Thanks Steve, I know my lack of computer skills and unwillingness to learn is annoying.
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And thank you Old Axeman and Steve Tall for this. Makers of marketable/profitable recreational gimmicks have yet to learn from (or take heed of) 'those who know from experience and history'.
 
Supposedly 9th and 10th century Norwegian splitting axes at the Oslo Museum of Cultural History:

axe-for-splitting-wood-ulverud-gran-k-oppland-viking-age-norway-axe-J1D81J.jpg
 
I found the splitting ax in the picture over 50 yrs ago in Bucks County Pennsylvania. Henry Mercer in his book "Ancient Carpenters Tools", 1929 (as I have said before, my favorite 18c-early 19c tool reference) refers to it as a Holzaxt and says "a heavy, iron, wedge-shaped, dull-bladed, sledge axe, never used for felling, which will not only hammer wedges but split wood" The spelling is probably not proper German as they called themselves "Pennsylvania German" and as I remember had their own dialect.
I still have this splitting axe and still use it for period demonstrations. It has what might be an original worm eaten haft.
 
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