You don’t split wood with an ax. You split it with a splitting maul.
I ought to know. I heated with wood I cut, hauled and split myself for 11 years.
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I dont know what a splitting maul is but maybe you should have been around wood a few years longer...
we used an ax like everyone else did...
It was my brothers chore but sometimes I did it too...
We heated the house, heated our water, and cooked with wood and coal...
Splitting wood with a wedge is an extra special treat.
Coal works great.
I remember fondly, making grill cheese and ‘mater soup on the old pot belly coal fired stove in the old work shack where Pop worked.
I think that was all he knew how to make LOL
We started splitting wood with an axe, then with wedges and a sledgehammer, then splitting mauls and finally a hydraulic wood slitter. I can’t recall exactly the years of transition from each, but rest assured the last one was the best.
A splitting maul is basically a sledgehammer with one edge sharpened.
Rest assured it is several times more effective at an ax for splitting wood.