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Experienced wood splitter here. All your points are valid. I had to ruin one perfectly good axe handle before I learned how to swing. However, the sim is still a lot of fun.

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> I had to ruin one perfectly good axe handle before I learned how to swing.

Is it really that difficult? Maybe my memory is vague, but chopping wood in autumn/fall for the winter just took a bunch of time, and wasn't very fun, but wasn't that bad, especially compared to other things like harvesting veggies stuff where you have to be on the ground. I'm not sure how you'd manage to ruin a axe handle before understanding how to do it well-enough, takes a couple of swings at max.

I think it very much depends on the wood too, the species and how seasoned it is and how dry it is. Some chunks you can hit it almost anywhere and it will cleave across the entire block, but other woods you will hit a half inch in from the edge of the bark and the board will split under the blade and let it through, but leave a half inch near the edge unsplit that the axe handle hits with full force. Do it enough times and the front edge of the handle can get messed up.

Sometimes you will see wire or something else wrapped up near the top of the handle for that reason to help protect it a bit. But if you get enough practice you can reliably hit with the bottom half or quarter of the axe sticking out of the log so that can't happen.

I spent a summer chopping a whole bunch of wood with a steel handled 10 lb maul. Many was the evening where my hand was numb until the morning, but by the end of the summer my shoulders were ripped.

You quickly learn the differences between locust, pine, maple, oak or, god forbid, cherry.

I see a lot of people that split infrequently use mauls. But personally I think an axe works better once you get a bit of practice. The trick with the axe a lot of people miss at first is to focus on the swing speed, and not as much as delivering force and mass behind the blow. Some species the maul can work better, but 90% of the time I feel like an axe is just a bit less effort and a bit quicker.

Splitting Eucalyptus and big madrone by hand will test a man.

I have a few black wattle rounds that have been sitting around for years. I have a go at them whenever I feel like I need to be humbled. There's also a fallen tree at the bottom of our property that blunts chainsaws. It's been there for years and nothing seems to eat it. I harvest what I can from it, and a good sized chunk will burn through the night.

Could add beech, yellow birch, black locust to that god-forbid list

I once took a sledgehammer to work so everyone could take a turn taking a whack at some old prototypes outside. I came to the sad realization that even hitting a particular spot with a sledgehammer is not an inate skill. If you've never done it, you miss!

I've seen people miss the tractor wheel with a hammer at my gym. I didn't even know if was physically possible.

My experience was a year spent working as a forester. One of our duties was to keep the wood burning stoves supplied. I remember learning that ash got its name from the fact that it burned so well, and willow left perfect charcoal.

As for the axe handle… I was told off by my boss for mashing up the handle by my constant missing. Even now, I am the same with hammers and nails - not nearly as sure with my aim as I should be. On the plus side That was also the time I learned how to replace an axe handle. also the time that

The suspense is killing me.

Whoops. Sorry. That last sentence should have been deleted.

Same. I've only done it a couple times but it takes minutes to learn and you just get into a rhythm and keep going. It's like peeling potatoes.

I wonder if there's a name for the psychological phenomenon of people doing some trivial blue-collar-ish task and then dramatizing it to make themselves sound like a grizzled old hand.

Have heard this called blue-washing (eg Mike Rowe) when done publicly

Depends on the wood. Perfectly dry, seasoned hardwood is going to be easy. Wood with knots, soft wood etc. is going to take a while to figure out.

Is it really that difficult?

It’s not, 12 year olds can do it. Ruining an axe handle is not a requirement. I’m not saying humans are born knowing how to swing an axe, but c’mon.

A 12 year old can indeed acquire that skill, but that doesn't mean any adult can do it.

Some adults indeed can't do it, but that doesn't mean it's difficult.

And it is certainly not "wear out a whole axe handle just to learn to swing" difficult.

You don't wear it out. You land the head long of your aim point, and splinter the handle on whatever you were trying to hit. It's certainly not hard to ruin a handle if you're learning to swing a sledge by driving steel splitting wedges.

There's a huge difference between say, weilding a hatchet on a camping trip, and trying to get the hang of a splitting axe, with a 3ft or longer handle, when you're a kid. Getting a long, sweeping arc that comes down in the right spot isn't easy and if the axe head's centrifugal force pulls it away from you, you clunk the handle down on the wood. I definitely recall my hands ringing and numb from those kinds of impact. I don't remember ruining a handle, but if it had been my chore, I think I could've come close.

> There's a huge difference between say, weilding a hatchet on a camping trip, and trying to get the hang of a splitting axe, with a 3ft or longer handle, when you're a kid.

So not difficult for an adult, like I said.

>Is it really that difficult?

Fiberglass handles are now standard on splitting mauls (for this reason). Rotten hearts, or driving wedges. It is easy to miss a swing by an inch or two when fatigued.

Edit: I also broke my first axe handle. The sibling comments here are wild.

Yeah, tell me about fiberglass. It slips out too. And that was Fiskars, not some noname crap.

When it does, you put it back and hammer some big screws and nails into it, this way it holds some more time.

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