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Comment by easy_rider | Hacker News Reader

This is really cool. I've never split more than a couple dozen logs in my life but Ray Mears teached me to wedge the blade to the side on impact. This seems to emulate these physics. I'm not a big guy, and it's a pretty hard motion to get in to when you're swinging down as hard as possible.

This seems like a very capable survival/bushcrafting tool for less accomplished wood cutters.

tl;dr I wood buy.

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This is a terrible survival/bushcraft tool. It is big and heavy which could be acceptable if it was not single purpose.

My fellow Americans please do not hold this post against Ray Mears. He is rather awesome. I am at a loss when it comes to thinking of his American equivalent. We do not have a nice guy survival expert. Anyone I can think of is not as famous and certainly not as kind spirited. The best way I can describe him is Roy Underhill from the Woodwright's Shop does bushcraft/survival skills in a Red coat.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but wouldn't this allow for a smaller force lever, because the axe multiplies the forces and does not rely on the user to swing hard enough with the right technique?

I don't want to "correct you" but if I had to correct you about something it would not be on swinging technique or the physics of a lever. I do not think that it is a good idea to identify the best wood splitting tool in a laboratory environment and hang a ribbon around it that says "best survival/bushcraft tool." Obviously all survival situations are different but there does seem to be a certain mobility component in all survival situations. This thing is 3ft(90cm) long and 5.5lbs(2.5kg). Not my first choice to carry that up or down a rocky incline or beat a path through thick brush with it awkwardly strapped to my back. However you might be able to talk me into the extra weight and bulk if it did more than one thing. Unfortunately this thing does not do anything else, but don't take my word for it "VIPUKIRVES™ is a special tool designed for chopping firewood, not appropriate for carpentry [AKA felling and hewing trees] or for use as a striking tool."[1] I love the UNIX philosophy of do one thing and do it well, but you will notice that in resource constrained environments the 100+ binaries from coreutils are provided by a single small executable: busybox.

Tangent: When I was reading the description of the ax I thought it was strange that the handle was birch instead of the hickory that I expected. I was reminded of one of my favorite Ted Talks, "Have Broad Ax Will Travel", by Roy Underhill. The handle is not hickory, because, according to Roy, "they [Europeans] put their mountains on wrong, we thought ahead because we are Americans."[2]

[1]: FAQ #3: http://www.vipukirves.fi/english/description.htm

[2]: Skip to 10:00 if you just want to know which direction to orient your mountains. But the entire video is definitely worth a full viewing. http://youtu.be/Au1TbIyLcPU

Haha, there are some funny ones though. Like this one [1] where he brings his entire collection of wetstones to show us how to sharpen a knife @ camp.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wALGfOe3XAA

My trick to avoid getting an axe stuck is to aim for the outside edge of the log furthest away from you. Not sure why it works, but it does. The closer to the middle of the log an axe lands the more likely it gets stuck.

Also dry wood will have natural cracks. Aim for the cracks and the wood will just fall apart.

Maybe the wood acts as a lever arm to apply more force to the center, where more force is needed.

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