But in all seriousness, I wanted a new splitting axe to split my wood up for my pot bellied stove. I wanted to build my own axe because I hate spending money, and honestly there was nothing good out there. The lever type of axe has a unique design, but it has some fatal flaws and I could see how I could avoid those flaws, make a simple axe with what I had kicking around the house, and have one of the best splitting axes made to date. It is a tall order, the axe has been around since...well...Caveman days.
This is an axe ANYONE with a mere amount of welding skills can build, with materials they have kicking around the house, and for no money. Mine cost $0 dollars! It also took around 3 hours to build.
The axe works differently then most axes, the handle is off-set from the head of the axe so that as it strikes the block of wood, it immediately flips sideways. This uses kinetic energy, along with leverage to drive the wood apart. This is pretty basic for a lever axe, but my new axe differs from leverage axes in that mine is welded to a hinge. This means that as the wood is struck, the twisting force acts upon the hinge and leaves the handle firm in your hands...NO BLISTERS and no need for gloves either!! But my axe also has a spring, so that as the wood is struck the Spring automatically returns the axe head back to near vertical for another strike. It does all this in a fraction of a second. Trust me when I say this, NO ONE is surprised it works more than me!
This is my first prototype so it could be refined to look better, and I might down the road. Here are some pictures, but in the first picture showing my gathered up materials, I never needed the railroad spike to build it; anyone see an axe in that pile of material?
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