After 3 years of hard use, my axe handle finally broke today while splitting some oak. The wood was from an oak tree we felled this summer that had been threatening the house.
This is the best axe I've ever used for splitting wood. It's the Iltis Oxhead splitting axe and (as long as the wood is seasoned) it almost always splits on the first strike. Luckily, after Sarah got it for me for my birthday a few years ago, I bought two spare handles to have on hand so when it broke today, I was able to replace it and get back to work quickly.
I find that I much prefer to split wood by hand then using a gas powered splitter. The gas splitters are loud, smelly, and hard on your back. You can really only be efficient with one (IMO) if you have three people working it: one to run the ram; one to set the wood; and one to feed the wood to the person setting the wood in the ram. I don't get into the whole John Henry thing: I don't think I can beat a gas splitter one-on-one, but by splitting 30-45 minutes a day, I can get through a lot of wood and get a nice workout to boot. It's really the only way to go!
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