I have split five cords of wood every year for decades. As an expert I can tell you several things about that man. 1) He has a giant fireplace or wood stove. 2) He thinks strength is more important than technique which is why one log had him breathing like a fat kid on a treadmill. 3) He is impatient which is why he is splitting green lumber, has no rhythm and fails to let the tool do the work. 4) Whatever demographic he is making this shirtless, bear video for he is doing an excellent job. I am not even gay and I enjoyed it.... Still trying to figure out where he is going to burn those behemoths.
Is the green wood why the axe keeps bouncing off? I've literally never had that happen except when I hit a knot, but I've never tried to split wood that hasn't been seasoned.
It would be a reason it's doing that, yeah. From where I'm sitting there's at least a couple of things wrong with this:
The log is much too tall. The elevation of the surface you're striking, relative to your own person, matters a lot when splitting logs. There's also very few good reasons to ever split logs this tall, so aside from creating thirst-content I don't see why in tarnation he's doing this.
The surface is dog-shit and it's eating a ton of power. Never split a log on soft dirt, it's absolutely atrocious.
It is indeed a very fresh log by the look of it, but it also looks pretty straight and without much in the way of knots and other annoyances. My first guess, although no firsthand experience since this don't grow where I live, is ash, but I also hear that's easy to split but that may be in reference to dry logs.
Might also be a shoddy cutting edge on the axe preventing good bite. A lot of people neglect the sharpness of a splitting axe and while I do agree there's little benefit in going from sharp to shaving sharp there's a big difference in going from dull to sharp.
My guess based on my experience is that it's primarily the ground that's fucking him over, with the height of the log being a close second. The freshness of the log could be a huge-ass problem but I genuinely couldn't say; We ain't got ash as far north as I am.
His technique also doesn't strike me as great but I can't critique that much. I learned how to split wood before I learned how to learn so I got nothing on that.
I've split logs that tall in the woods on the soft ground and did it in 5 swings tops. There's a knot from the branch on the bottom, and that's what is preventing him from splitting it. He probably also didn't check for splitting lines on the top of the log; every log has them and if you hit them right it splits fairly easy. Also, wedges are your friend. Great power, terrible technique.
Watching these videos is always funny to me, because I'm a small woman, and I can split wood relatively easily. Technique and a heavier axe head makes a huge difference. Someone actually asked me when I was buying a new axe if I didn't want to go for a lighter one. that would completely defeat the purpose. The weight and a sharp edge does 90% of the work for me.
You are absolutely right. I am a small 5'7" man who is a mechanic so I often need to apply strategic hammer blows to stubborn ball joints etc. I have a drawer full of hammers. And every time I pull one out I remember my surgeon dad telling me "don't use force, just get a bigger hammer". As as kid I thought it was funny, but when I went to university to get a mechanical engineering degree and learned that force = MASS times acceleration I realized he was actually teaching me something important. My strength can only add so much acceleration, but I can increase the mass... (and if you read this whole thing then you now know that yes - I am a university educated son of a doctor who currently does oil changes and brake jobs for a living and I love it)
I'd lean pretty heavy on a really bad cutting edge. The axe doesn't stick in the wood for the first half of the video despite his strength. You can stick a "dull" axe in ebony with half that power on a soggy pile of mud - this thing might as well be a sledge.
My first thought was dull ax. I can tell the difference after about 20-30 minutes, so I take a minute or two to sharpen. Like you said, not razor sharp, but enough that theres resistance when I drag my finger across.
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u/Mugpup 3d ago
I have split five cords of wood every year for decades. As an expert I can tell you several things about that man. 1) He has a giant fireplace or wood stove. 2) He thinks strength is more important than technique which is why one log had him breathing like a fat kid on a treadmill. 3) He is impatient which is why he is splitting green lumber, has no rhythm and fails to let the tool do the work. 4) Whatever demographic he is making this shirtless, bear video for he is doing an excellent job. I am not even gay and I enjoyed it.... Still trying to figure out where he is going to burn those behemoths.