Impressed by Council's 3.5 lb "Jersey-pattern" axe, for $25, and finding their 6 lb maul for same price, delivered, guess what ... What arrived was a utilitarian wood-busting tool with hickory handle and head with excellent smithy-work, meaning a properly hard and tough forging- something to work with. From prior experience, the head needed a few minutes work at the edge with a sanding drum and Dremel, to sharpen it and smooth out the ridge behind the edge by sanding it off. (Steel there is hard enough that it would take a long time with a file.) The handle is very solidly wedged to the head with 1/4" wide steel wedge, but had a gap of ~1/16" along the poll side. Epoxy was easily fed in there with help from some splitting scraps, to eliminate cosmetic prob. In testing on some white ash, black cherry & black locust so far, it performs on a par with a 2.5 kg Wetterlings for splitting. Its poll is really tough stuff, being much less malleable than the Wetterlings, and about the same as a Mueller. I expect it to work well, for a long time. The handle, being common in shape to that of many such tools, would be relatively simple to replace, as opposed to the "axe-handled" ones with all their variations. Once I find out how to insert pix here, that'll happen. Bottom line: for $25, a total no-brainer. Couple of these back-when, and I'd have saved both torture and bux. I failed to mention that Council Tools is right here in the U.S. of A.
After Spikes GTG, and getting to handle the various splitting tools (I have the X27), I started reading up, especially posts by you CT. Since I already have the Council Tool Hookaroon (and love it), I ordered the 6lb. maul. Should be delivered next Tuesday 11/4. I the meantime, I'd be interested in some pics of yours, CT. Mike
I tried to post pix, but the receiving end failed me. When possible, I'll insert/add on. You may like it as received. From what I learned on receiving a 3 kg Mueller maul, the Council maul needed its edge sharpened, and then to have its faces flattened in the area a fraction inch behind the edge. I used a Dremel with a half-inch sanding drum. It worked well before flattening the faces, and noticeably better after. Shoulda ordered more. I really like their 3.5 lb "Jersey pattern" axe. It also feels good in my hands.
Bailey's, $24 & change. No charge for shippping!!! From Bailey's!!! That maul, and the axe, serious working tools. They make real pretty ones too.
Yo, mikey517, they got stuff fixed on the server. Some pix now. You're gonna like it. BTW, I talked to Bob, Husqy dealer in Shokan NY, who says he has difficulty in ordering much of the Council product line. You might see some heat-treating differences in the inch near the edge, and the grit-blasted steel surface. Council talks about different material hardness, dropping some as you head away from the edge. The little gap in the eye is now filled with epoxy. I'm picky that way- please humor me. I've since polished down that little transition near the edge to make it a more continuous curve. Works a wee bit better in the gnarly stuff. Some pix of this maul, hopefully self-explanatory:
When I was at Bob's (Spike60's) GTG last year, Bob & I spent a couple of minutes comparing notes on our investigations of splitting tools. When I showed Bob the Wetterlings 2.5 kg maul I got a month earlier for $110, he escorted me into his shop to show me the Husqy (made by Hultafors) maul for $60. They look like they're made at the same foundry. Just didn't have a hardness tester handy. I really like the Wetterlings. At Spike's recent GTG, it seemed to have much more telling effect on maple rounds than a fiskars, even in the hands of a fiskars fanboy. After a year of serious (ab)use it looks much like new. Betting line here: you'll like it a lot. See my avatar for a year-old Wetterlings 2.5 kg maul. One useful tool.
Looks can be deceiving, no? In fact, that handle is about as tightly bound to the head as possible, as it was received; a little epoxy there didn't hurt. Most definitely not loose. Pls refer to post #1. Certainly much tighter than any fiskars I've seen yet. While we're on the subject of the handle, bigbarf48 please explain what you see as a problem with the wood grain. From my perspective, it's solidly attached to the head, is straight & true, and does all I want it to. In a working tool, I'm not at all concerned about cosmetics, though I did inject some epoxy in the handle-eye gap. That's all stayed totally stable. I don't own stock in the company, nor am I a fanboy. Just trying to find the facts and pass them along to interested parties. And split wood.
It's not about cosmetics, for a striking tool (axe, maul, sledge, etc) the wood grain should be parallel with the direction of the swing (the direction of the force). The grain should be up and down in the same direction as the head. If not, the handle is much more likely to split. That maul looks like it has grain that's almost completely perpendicular to the head
Guess so. Thought I made it clear that I just felt like it, not because of any looseness. Not the biggie you seem to perceive. No "injection" was administered; I "fed" in some epoxy I had handy- 5-minute project.
Guess I'll just have to see, then. I've got handles with a variety of grain orientations, as in the past. Only one, about 15 yrs back had a problem with splitting. #1 son, first time ever using a maul, on his first day, split a handle into kindling. No such problem before or since, for either of us. He learned to aim before firing. For me, only problem I've had with maul handles resulted from narrow head. Faces of splits would randomly be allowed to contact handle because of not being pushed far enough away by the head. They'd then gnaw on the handle surface. Splitting may be "more likely" but IME the probability is still effectively zero, after close to 40 yrs of trying. Eschewing excessive violence seems to help here with the gnawing; sometimes full-bore is not necessary. You learn to identify the easier ones and shorten your stroke. At least in the past, some folks made a big thing about the spacing of the growth rings and sapwood/heartwood of hickory used for handles. Seems to ebb & flow. Anyhow, if you're swinging it right, like in golf, you're not trying to bend the handle, but to pull it. Golfers obsess about bizarre training tools to learn that.
(I posted this over at AS as well.) Finally got time to try the Council Tool maul. Like CT, and based on his post, I took a Dremel and put a sharper edge to the blade. Out of the box, it felt too dull. I didn't go into any shape altering, just a sharpening. I tried it on some red oak rounds that were 16" x 16", and were freshly bucked two days ago. Now, I'm the first to admit that my main splitting tool is an Ariens 27t hydraulic. I never had much luck, or got much enjoyment from hand splitting. But at Spikes GTG I watched guys who knew what they were doing and had a good technique. So I wrapped a bungie and started at the edge instead of dead center. I worked around it and the round split nicely. I was pleasantly surprised. The maul is very solid, very well put together. 6lbs. feels just about right for this 66 yr old noobie. Did not need excessive effort to split the round, although on one swing, I cut right through the bungie. Remember, I am a devout moron!. I worked for about 45 minutes at a slow pace, switching back and forth with the X27, and did about 4 rounds (including stacking). I can see using the maul on "larger" rounds, and the X27 on some smaller stuff when I'm just killing some time, but the hydraulic will be fired up when I've got a lot to split. All in all, for $25.00, the CT maul is a real deal.
