No pictures tonight, but I was excited to find it. It's not a splitting maul, it's a Post Maul, 16 lbs. It was my dad's and I was probably 6 years old the first time I seen him swing it, and I am 63 now. No telling how old it is. I grew up swinging it, myself, driving Locust, Osage Orange, and Red Cedar fence posts. We probably never hardly had a steel fence post on the farm until probably around 1990. Anyway, I have been looking for it, off and on for about 4 or 5 months and finally stumbled onto it today, half buried in the ground without a handle. I was specifically looking for it, today, as I needed to build a bigger dog pen, for a litter of Black Lab pups. I am going to cut some Red Cedar and or Locust posts and drive them in the ground to nail lumber to, since I have a bunch of old treated but solid 2 x 10's salvaged from when I rebuilt my deck, a couple of years ago. Anyway, I forgot to take a picture, too excited at my find, I guess, and now have it in a vinegar soak to clean the rust off. I will post a picture later. Now to get a new handle for it. I think it takes a Pick Handle. I guess I am kind of sentimental about this old post maul, because the first time I ever used it was over fifty some years ago, working on the farm with my dad, who passed on a few years ago.
I can see why you'd be excited, that is one DANDY looking maul!! And, the fact it was your dad's really makes it special!
Yes, it is kind of special to me. As a little kid, I was the gofer and many a time I was sent to go get this maul and bring it back to where ever, then when I got a little bigger, I was the one pounding wood fence posts in the ground with it. Part of my growing up.
Yep, one needs to be in fair shape. Once you start pounding a post with it, there's a technique where the hammer will bounce off of the post and you just keep it going in a circle, but you don't want to miss the post with it.
Yep, there's no telling how old it is. I don't know the origin of it. My dad owned it all of my life, and it may have been owned by his dad. These old post mauls were pretty common until the steel fence post came into regular use. I worked on a ranch in the 70's as a young man and they still had one similar to this one, which we still used, occasionally, at the time. But the steel fence post has pretty much made these obsolete, now. However, I am fixing to put this one back to work for a little while.
That's because it's made for driving wood fence post into the ground, that have been sharpened like sort of like a pencil on the end that goes into the ground. It's probably made out of cast iron or cast steel of some kind but is not made to strike anything that is made out of metal. If you were to strike metal with this maul, there's a high risk the head would break or chip off badly. Lots of old mauls like this have been ruined when someone decided to use them as a sledge hammer and struck a steel object with them. The old timers actually made similar mauls for driving fence post and other chores out of very dense wood some times. Also the shape of it is big and flat on the head so as to mate up with the top of a wooden fence post and not damage the top of the fence post too badly when driving it. A sledge hammer is more rounded on the edges, and with it's different shaped head would inflict too much damage to the top of the wooded post.
Is that what this is? I've been moving this around in the garage for 30 years. I saw your picture and said...hey.... I've never swung it, and not about to start now. It weighs up at 13lbs.
Yes, a little different style but I believe so. I think your's is several years newer, and at 13 lbs it's about 3 lbs lighter. It would still work good, if you put a handle in it. Here's a picture of some sledge hammers, I own. The one on the right weighs 20 lbs, and as you can see, the sledge hammers are made very differently. That 20 pounder is a bear to swing, but I guarantee you, when you hit something with that thing, and it don't move, you know it really stuck.
