The Leveraxe

[tlfamm]

Pricey, looks clumsy, and hardly the first redesign in 8 millennia:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2623425/Inventor-comes-redesign-axe-8-000-years-curved-blade-stops-swinging-straight-wood-leg.html

[vpt]

And they always use perfect dry easy to split wood for the demonstrations.

[A.K. Boomer]

What a POS....

[Frank Ford]

I see the same thing in my world - an engineer hasn't mastered the traditional way of doing things, and sees a need for
"better designed " hardware to accomplish the task. The result is a solution to a non-existent problem. Then begins the process of trying to "educate" those who have long ago become proficient, but somehow still seem "backward" because they won't adopt the obviously better new way. Before long, the "revolutionary" product is on the ol' scrap heap. . .

Seems to me the telltale line in the ad is:

"During the arduous task his axe swung dangerously close to his legs on several occasions. "

The rest of us may have noticed that for the previous 8000 years, woodchoppers had learned not to chop their own legs off. . .

[gcude]

"stops momentum on impact". Well how do you ever split wood if momentum is stopped as soon as the axe strikes the wood. Bozo, engineering and bozo reporting.

[TGTool]

Similar to a book on house design I looked at back in the 60's. This guy had all kinds of ideas for fixing the obvious problems of the way houses have been built for hundreds of years. The one that stood out for me is his recommendation for hanging doors. He pointed out that doors often stick in their frames and it's clear that carpenters just don't get the obvious solution. That is, to hang the door on the face of the wall rather than inset into the doorframe where they stick.

What he'd obviously missed, was that carpenters hundreds of years ago realized that doors could be out of square and even twisted. So the clean solution is to hang them in the frame, free swinging as it were, then nail the trim molding inside the frame to fit the door. If it's twisted the molding can conform. What an idiot I thought, believing he's a savant.

[J Tiers]

It's not totally stupid.... so long as you consider it to be a splitter and not an "axe".

I do NOT like teh center of gravity deal, and the story seems to confirm my first though when I saw it.... they mention the suggestion to "hold it loosely". I should imagine that is because the thing will twist the handle as it strikes.

Now, I do not know about you, but I very much resent things that twist their handles. It raises blisters in new spots, and I become very unpleasant to deal with for the whole time I am using the thing. So I already don't like it, although I can appreciate the thought, and even the design.

If you have a proper length axe handle ("proper" to me is fairly long), the issue of chopping yourself becomes much less of an issue. The axe simply does not swing through even if the wood splits out or otherwise fails to stop the axe head.

I have noticed that more people damage themselves with hatchets than axes.

[justanengineer]

"stops momentum on impact". Well how do you ever split wood if momentum is stopped as soon as the axe strikes the wood. Bozo, engineering and bozo reporting.

I wondered exactly the same thing. Its a splitter that would never split 90% of the firewood.

[J Tiers]

"stops momentum on impact". Well how do you ever split wood if momentum is stopped as soon as the axe strikes the wood. Bozo, engineering and bozo reporting.

Well, clearly the thing stops some time *after* the edge has entered the wood........... it's a poor choice of words to describe what is obvious. if it stopped "on impact" it would be a hammer, not an axe.

[boslab]

"stops momentum on impact". Well how do you ever split wood if momentum is stopped as soon as the axe strikes the wood. Bozo, engineering and bozo reporting.

Seems the laws of motion are different up there!
What a silly looking contraption
Mark

[Black Forest]

It would seem to me that the twisting motion on impact would not do your wrists any good. Holding loose enough for this not to be a problem seems not such a good idea for obvious reasons.

[darryl]

I see in the last few seconds of the video, he bashes the handle into the log pieces. If those pieces weren't there, the thing might have swung down and into his leg- what's safe about it if you are getting a false sense of security through all the hype-

There seems to be a sleeve of some kind on the handle, right behind the head. A hand is gripping it- I wonder if that sleeve is supposed to allow the handle to rotate within it, or if it's just for softening the blow from handle strikes. Gut feeling- I'll stay with a real axe.

[Baz]

Inventor seems to be Skandinavian where all the wood is fir or birch and will split with only an inch penetration and a bit of leverage. Poor chap has probably never seen a maul which really revolutionised my firewood splitting.
Another laughable thing one sometimes sees in films it the actor who has obvioulsy been brought up with oil cental heating in a city placing the token 'log' on its side. The film always omits to show the ineffectual actual strike.

[sasquatch]

I heard an interview with this guy on the radio, thought just another piece of crap to buy, i have split a pile of wood in my 42 years of burning wood, done correctly, with the proper axe/maul, and seeing the different grains and knots in firewood blocks, most problems can be eliminated, and have wood splitting be a generaly great form of exercise, instead of a bunch of frustration.

[MrFluffy]

Its the daily mail reporting it, what do you expect? Its targetted at mostly middle-class people in their twenties and thirties and female readers.
Wood burning in urban areas is banned pretty much in towns etc where most of their readership live, in fact coal is a bygone thing too, its all gas and electric central heating in surburbia.
Therefore, I would expect a very very very small % of their readership will have, or will ever have need to, swing a axe to split or fell something for firewood. So its just filler material to use some space up in the mail designed to appeal to hipsters with rose tinted visions of a steampunk lifestyle. So they can print what they like and the readers will lap it up as curious and interesting.

I heat my house on wood in a furnace, but I'll stick to buying them ready cut and split or split in a dedicated splitter, and felling stuff with a chainsaw. When I did use a axe to split, I recall my main frustration was getting it stuck when wood wasnt dry enough inside, for which this axe is actually much worse by design. Sounds like hard work. Why didnt he just hire a wood processor for the day and get all his wood prepped in one go instead of making a big job of it?