Chopper1 axe at a yard sale
We found a Chopper1 axe at a yard sale
today for just 10 bucks.
Bob Kolonia invented it back in 1975. What makes it unique is the
rotating levers on each side of the axe's head. The levers swing out,
directing the downward chopping force outward and exploding the log
apart from the inside. His website has a nice animation that
explains the process better. Ours is missing one of the return springs
and pin that holds the spring. I'm sure I can rig something up before
winter sets in. Stay tuned to see how well this baby chops wood
compared to our Super
Splitter.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Some tips i learned from U tube, one method for keeping wood upright and from flying away is to use an old tire on a stump for those stubborn log rounds or to just do them one at a time. What i like to do is lay my rounds on the ground about three or four deep, depending on how big they are, in a row in front of where i stack and tie a rope with a bungee cord a round them to hold them up while splitting them down. Saves allot of bending over to pick things up again to make smaller splits while u work around the edges of the big rounds as axe instructions show. hope this helps u all some
I just caught an episode of "Ask This Old House" and they covered way to split wood. I was surprised this style of maul was not even mentioned. Dumbfounded I ran to the internet and I had trouble even finding a picture of one. Then i stumbled on this post. Personally I've been using one of these to split wood at my dads house in Missouri for the last 20 years. Although I can't guarantee its a chopper 1, his is black and silver. I'll dig it up next time I'm back in St.Louis. All I can say is "they are not a gimmick"! Once you have used one with the mechanical head you won't use another maul to split. I personally like how it throws the wood out and away. If you have the log elevated a bit you can keep on splitting and not worry about clearing out your swing space. They are hard to find.
We bought one of these shortly after they hit the market in the late 70's. Dad had just built a place at Lake Tahoe, and we had 26 trees that had been felled for the construction. This thing was incredible! Like so many have said, everyone had to learn to work LESS hard to keep the split pieces from flying too far. ;0> I remember old, hard oak that no one was willing to deal with being no match for the Chopper1 with two hands - and the pine at Tahoe could literally be done with ONE hand. Yes, it WAS fun!!
The speed, quietness and less lifting made hydraulic splitters obsolete - not to mention that moving one of those back & forth 200 miles is a lot harder than throwing the Chopper1 in the trunk or behind the seat... I've seen some units on the web with 'fiber core' handles and they're black, but I'd swear that ours was yellow. More to the point, though, I wonder why they only sell 'em now with hickory handles?