x27 now costs over $100.

Amazon quit selling it and Ace is $113.

Shortage?

what gives?

wow are you sure
i guess i wont be buying one

The last time I wanted to order something from ACE they wanted nearly twice MSRP because it was a special order. "They could get one for me" but they only carried one or two selections. They say they are a retailer for all kinds of stuff but when you go into the store you find very little of anything in stock.

$55 from Fiskars.

http://www2.fiskars.com/Products/Yard-and-Garden/Axes-and-Striking/X27-Splitting-Axe-36

What you would do with a 6lb spliiter is beyond me though. My maul is ~15lb and I'd like to find a heavier one.

umm...... heck their 2 1/2 pounder works very well...... as does the 4 1/4. How fun is dragging that 15lbs above your head every swing? Does not sound like much fun to me..... ouch!

Alas, I digress....... the Fiskars vs. mauls horse has been beaten far beyond death and back toooooo many times.

Nate just a note why a splitting axe is more effective than a straight maul

Energy = 1/2 * Mass * Velocity Squared

IE E=1/2MV^2

Thus with a heavy maul if could swing an 8lb unit at 10 ft/s but a 4 lb at 20ft/s you actually have considerably more energy with the 4lb axe than with the maul.

E = 1/2*8*10^2 = 400 ft-lb/s^2

E= 1/2*4*20^2 = 800 ft-lb/s^2

Thus impact speed makes a tremendous difference in energy delivered.

Price = 1/2 the distance to your closest Ace store x the square root of their phone number divided by X27.

I just called the Ace where I bought my X27. It's still $49.99

I've seen this explanation before, and I'm just not buying. If it were just the weight that made the different, other 4 lbs splitting axes would work as well, or nearly as well as the Fiskars. They don't.

Regardless of the weight of the splitting implement, the same amount of energy is going to be imparted into the swing. Using the example above, that is 400, ft-lbs/s^2. If the 8 lbs maul can generate 400 ft-lbs/s^2,
E=1/2*8*10^2
then I would expect the Fiskars to only be accelerated to 14ft/s.
400=1/2*4*14^2.

You can't expect that just because the Fiskars weighs half as much, that it can be accelerated to twice the speed. That is using the equation when it suits, and ignoring it otherwise. If anything, I would expect the Fiskars to have less energy at impact, because the time of the swing is shorter, due to increased velocity (all Fiskars) and shorter path (with the older 28 inch handle only).
I think the efficiency is better because of better shape, and possibly recoil in the handle. Elastic collisions impact much more energy than inelastic ones. That is why things like dead-blow hammers exist. I'd be curious to see how a Fiskars does on a wooden handle, or a maul does with a Fiskars-type Nyglass(sp?) handle.

I really think a lot of the math is pointless, because it is ingoring the effects of rotational inertia, diff eqs, etc., and is really a huge oversimplification. But it makes sense that only such much energy can be put into a swing, and that same amount of energy comes out on the round at impact, no matter the weight.

For the record, I don't even own a maul anymore. If the Fiskar's SS won't do it, I get the sledge and wedge.

I believe the ability of a sledge or maul to split wood is more closely correlated to its momentum, which is equal to its mass (in kilograms) multiplied by its velocity. So its a 1 to 1 contribution from both mass and velocity.

I believe it's momentum that determines the effectiveness of a striking tool, not the kinetic energy.

the KE vs. momentum argument is interesting. I think the effectiveness of a splitting tool is determined by its ability to transfer downward momentum (or kinetic energy, i'm not sure which is more important) into outward (splitting) force. The fiskars is much smoother and sharper than any maul I've ever used, and the shape seems to perfectly direct the force outward, so that very little of the force is wasted driving the round into the ground. The head is coated with a teflon-like substance to help it slip through the wood. This also helps with removing the head when a split doesn't occur. Often the head just bounces out after an unsuccessful strike.

Because it splits better with less weight than a comparable maul, swinging is less taxing on my body. I can happily swing the 4.5 pound Fiskars for 2 hours or more, where I was gassed after 45 minutes with an 8 pounder (splitting full speed). Of course, I haven't tried it recently; i might be getting in better shape.

I'm with Phil; I break out the wedge/sledge if the Fiskars won't handle it. Though, 5 or 6 swings on the same fault line will split 36"+ rounds of Red Maple, which is what I'm mostly splitting these days.

Not to hijack this thread, but since we're discussing Fiskars, I have to say I'm not very pleased with how mine has held up. I've used it to split multiple cords over the past couple years, and I do believe it's a great tool, but despite being babied, mine has developed some chips in the cutting edge, NOT caused by hitting a rock or piece of metal. It never leaves my shed, and sits against the wall when not in use. I only split with the round sitting a few inches off the ground on a piece of old plywood. Yet somehow the edge has several small chips in it.

My Snow & Neally maul has seen the exact same use, and still has a perfect edge.

So I'm not sure quite what to say about a Fiskars now selling for $110.

I still see it on Amazon at $50, same story with Ace.

I have both a 15# maul and a fiskars and the fiskars is very nice can swing it all day, but it does have some trouble in certain hard woods when I split by hand I take both with me. I only paid $32 for the fiskars I figured it was worth a shot. But it's also one of those things dont nock it till you try it. I have sold 3 to people I have never said a word to them they use it and are amazed. If you split alot by hand it will pay for itself. As for the x27 I am a relatively short guy only about 5'10" so I dont have a problem with the short handle version, it does take getting used to.

Call your Ace store. Use this item number: 7268675.

It's $49.99

$55 here in the great white north:
http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/brow...116P/Fiskars+Split+Axe%2C+36-in.jsp?locale=en

If the site asks you for a postal code, and you are outside Canada, enter R3G 3J7

Price at amazon and the ace link came back down too. Must have been a glitch

Yeah, they sell themselves once somebody tries them. I have the old model 28" and have sold 5 others by letting folks try mine.

price fluctuations happen all the time on amazon - i've watched several items dance all around with price and I think this is what is happening:

I think that amazon sometimes has multiple sources for some items. When the default source runs out of the item, it will show the price from the back up supplier which may charge more for the same item. when the original source gets them back in stock the price will go back down.

or it could have been a glitch, or something different altogether, but I have seen amazon's price on items change drastically.

As much as I hate to admit T is ever right, he is this time. Because the velocity is squared, the speed does not have to double.

Actually because one object is held stationary and cannot move momentum in this case doesn't have an impact. It's all about delivered energy to drive the head of the object into the wood and cause it to split. If you were attempting to make the object move momentum would be a factor and it certainly is a factor in the swing.

I would be interesting to test and see how fast one could swing a fiskars axe versus a 6 or 8lb maul and compare them.

Do you have a reference for this concept?

In truth, neither object is held stationary. The surface of the wood deforms and splits, which allows for the conservation of momentum.

This idea has been brought up in other venues, and has always come down to the momentum delivered, not energy delivered. Energy can be dissipated in other ways, like heat, friction, etc.

Using calculus, momentum is the derivative of energy. It is "energy acting at a single point." Thus, it is the best determinant of the effectiveness of a striking tool.

If you can come up with a credible reference saying that it is not so, I'll believe you. But otherwise, I'm fairly certain that momentum determines the effectiveness of a strike, not the energy delivered.

I've been wondering this myself and even looked around briefly on line for any devices that could measure head speed at impact. I found some radar guns for baseball but they didn't seem well suited to measuring axe head speed. Maybe someone on here knows of a device that would work. Head weight is a variable that's easily known. Average head speed could be known with some sort of radar gun. Those two variables could tell us a lot but the most elusive variable to actually measure will be head shape and it's effect.

Respectfully, I think you are both wrong. In T's example, he arbitraily decided that an 8 lb maul could be swung at half the speed of a 4 lbs SS. This would not be the case. By the equation he mentioned, a SS weighing 4 lbs could be swung at 1.4ish (sqrt of 2) times the speed of an 8 lbs maul.

It makes sense that somebody splitting could only impact so much force into a swing, independent of the tool being used. In a heavy maul, this is used to accelerate a large mass to lower speed, and in an Fiskars it accelerates a smaller mass to a higher speed, but energy in will always equal energy out.

The P=MV argument makes good sense, and I think that an experiment is probably the only way to sort it out. Like somebody mentioned above, ghosts in the machine like head shape, elasticicity of the collision, etc. are way beyond the scope of a thought experiment. Honestly, I think they are even beyond the engineers of some poorly splitting mauls, and they do this for a living.

Well, at least you disagree respectfully. Gotta admire that. I think the vast majority of carpenters now using titanium head hammers dis-proves your thinking a bit though. I know it did mine.