# Splitting Maul Modification



## earlthegoat2 (Sep 24, 2016)

After perusing the Fiskars X25 thread, a few posters commented and showed photos of their modified "home depot" mauls. This intrigued me as I had just purchased the Husky 8lb maul from Home Depot earlier in the week to split the remnants of the limbs that had blown down in my neighborhood from Hermine.

Here is the maul in question.





I fancy myself a pretty experienced wood splitter from years ago as I grew up in a home with an OWB and we did not possess a hydraulic splitter. We had a no name splitting maul that we had to rehandle every year with a generic hickory maul/sledge handle from the local True Value.

I took the factory ground Husky maul and filed a better edge on it quickly and commenced splitting. The wood was Laurel oak and it has intertwined grain but will still split if you really put the effort into it. I split a total of 10 pieces before I decided I would try my own hand at modifying this maul. The main issue was the amount of bounce in this tough wood.

Idiot me, I forgot to take a proper before picture but you will get the idea. Here you see the factory profile on the top side and my semi finished modification on the bottom. The attack angle was just too obtuse and I felt it did not let the maul sink in deep enough before the meat of the wedge starts the actual split.





Here are the steps involved that I took. My goal was to grind down a straight line profile to the edge without getting into the edge if I could help it. That way the angle of attack would be sharper and I could sharpen it at any angle I wanted to quickly and easily with a micro bevel using only a few strokes of a file.

Here is the machine I used. I actually built this belt grinder from the ground up as it was much more economical to do so than buy one commercially. A Burr King with a 12" wheel would be really nice though. A belt grinder is a great choice because the remove material faster than a bench grinder and build up less heat.





Here is my initial grind.





I penned a guide line there with a paint marker as, at the time, I thought I did not want to grind up past that area. I soon found out it would not matter how far I went up within reason and played it by sight and feel after that. Here is a shot of more progression along the middle area





After I got far enough along in the middle I moved to the sides.









As you can see there is some unevenness. This will be cleaned up with a Roloc angle grinder.





Nice and blended and smooth. I took great care not to get into the factory edge as much as possible. I wanted to get the grind very close but not into the edge. I would use a file to do that and put a final edge on it which can be seen in this photo.





Here is finished profile.





It splits much better now. I would judge it is probably a 200% improvement or three times as good as it was or you can split the wood three times as fast. Most notably was that the bounce was completely eliminated thus far. It probably took me an hour to do this work with tools that, unfortunately, not everyone has. So, I can only conclude that it would probably be worth your while to research a different and probably more expensive maul like the Stihl PA80 or something similar. For 20 bucks more it would be well worth it.


----------



## Vail Ave (Sep 26, 2016)

Cool. It looks sweet. Splitting Mauls are one of those things that you really have to use to decide if you like it or not. My old maul, that I inherited from a grandfather, just did not work. I re-hung it, re-profiled the head, had it shave sharp and it still had a strange twist to it when you would strike the wood. It always threw itself to the left if you had a bounce. I replaced it with Council Tool 8 lb maul. I ordered it from Baileys. One of the few inexpensive mauls made in the USA. At first, I was disappointed in the Council Maul. It came very unfinished. I had to re-profile the head, and sharpen it. However, that was time well spent. The first time I sunk it into a big 28" round, I immediately had a smile. After a day of splitting, I knew that it was a damn good tool and not even comparable to my old maul, which was also an 8 llb that looked almost exactly the same. There was just something off in that old maul in the head or handle eye or something. 

Once I break up the big rounds with the council 8 lb, I use the 4.5 lb plastic or fiber handle Home Depot Special - Rockridge? maul. I know the purists hate tools like this with fiberglass or plastic handles, but I absolutely love it for smaller stuff. It feels like a hatchet after swinging the 8 lb for a while, and I keep it sharp so it is great for everything from small rounds to kindling. Very easy to re-sharpen. 

I like the big sledge face.


----------



## waldtricki (Oct 25, 2016)

Earl,

Love the post. You could say I am fairly obsessed with axes, mauls and hatchets and I do the same thing to many of mine. It's amazing the performance difference you can get out of a modified maul if you understand what makes an efficient splitter.

Love the grinder as well. That is on my to do list also. Is there a post on your build somewhere?

Ben


----------



## earlthegoat2 (Oct 25, 2016)

Unfortunately, I don't have any build pictures or write up of building that belt grinder. It is modeled after the knife making belt grinders. Namely, the KMG and one of the Bader models. I own the Grizzly Knifemaker Grinder and I find my shop built one is quite a bit better. However, my shop built one actually cost about 300 dollars more to build than the Grizzly was to buy. My job calls for me to sharpen rotary mower blades a lot and that is the specific purpose I built this for because of the heavy material removal that oftentimes needs to be done.


----------

