• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Axe-ident prone Adrian strikes again

AJB Temple

AJB Temple

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Working my way through some massive downed tree piles. Mostly cut into useful lengths by the fellers. Much of it too big for my hydraulic splitter. But I have a double head US felling axe and a Granfors 32" maul splitting axe. Using latter yesterday, on a splitting stump, the axe followed through on a split that was easier than I expected. straight into the side of my foot. Foot now blue (as was the air at the time).

Lucky escape as I was wearing proper boots. End of the day and I was tired. Done about 5 cubic yards so far. Will take more care in future. Hobbling about for a few days.
 
Being tired & lack of concentration can be very dangerous when using tools, I managed to circular saw the end of my finger last week, a bad decision when tired as was not bothering to go to A&E but we live to fight another day.
 
Very good move wearing strong boots ! And using the right axe - a sharp one might have been a different story. One of our greenwood group went to A&E with his leg gaffa taped together after an error with a hewing axe. I was sawing up and splitting some 10-15" diameter ash logs by hand at the weekend and my aim was definitely getting less accurate towards the end.

Hope nothing is broken and recovery is quick !
 
that could easily been worse. I do use steel toe cap shoes when I am splitting logs but those mauls are heavy and could easily break bones never mind a nasty cut.
How high is your splitting stump? and what diameter is the surface? Why did the maul not end up in the stump? I have often wondered if there is a optimum height/size. Mine is about the same height as the log I am splitting, ie 50cm and also as much in diameter. Although I am usually just splitting already split logs and not those still in the round.
 
The stump I was using Andy is about 40cm diameter and about the same height. Almost all the wood I am splitting at the moment is smaller diameter, but all in the round - the big stuff will be done in situ. Reason the maul didn't end up in the stump was a knot low down in the log which made the mall come out of the cut to the right. The maul is actually quite sharp and heavy (7 lb head I think). The wood is very difficult - stringy and notty. It was felled this year and so the stuff that was alive is pretty wet inside. I knew I was tired and was about to stop. It was the last but one log from six wheelbarrows full.
 
Ouch! That's a disappointing end to your day.....
 
Yes. Thanks guys. It could have been a severe ankle injury. It's quite common apparently. I am actually careful with axes and chainsaws. In fact I never use a chainsaw for anything on my own - my wife is always there. I was lucky. Heavy duty thick leather boots saved me, but an overhead full power axe swing from a tall man with a long handled heavy axe has a lot of force behind it. I was legs astride and in most cases the axe would have hit the block or at worst gone between my legs. I posted my latest accident as a kind of salutary lesson to all of us who chop wood. All accidents have chance involved. I knew a lot of this wood was knarly. At the end of the day, when tired, my aim is less accurate. Lesson learned.
 
Headline. "Man mauled at the woodpile."

Sorry, couldn't help myself. :giggle:

Pete
 
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