The problem of using an axe or mall around the house for splitting or cutting wood

The problem is that most people don't know how to properly use these tools anymore. this is why you see so many gasoline powered splitters around. However, they are dangerous too. How are they dangerous?

The force of splitting wood can cause the wood to explode sometimes and when you apply that much force to wood it can do really strange things.

So, whether you are using a gasoline powered horizontal splitter or whether you are using a mall and wedge or an axe there is danger in all of these things when you split wood.

For example around 1970 my father and I were gathering and splitting wood near Yucca Valley to burn to stay warm where we were staying that winter and when he split some wood a piece of it went through his cheek. He laughed and stuck his tongue through the hole in his cheek. You had to be there to understand what was really happening then. But, my father made a joke of anything. He was one of the funniest people I have ever known. He didn't want me to freak out seeing a hole in his cheek and thought of me rather than himself then. I was about 22 years old then and had just returned from a trip to New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada and Arizona and Utah.

So, even if you are experienced with axes and malls and wedges there is still danger sometimes because you don't really know what the wood is going to do when you apply force to it of an intense nature. It might just get you when you least expect it.

My father had also almost cut off his shin in Idaho visiting his father's mining claim and showed me the

 x-rays of how the axe had almost cut his shin bone in two in Idaho too. but somehow it all healed back okay.

So, the point is the worst thing to happen to me was cutting a dead lodge pole pine down for firewood and the top of the 30 foot dead tree hitting my head and knocking me to the ground almost unconscious.

This convinced me not to cut down anymore dead trees because I didn't want to experience almost being knocked unconscious by a falling dead tree top with great force ever again.

So, be careful out there and survive what you are doing with all your fingers and toes intact.

By God's Grace