The Great Wood-splitting Contest II!

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To drive in the Woodchomper's wedge, you must slide the ten-pound cover piece down onto the central shaft. The assembly thus allows the user to stand erect and raise his or her arms up and down (instead of swinging a sledgehammer overhead), and some folks may prefer such a limited, guided movement. The splitter also seemed — as long as its operator doesn't get a toe under the tool or get recklessly carried away — like a safe device to use. Of course, one can't get as much force into each blow with this lift-and-drop technique as is possible with a good hard swing, so it takes a number of moderate strokes with the Woodchomper to drive the wedge through wood (and the tool might be hard-pressed to tackle truly stubborn rounds).

CLASS 2: MAULS

THE SIDE WINDER, Chopper Industries, P.O. Box 87, Easton, Pennsylvania 18042.

Some old-time, axe-wielding log splitters like to "twirl" the tool — that is, give the axe a slight sideways snap of the wrist — right when the blade strikes the wood, in order to deliver a little extra splitting force as the cutting edge enters the log. The eight-pound Side Winder is designed to help its user automatically duplicate that wood-splitting feat: The instrument's weight is slightly unbalanced, one side of its blade bulges out more than the other, and its cutting edge has an extra indentation on one side — all to make the maul snap sideways on impact.

Well, as far as we could tell, the tool showed no special "automatic twirl" ability, and was consequently no more effective at splitting wood than is an ordinary eight-pound go-devil. (Mind you, that judgment's not an insult — the average splitting maul is a fine wood-cleaving implement.) As a pleasant plus, however, the side-weighted maul (thanks to its thicker blade) did seem to have less tendency to get stuck in a round than does the normal go-devil.

THE MONSTER MAUL, Sotz Corporation, 13628 Station Road, Columbia Station, Ohio 44028.

Last year, we covered the original big Monster Maul and decided that the woodcracking tool "seemed unbreakable (no more ruined handles!), never stuck in a round, divided even the knottiest pieces," but was danged heavy. Well, Leonard Sotz, the maul's creator, had (unbeknownst to us at the time) already addressed that problem by devising a smaller version of the tool. Moreover, this "little brother" has been so successful that Sotz no longer even tries to market the larger maul. So for all intents and purposes, the "younger" round ripper shown in the accompanying photos is now the official Monster Maul.

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