Stickler Log Splitter: Split Wood the Easy Way

By The Mother Earth News Editors
Published on September 1, 1976
1 / 2

The Stickler attaches to the car's axle.
The Stickler attaches to the car's axle.
2 / 2

The quickest, easiest way to split logs.
The quickest, easiest way to split logs.

Ever so often, a new product comes down the pike that is so good and so reasonable in price and so sturdily made and so right for the job that it’s designed to do, that you just gotta tell people about it.

Such a product is the Stickler log splitter, originally manufactured and marketed by Taos Equipment Manufacturers, Inc.,  now made in Enumclaw, Wash. This is the good one, gang … so good that we wouldn’t be surprised to see it put almost every other log splitter on the market out of the market. And soon.

As a matter of fact, the Stickler has already done just that to the full line of hydraulic splitters; that Taos (itself) used to make. Because, just like all the other manufacturers in the field who made a quality hydraulic splitter that could handle logs of any size at all with any kind of speed, Taos was forced (by the cost of the components that went into its units) to price its line at $1,375 and up. And that “up” for Taos and most other firms that produced hydraulic splitters could go clear into the stratosphere.

Imagine the surprise, then, of both David Kimball and Larry Krogness (sales and marketing managers, respectively, of TEM, Inc.) a few months ago, when they found that they could manufacture and sell a $235 splitter that would cleave bigger logs faster and more surely, in most cases, than even their $2,375 hydraulic machine could handle.

“Holy moly!” the two young (early 30’s) entrepreneurs exclaimed. “This is gonna revolutionize the log splitting business. We’d better get this thing on the market before someone else beats us to it.”

And so, within weeks (which is to say early this year), they did put the Stickler on the market … and, by mid-summer, they’d already seen the little dickens dang near completely kill all demand for (sob!) their more expensive hydraulic splitters.

Comments (0) Join others in the discussion!
    Online Store Logo
    Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368