Tools
I’ve used a lot of them in my life. This is the first in a series of columns that are on these useful instruments. Anthropology tells us that these are signs of creatures being humanlike. Genesis does not bother to tell us when the wheel or other tools were invented.
Fire is another tool that Moses did not see fit to discuss. Much has been written about it. I’ll talk more about it another time. When I saved this file, I had to put it in a category, and I chose the Words file. They are one of my favorite tools.
The thought that sparked this article was my splitting maul. I know many of you are not familiar with this apparatus. I purchased mine over thirty years ago. We had moved onto Talmage Street to the second home that we owned. It had a wood stove in the family room.
These were invented by Ben Franklin. The wood stove, not the splitting maul. Our stove was not a Franklin type, but it was efficient enough to supplement the heating in our four-bedroom, two-bath house. I am probably incorrect when I say Ben invented the stove. He developed the Franklin Stove. I also probably need to be more specific about wood stoves.
In the nineteen-eighties I saw a picture of a wood stove that was only good for one use. It was not safe. It was made of wood. I am talking of a steel unit designed to burn wood. Today I split wood to fuel our fireplace in our current home. This is considered a luxury item in today’s standards.
Before gas, coal, or central heating, it was common in every structure. Our first load of wood was purchased by my mother. It came cut and split. Have you seen those small bundles of wood at grocery and home stores? They usually appear in the fall. Those are for apartment dwellers that have a fireplace for decorative purposes.
Some of my friends began bringing us cut logs for our stove. It must be sacked and cured to burn properly. I cover mine with a tarp to keep it relatively dry. It was not long before I became aware of our need for a device to split the larger logs. That is when I purchased my maul. You can split with an axe, but it is not as efficient as a triangular head mail.
I learned this from my travels as a salesman at the time. Some of my customers sold these items in many designs and styles. I even called on one plant that manufactured stoves, which stocked assorted accessories for the stoves. I discussed the splitting mauls with the salesmen at these companies and discovered one that I thought was best for me.
It has a heavy triangular steel head welded to a steel handle with a cushioned grip. Buying it was the easy part. Learning how to use it properly has taken me many years. The best way that I have discovered is to place the log to be split on a shorter log. You raise the maul and allow the weight of the head to propel it down with the aid of gravity.
The trick is to hit the end of the log in a spot that will split. This takes trial and error with each different log. That first winter after I had my maul, I learned the best time to split wood was when it was frozen. The fibers are more rigid and separate more easily at twenty degrees Fahrenheit or less.
I am sure many of you wonder why I just wasted your time explaining all of this. That is the thing about all tools. Some of us use them, and others care less about those they do not need. Is that how you treat people? I hope not.
Charles (Chuck) Kensinger 