Hello Dan Dill
I live in Finland, the lanf of Fiskars. I have the whole varioty of Fiskars axes.
I have used them a lot.They are not bad. I allso have the Swedish axes, Hultafors and Gransfors. The German Helkowerk allso belongs to my axe collection. The Canadian Super spalter is with me, as well, and so are the Chinese copies.
There was a good reason why I started to greate a totally new axe. I had to use the traditional axes, because there was not any other alternatives.
Anyway, I started to think nearly 20 years ago, why the human race is still using a tool that was invented 4 million years ago on the stoneage.
I experienced the traditional axes very dangerouse and hard to work with.
So I started to use more and more my time to greate safe and very effective hand operated woodsplitting apparatus/tool. Finally I found the correct form and weight with totally new way to operate. It is a long story how I found the correct way to manufacture/produce the blade. That information is told on my homepages. (Directions for use. Click the flag of England).
VIPUKIRVES/LEVERAXE easily beats all the axes mentioned above.
By using VIPUKIRVES you do not have to worry about your wrists or legs, because the splitting mechanism is totally differeft comparing to the traditional one. Hit and loosen your touch on the handle and let it rotate in your hands. It does not hurt at all. The blade ramains on the block and does no come to your foot. The trees ,you mentioned , are not familiar to me, but the trees you see on my wideo are BIRCH, PINE/REDWOOD, WILLOW/OSIER.
I allso have splitted ELM, OAK, MAPLE, SIX/SPRUCE, MOUNTAIN ASH/ROWAN.
So far I have not had any difficulties with these trees.
As told before, with these trees VIPUKIRVES is much more efective than any other axe what I have ever used before. VIPUKIRVES is specially designed for splitting purposes. Suggested lenght of the block is 25-33 centimeters/ 10-13,5 inches. The diameter can be what ever, there is no limit, because you can safely start the splitting from the outer edge/side of the block. You can split on the groun or on the rock. The blade remains on the block.It does not go throw the block.
I do not touch any traditional axes any more.
I split my firewood with VIPUKIRVES/LEVERAXE.
I wish you all safe splittings.
www.vipukirves.fi