That Fiskars sounds waaaaaaayyyyyyy too high maintenance for me! I had a woman like that
once. Real nice to look at, but don't do anything with it, or you will pay! Now ya gotta buy a grooming kit just to keep it sharp. Now ya gotta buy some sort of mystery oil to convince it that it really is just an axe and still has to split wood. And worst of all, if you aren't really really really careful around it, it has NO problem removing one of your appendages! Yep! High maintenance woman you guys have there! Good luck with that!
I will gladly stick with my 3.5 pound splitting axe. It knows what it is: a friggen axe! Nothing more, nothing less. And I know it will split anything that fiskars will. And more!
Ted
p.s. dang, it's sooo much fun to harass the fiskars worshipers! hehheh
Not really, it's a steel tool used outside. A little oil and sharpening now and then is zero difference from any other axe. It does come with a teflon coating, and it doesn't hurt to start oiling it right from brand new. Same as any other brand new axe. Or not, it is not 100% necessary. You can let it get rusty or dull, same as any other axe.
Fiskars hits a nice price point between absolute bottom of the barrel and real expensive, same as saws, trucks, etc. There are asian, mexican, european, and USA made tools, fiskars is a relatively decent quality and affordable tool imported from europe. Certainly not as expensive as the other european examples, and only a bit more expensive over the cheapest asian and mexican ones. and a lot of us, not all, but a lot of us can make them work just dfine, and are a nice step up in most wood over what we were using before. I know whatever I can split with a 4.5 fiskars rather than grabbing my old 8lb maul makes my splitting work go much easier for me. Fiskars I can swing for hourrs, that old maul after quarter to half an hour..no mas!
It is what it is, I am not a 20 something at over 200 lbs, I am a 60 something at under 120. I have to use the lightest tool that accomplishes the task. Fiskars worked so amazingly well with me..I mean shoot, no contest over that old maul for the bulk of the wood I need to split, not all the wood, but the bulk.. I still use the maul, but only when absolutely necessary.
Same with saws, I have, for huskies, at the low end a 137, high end a 394xp..I am not using that 394 to do light weight sapling clearing...nor would I use that 137 to fell 3 ft plus trees, when I have the appropriate tool. Both require similar, not the same but similar, (largest difference is in length of chain to sharpen), care and maintenance though. The same as any axe requires similar maintenance.The 200 buck axes require light oiling and sharpening, AFAIK...same as a 20 buck axe...