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18 June 2011
Winter is here and the temperature is down to around 6 degrees at night here, just north of Bundaberg. I know it gets much colder in other parts of Australia, and I do feel sorry for you, but you could of course move up here which would fix that problem 
Certainly it's not as cold as Finland, where the product I’m talking about comes from, guaranteeing quality.
Lucky for us, Fiskars has been kind enough to give us one of their brand new axes to review, the Fiskars X15. My husband and I (I watched, he chopped) gave this axe awhirl and compared it to one of the old axes we were using up to now. First thing you notice is that this axe is a bit shorter than the other one, which makes it easy to swing and carry. It’s like a ¾ axe I suppose, if you wanted to label it. It does come in 2 different lengths to suit your body type and preference.
The Fiskars X15 is incredibly light due to it being made from fibreglass reinforced polyamide. Basically, this means they are light weight and virtually indestructible. Apparently this is the axe my husband would use if he was in a horror movie, as you can chop & go, where a heavy axe might weigh you down. Don’t ask me why he has been thinking about this subject in the first place, but I do know not to run upstairs.
The blade on this axe is incredibly sharp; you could seriously slice a tomato with it without worries, so keep your fingers and neighbours out of the way. It is made of drop-forged Finnish carbon steel with PTFE coating. The coating is similar to your non-stick pans, which help to decrease friction between the blade and whatever you’re chopping, which will save your arms and shoulders! It also has the unique Fiskars ‘enclosed head’ design, with special fastening between the head and handle so the blade will always stay in place.
The X15 is ideally a chopping axe, made for chopping branches etc, but the sharpness of the blade allows you to split blocks for firewood quite easily as well. We tested it on some proper Aussie hardwood, a great old Ironbark log, and this axe held up its own and chopped the block in only a couple of go’s. Fiskars also has splitting axes available if this is your main purpose.
The Fiskars X15 would be a great axe to take with you when you go 4-wheel driving, so you’re prepared when trees have fallen across the track. It’s much easier to take than a chainsaw, doesn’t use fuel, and you leave it in your car just in case you get stuck somewhere. My husband suggests that, if you leave the axe in your car, you will never be without a hammer to hammer your tent pegs in with either, but I think this axe is a bit too good-looking to use for that purpose....
I’ll be taking this axe with me on my weekly ‘property-patrol’. We run our plant nursery from a 47 acre property which is mostly bush, probably around 40 acres of it. Every week there are trees & branches fallen across the track, and this axe is light enough for me to take and swing around. Beware!
Some tips on chopping & splitting wood from gardening expert Jason Hodges below, with the full article available at the Fiskars website
• Select dry wood; it chops easier and burns better
• Remove nails, screw, spikes etc, or pick wood without
• Pick a solid, flat and clear surface to chop your wood on. An old stump is excellent
• Aim to hit the wood squarely along the grain
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