Hazard A Guess: Week of March 28, 2002

Hello from Hazard!

Somehow, I don’t think Item No. 643 would have passed muster with the consumer safety police – it is the Thunderbolt, a black powder log splitter!

“Split Big Logs this Easy Way with THUNDERBOLT,” proclaimed an advertisement that Ron Holland of Malvern, Ohio, shared with us when he brought in the tool.

“Easier & Faster to split logs in the woodlot than axe-splitting in the woodbed. Drive Thunderbolt like a spike, light fuse and BANG, it splits firewood.”

I’m sure it does!

The pointed end has a hole that goes almost the length of the tool, and that’s where you put the black powder.

Reader Delbert Woloski of Newton Falls, Ohio, adds that as you pound the splitter into a log, a wooden plug from the log is forced into the tool. Then, he says, “you just light the fuse and stand back. When this thing goes off, it forces that plug into the log and splits the whole thing.

“They sure are fun to use!” he adds.

Dean Straffin of Cranberry, Pa., also correctly identified the object, as did Al Garmer of Tarentum, Pa.

This week’s item is a strange-looking mystery item. This funnel-shaped bucket has no hole in the bottom. Do you know what it was used for? If so, let us hear from you. Write: Hazard a Guess, P.O. Box 38, Salem, OH 44460; or via e-mail at editorial@farmanddairy.com.

Thanks to Wayne Cooper of Fombell, Pa, for sending it in to us.