How to Sharpen an Axe (Its Easy)

welcome back to this episode of home but workshop today we're gonna sharpen an axe [Music] a few times in the last couple of weeks I've mentioned on social media that I'm working on removing a few tree stumps we had some trees cut down in our yard last fall and the stumps are still there so it's been my project for the last month or so to remove these stumps now ideally I'd like to be to dig them right out of the ground completely but the ground is somewhat frozen and that's a lot of work to do by hand my goal ended up being just to get them below the surface so that I can cover them over and they never existed the way I've been doing that is by using a chainsaw making slices down into the stump and then hacking those slices out with this axe now this X is nothing fancy just a hardware store axe but it is taken a beating and we need to fix this edge really really bad so I'm gonna bring you in here nice and close so you can see how horrible this edge is there's a chip right there lots of nicks some dents and dings and that thing couldn't cut anything if it tried now to get this thing nice and sharp I'm not gonna use anything any fancier than this file and later on a little sharpening stone so let's look at how I'm gonna set this up to do this sharpening are you ready for this high-tech setup all I'm doing is clamping the axe to my table I'm using these style clamps as opposed to like an F style clamp I'm afraid an F style clamp would put an indent in the handle it may marred up which really isn't a big deal but I'm trying to avoid it if at all possible if that's all you have by all means use what you got my goal is really just to make sure that this thing's not gonna move alright so hopefully you can see this raggedy old blade I'm gonna start out by running my file over the blade just lightly and that's just so I can see the angle that I'm holding my file I want to adjust the angle of my file to get to cut across the front edge of the blade once I find it I'll just start making passes with a little bit more pressure now you'll notice I'm not filing all crazy back and forth and back and forth a file is meant to cut and Wonder so there's no reason to just go all wild and file away like a maniac you can start to see how quickly it actually starts cleaning up the blade now this sides not done there's still some dings and really deep scratches that I need to get out now I've got most of the scratches out there's still some chips and Nick's down here but I'm gonna flip the blade over and file on the other side I'll just keep flipping the sides over making sure I file each side evenly you don't want to file too much on one side or you'll end up with your point off-center now I'm finding that I need just to spend a little more time on both of the edges they were really rounded over and it's taking a little bit more filing to get an edge on it than it does in the middle once you're done filing on both sides you can get a pretty decent and a very usable edge using just a file it's pretty sharp right now so it'll cut paper it's a little raggedy we can do better we're gonna take our sharpening and step it up a notch I'm gonna use one of these little sharpening pucks now this thing is made by Lansky not sponsored by Lansky or anything but I have used several Lansky products with a lot of success in the past and this one is just the same if you're interested in this little guy I'm gonna put a link down below in the description I'm gonna start out with a stone on the rougher side I'm just gonna use some three in one oil [Applause] and even after only a few passes I can already feel that edge getting refined and more sharp once I remove all the file marks with the stone I'll switch over to the finer side and finish the edge I really do like this little thing it's really handy you can throw it in your bag take it with you camping really handy gizmo to have around usually my last few passes I try to make just really light swipes without swirling [Music] what was that you said it's still not sharp enough I think we can step it up one more notch using a leather strop with some green compound I made this strap a while back if you're interested to see how I did it so you can make your own I'll put a link down below in the description of that video after several passes the blade starts to get really shiny and sharp and now should be able to shave with it probably can't see that but I don't have a hairy enough arm smart whether or not you've got a hardware store axe or a very expensive high-quality axe this is a good way to get it nice and sharp and once you've spent this kind of time putting a nice edge on an axe it does make you think twice about how you treat the edge so you don't have to do this again too soon so thanks a lot for checking out this video everybody I hope you found it helpful if you did go ahead and click that thumbs up button and leave me a comment let me know what you thought about this video like always links in the description to social media website all that fun stuff and with that being said until next time thanks a lot for watching once you sharpen an axe this way and you've really put the time in to getting it this sharp it kind of makes you a treat the edge a little bit nicer and so just taking it out there and whacking it into the ground which I may or may not have done before trying to cut those stumps out we won't talk about that oh that was a good timing phone rings just as I turned off the camera all right axe prepared to be strapped

Channel: Home Built Workshop

Views: 299,999

Rating: 4.9225717 out of 5

Keywords: Home Built Workshop, homebuiltshop, Jeff Baker, How to Sharpen an Axe, Sharpen an axe, Lansky Sharpening Puck, Axe Sharpening, How to sharpen a hatchet, sharpen a hatchet, DIY Axe Sharpening, DIY Hatchet Sharpening, Lansky Sharpening Stone, Axe sharpener, File an axe, LEather Sharpening Strop, Make a leather strop, How to chop wood, Leather strop, strop an axe, how to strop an axe

Id: RL6Nfvbhebc

Length: 7min 47sec (467 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 02 2019