The Ultimate Guide to American Axes

let's start our look at axis with the history of the axe now the axe went from stone to Flint to copper to bronze to iron and then the steel like the modern axe today now the earliest axe that I have in my collection is this 17th century trade axe and it still has some of the touch marks on it here from the original maker this axe has no pole on it and you'll notice that this is a 1930s Collins that was a trade axe to South America that also is made with no pole now what's wrong with this axe for today's standards is that there's no weight behind the blade it wobbles it has a speed wobble when you use it this was actually an 18th century splitting maul still has what looks like the original handle in it and then of course we have the healing axe side axe or better known as a broad axe this is a Germanic goose wing and you can see also the touch marks in it now this one here you'll notice there's just a trainer this is a transitional axe here and has a hint of a pole on it an 18th century shingling hatchet and a related tool which is the woodworkers ads now it looks like a grub hoe but it's not it's for woodworking it's not quite as old as the axe but we're going to take a look at the ads today also now around 1750 in North America some unknown blacksmith added the pole now the pole is the weight behind the handle and what it does is it gives a counterbalance to the blade weight it eliminated that speed wobble wood I talked about when you cha we just had this single bit or pole wax because of the pole and this is a good old True Temper as a matter of fact my father gave me this axe when I was 14 and went into the woods now it's hung with a straight handle on it instead of a fawns foot or a curved handle it's a jersey pattern it's my personal favorite as far as a pattern goes because it has a short bit wide cutting edge and it also has bevels ground in it which are for easy release in in sticky wood this one here is a Michigan and it's got a rounded pole on it a little bit longer bit a little bit fatter this happens to be a Winchester manufactured by the the firearms maker and the Michigan is also still being manufactured and a good service of blacks not my personal favorite as far as a pattern goes the last one that's really still around is called a Dayton pattern and this is a four pound Dayton it's square you notice it has a large pole on it a long bit and it has the fawns foot handle you probably noticed that the different head patterns are more or less geographic and that's because early development of the axe was by blacksmiths in certain geographic locations and also to suit the timber in those locations like a Michigan axe was well suited to the timber in Michigan this is an Australian actress with the head pattern is very much like a Connecticut it's not one of the competition axes and we'll look at a competition axe in a minute but it's about a six pound with a straight handle still being manufactured today and as always we should say a word about safety with an axe should always wear eye protection these are safety glasses you notice that I don't wear gloves I don't wear gloves because I need purchase or a grip on the axe handle when my hands get sweaty I can't get that with gloves but there are times when gloves leather gloves are appropriate now you're a could always have a good leather sheath on it and you should bear good leather boots and remember a sharp axe is a safe axe I've got some double bits here this is a cruiser head pattern it's two and a half pound with a 28 inch handle on it and it's very convenient to carry in the woods with you that head pattern is still being manufactured there are only a couple of double bit patterns still around used to be a lot more this is a Michigan double bit it also is a true temper Kelley perfect has the bevels ground in it you'll notice it sort of has the same round configuration that the single bit michigan the last double bit is a Western pattern and the one we use most out here in Montana you'll notice that the Western has a little bit of an up sweep to it this one also has the bevels ground in it and it is a council tool company which is a manufacturer out of North Carolina that's still making good quality axes it's called the classic line because of the bevels here this one has an octagonal handle on it also a slim tapered octagonal handle one last axe to show you is a full-blown Australian competition this is a two itaiy and it's used in competitive work it's very thinly own here and would not be good for woods now there's a few other shorter axes this one is generally known as a boys axe with a little 26 inch or 28 inch handle on it what I use this for is I use this for years as a a wedge driving axe in the timber felling process on the back cut to drive the wedge it has a nice heavy pole on it now the pole on an axe is there for the weight and it's not meant to drive steel or iron pins wedges whatever the wedges that we drive with this are either wood or modern plastic wedges so it doesn't do damage to the axe this is a little Swedish axe manufactured by hope I'm saying this right grand fours Bronx that's close enough it's good Swedish steel when I sharpened it I could tell it takes a really good edge it has good temper and I think they call it their woodsman pattern it might be a good choice for you and acts if it's used properly is a real safe tool and acts if you cut corners it can be a real dangerous tool the one thing that we've seen in the past that have been injury related in injuries to ankles or feet has come down to one simple thing when you're chopping on a log if you never let your axe handle break a plane that's parallel with the ground as you're chopping then you can't cut your feet and the only time we break that rule is when we're chopping with the log between our body and the axe head you've already made the decision to chop the log the first thing I do again is look at the log figure out what I'm going to do with it where is the best place to chop it if you're living on a downed log you should try to have try to be living the log on the opposite side from where you're standing in other words keep the log between you and your and your axe the second part is when you're limbing a lot of times you'll see that the axe head goes through some of the limbs really so it's pretty easy to get wild in a situation like that so you should be really clear on where other people are and you should be really clear on where your swing is going yeah there's a lot of times when no matter how hard you try you have the limb on the same side of the log that you're standing on when that happens just be doubly sure never to let your axe handle or your axe head drop below the level of your hands that you're chopping the third is when you're swinging is to make sure that you have a clear area in the complete width in the complete radius or arc of your swing when you're doing that you don't want your axe when it's over your head even to hit a little branch so sometimes there might be a little branch that's out of the radio's your swing but it's going to be catching your eye and it's going to be in fearing with your vision the whole time and if that there take the time to remove it that's trying to be as efficient as possible so you're going to strike that wood as many times as it takes to completely sever your cutting surface and then move to the other side instead of making a chop on one side a chop on the other side of on this side of CHOP on this side three times the succession and then breaking it oftentimes in a large log you're not going to be able to remove your first chips by making a wide cut so you'll start with a narrower V and your cut and you'll cut down until your V comes to closure or to a point and then you'll go back up and usually on the strongest side that you have you'll reopen your cut so that it's wider as you come down first take a lot of care to develop accuracy it doesn't matter the power does not matter at first again I'm flexing at the knees especially when I get near this part of the cut so my axe handle stays parallel so work on your accuracy if you're coming down and only after you have that balance and that accuracy then power becomes the third part of the equation wait until you're good at chopping before you try to put power into it a lot of times when you're swinging and you pick the axe up and it goes back past your head on either side and you'll catch out of the corner of your eye a little chip of wood that's stuck on the axe blade you should not try to power through that chip when you try to power down through it it can deflect your axe and you can end up with an injury then there's always the splitting maul this is a six pound Maul it's an axe I instead of a sledge I'm all which I prefer the feel of the handle on wood splitting tool now I'm not one much for newfangled gadgets I like tradition but here's a splitting axe called the super splitter and it's got a little flare on the side here and it works real good I'm real impressed with it it comes in two sizes this being the smaller and then there's a little bit heavier version of it a real quick look at wood splitting here the splitting maul six pound splitting maul and splitting is a matter of concentrating your energy put your put your body weight into it the last splitting tool is just a single bit axe with an axe which doesn't have much of a wedged shape to it and I'm going to take my gloves off here for this so I can feel the handle real good there's a old-timers trick that if you and I'll do this in slow motion if you twist the axe right at the point of impact it'll throw the wood apart and the axe won't stick in it let's try this twisting motion again there we go and I'm hot now now the broadax is my personal favorite of all edge tools to use start off with my grandfather's broad axe it's a big one it's about nine pounds and you'll notice that it has more or less of an original offset handle this is a Pennsylvania pattern broad axe and it's made by William Beatty insan at a Chester Pennsylvania now there's three fairly common twentieth century and 19th century patterns the Pennsylvania being one of them and I'll show you two others here fancy sheath here oops this is called a New Orleans pattern and you'll notice that it's clipped off on the edges it has a pretty large pole what I really like about this pattern is that it has more of a curve to it now the broad axis basically it's flat on this side and the bevel or the basal edge is all on this side this has a dogleg handle which is just an offset a single offset handle is opposed to the ass Bend so Pennsylvania New Orleans and Canadian pattern this one still has the makers sticker on it even though it's a historic axe the Canadian pattern has this little bevel right through here and that distinguishes the Canadian pattern axe you do have a choice though between history and modern there's a fellow in North Carolina Bear Creek tools that's the first one to come up with a well-made broad ax and by well made he under Charlie understands the geometry of a broad ax it's got the curve to it this way the flat side it's it's hung properly this is a good choice for you for a modern manufactured broad axe we're back to the Swedish tools here and this is a European or a Swedish broad axe now it's a knife edge it's not it's basal beveled on both sides I tried this and it works quite well actually the actual healing process starts with scoring of the log and there's a couple of different techniques for scoring let's start off with the most difficult which is to chop a v-notch and on a larger diameter like this a v-notch is the best way to remove the bulk of the wood before you go to the broad axe so what we do here is carefully cut a notch into the depth of the line and then come over here and you keep you keep cutting these v notches into the depth of the line before you go too far down you go like this and you split the bulk of it and again carefully all this work is best done from one top of the log you can store from the ground but it means that you have to rotate the law more than one time so this is called this process it's called juggling the most common method of scoring is slash scoring and those are the marks that usually find on the log and usually done with a smaller diameter the idea is to set up a rhythm as you work your way down the log scoring again to the chalk line and if you can get them evenly spaced and placed each shot one right over the other it makes for a better more traditional look so we'll see rather I can do that for you or not that's the scoring / scoring process and it's a poor trying to get keep the marks three to four inches apart and one over top of the other there's a little if you would there's a little dance that it goes with this a shuffling motion that you do to keep the rhythm going on it to keep your even spacing the healing process is one of removing the rest of the wood to the line that sometimes on a larger diameter log like this that sometimes takes two tries at each side and that would be score in score with the with the pole ax-hewed with the broad axe come back and score the last time to the line and again use the broad axe to finish traditional broad axe work worked forward with it the terminology bark your knuckles came from this historic process where as you're chopping like this your knuckles are in jeopardy on the log that's why historically you hew forward creates more room for your hands the handle is offset this is a dogleg offset to give you a little bit more hand room in there now I also like to hew backwards even though it puts my fingers in more jeopardy barking my knuckles because I can see the plane that I've just worked on and it gives me a better sight line if I go that way but we'll start here and do it in a traditional fashion the broad axe is raised and lowered in an easy motion it's not swung real hard I should mention that historically and even today it's necessary to work on a greenstick this process doesn't work very well at all on a dry log it just splits it out so you can see I'm working forward with the process here the finished product after it's dressed all you're taking thin shavings and some of them are quite thin for an axe and it leaves a fairly smooth smooth surface with just a hint of the scoring marks left in it when you're using the broad axe if you miss especially on these thin shadings sometimes the axe will go on by let it go on by don't let it go into the dirt and rocks the wood chip buildup will keep the save the edge but don't try and pull a missed shot like that these axes are heavy enough as they are if you do it all day long your forearms will be burning actually your forearms will be burning at the end of the day anyway with this because it's mostly forearm work so don't pull it and if you get if you get a chip stuck on the axe edge when you go and stop and remove it otherwise you'll get a glancing blow and you should keep this leg tight and I'm healing right-handed right now keep this leg tight and this leg out of harm's way let's take a look at the foot ads we started off with the 18th century it has a pin pole here now this was for hammering on it's all hand forged a modern-day would be this carpenters and it has a half pole on it this is a Douglas this is the one I use every day in log work and it has a Carpenters adds handle on it the shipwrights has a little bit different handle to it this is a modern manufactured shipwrights this is a lipped shipwrights I don't want to have to say that fast but the lip here keeps the edges from digging in the traditional way to use this tool is to stand on top of the log and chop right towards your feet so I'm going to do that while I'm looking at my feet the ads is actually a plane it's a dressing tool that takes down the surface when broadax hewn logs were dressed up for parlor beams they were planed off and you'll notice that it leaves a smoother finish although undulating but also a fairly thin shaving and in a lot of cases not much not much thicker than a plain shaving blade how about we look at some hatchets hatchet is just the shorter version of the axe since we looked at double bits here's a little double bit hatchet it's about a pound and a half good little camp tool hatchets have different head patterns for different purposes more than Geographic Names the name relates to the use this is a claw hatchet you can see it has a nail pulling claw to it this is one of my favorites for rough log construction and then we have a broad hatchet like the broad axe it's beveled on one side flat on the other side unlike the broad axe the handle is straight in it though and it's a small healing tool shingle hatchet has a flared bit on it you'll notice that this particular make has the bevels ground in it for release and then we have your hunter's axe here hunter's hatchet and it has a nail pulling device here which is useless in my opinion doesn't work well but the shape of it is very much like the Michigan or the Dayton axe pattern this is an odd thing that appeared for a number of years and only by True Temper and it's called a tommy axe it has a head shape like a tomahawk and has a pole for driving and it also has a little claw on it for pulling for more information on axes we have a axe manual that's a companion to this video program there's also a video that we made for historic preservation called these old cabin logs and it's on log cabin restoration you might be interested in that and then there's hand tools for trail work video now this is as close as you're gonna get to see in this cowboy dance he's up in the morning at the breaker day with his axe and the file and lunch packed away and he's off to the Bulls world earn his pay so lie to the woodsman he swings his axe but through the trace the strength of his arms found on the stays affiliated with another day there's a lesson to be he grips the handle shaped by his fan up to the next reefer beast and the chips fly fast each Ewing is true there's music another woodsman he swings his axe with truth

Channel: DOCUMENTARY TUBE

Views: 147,369

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Keywords: wood, bench, tools, hand, sharp, tips, shop, handle, antiques, woodworking, projects, beginners, culture, folklore, cut, chop, info, outdoors, usa

Id: ddpAb0CEFWo

Length: 28min 59sec (1739 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2015