Re: Broad Axe

I'd like to just have it as a display in the shop.

a hit-or-miss project, itself. Would be interesting or something to, at least, try, though.

Offset handles are for sissies. Real men use straight handles.

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The handles may be straight but the eyes aren't parrallel to the edge for a lot of them... You need clearance to hew logs...

The flat side goes toward the wood, and the offset handle, if you get one, bows out toward the bevel side to make room for your hands if you squat or kneel beside the log you're working on, as seen by the old gray-haired guy in the PreCanada link in another post.

One which fits the head.

I'd like to just have it as a display in the shop.

Then get a straight handle. They're a lot cheaper.

a hit-or-miss project, itself. Would be interesting or something to, at least, try, though.

Go for it, Sonny! Split your own hickory from a sapling using your froe and size it with your drawknife! You do know to run the grain the same direction as the head for best strength, right?

-- In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. -- Albert Camus

Not if you stand on the log or next to it but over it. The offset is mandatory for clean work while squatting next to the log.

-- In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. -- Albert Camus

I guess I've been conditioned to how to hew logs proficiently from my time working at Colonial Williamsburg... that and a pit saw were sort of an every day thing to me in those days! Anyhow, I took a look at YouTube and was stunned at how many ways people hew... many of them waste a LOT of energy! It was interesting to see some with the wrong hand forward when using a right hand axe. It was also interesting to see the broad axe deployed way too soon in the process. To me it was sort of like using sandpaper to flatten boards instead of a jointer and thickness planner...

Every old broad axe I've seen either had a bent handle with an off set eye or a straight handle set into an angled and off set eye. The off set eye left one side of the axe head flat. Outside of a few broad hatchets, that I suspect were rehandled, none had straight handles with no sort of offset beyond an off set eye. I suppose for smaller logs a handle in line with the cutting edge would work but if the log is of any larger size room is needed for the hands. Failing that it would be very difficult to get a shaving cut across the entire face of the width of the log.

Here's a video of Roy doing a program for Ted. He did a similar program at my wood working club a few years ago. This process was used at Williamsburg and other historical sites I have visited. It's efficient as, to paraphrase Roy, it takes advantage of the weaknesses of wood.

hewing oak - straight handle - straight eye

(co-planer)... the handle appears to be staight but the eye is angled slightly.

bevel model which is more of a chopping/splitting axe than a finishing axe. As such, the user calls upon a second axe that has an off set angled eye to do the finishing. This is very clear at the end of video while it's laying on the log.

One way or another you need room for your hands when doing the finishing work... even if it's only slight clearance.