A fine handle that's comming together with a fantastic axe

Ernest DuBois said:
You say, a felling and a bucking, Square_peg, and I do so little of this work, fun as it is, that it's not something that gets much thought, but isn't notching from a-top basically very similar?
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Absolutely. Juggling is a bucking operation.

Ernest DuBois said:
Let's also not forget to mention it, very basic, that even when the chopping direction is reversed the grip configuration remains the same, right?
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That depends. While just bucking a log in two, blows from the left or right use this same grip. But as I mentioned in an earlier thread there is sometimes an advantage to juggling in the opposite direction that you intend to hew with the broadaxe. In other words I would juggle left-handed with the left hand on the knob and from the opposite end of the log. This way the frayed loose ends of wood from juggling face the opposite way as the broadaxe will approach it, preventing the broadaxe from following a fray too deeply into the surface. It's a subtle difference but it helps me a little. E.G., in the image above I'm hewing from right to left. It would be advantageous to have juggled from left to right. I think I had done a mix on that piece.

Ernest DuBois said:
Still with that said, you are choosing to position your inside foot forward and straddle the plane, or the lay-out line.
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I am constrained by the weight of my hewing axe, about 8 pounds as hung. Really heavier than needed for this type of use. As a result of the weight I'm trying to keep the work as close to my center of gravity as possible. A man is strongest when the work is at his center. This also gives me more control and more stamina.

When the log is lower to the ground I may rest my left knee atop the log and do without the makeshift platform. It's all about positioning the work in your strength zone. This is also a founding principle of Wing Chun style of martial arts.
 
Ernest DuBois said:
My head's a spinnin' after reading all that. Any chance to simplify? Otherwise I'll have to re and re-read.
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Of course. Could you possibly hang one of the left-hand designed German/Austrian goosewing broad axes you enjoy using on your handle if you flipped it upside-down.

If you did, would the balance be too thrown off for you to consider it worthwhile?
 
Agent_H said:
Square_peg - is your natural swing over your left or right shoulder? Can you easily change grip without awkwardness? Only asking out of curiosity.
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During many years in the trades I trained myself to split up the work between left-handed and right-handed. This reduces strain and builds the body more symmetrically which helps alleviate back problems and repetitive stress injuries. Whether hammering, shoveling, axeing, pushing a broom or even raking I will force myself to share the work with my left hand. It's not 50-50 but it's a substantial portion of the work that is done with my left hand dominant.
 
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Straddling the plane or lay-out line as you show, it's something not uncommon - double negative = positive = common - and has the very real advantage as you say it of centering the work. In that sense it's appealing to me. I always feel constrained doing it that way in the sense it is a static position, some, the very good hewer Axel Weller for example, even going as far as sitting or hooking a thigh over the stem.
 
Agent_H said:
Of course. Could you possibly hang one of the left-hand designed German/Austrian goosewing broad axes you enjoy using on your handle if you flipped it upside-down.

If you did, would the balance be too thrown off for you to consider it worthwhile?
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I give it my best, if I'm missing the boat please be blunt and tell it. One axe I have attempted a re-handle with a sort of reverse curve
p9040958.jpg

it was a failure on multiple levels.
 
Ernest DuBois said:
I give it my best, if I'm missing the boat please be blunt and tell it. One axe I have attempted a re-handle with a sort of reverse curve
p9040958.jpg

it was a failure on multiple levels.
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I guess I was getting at how awkward it would be to flip your Beech handle over 180 degrees and hang an axe such as this so that the current offset of your handle then went the same direction that the eye is canted/the same side as your axe’s bevel, towards the side of the user in your photos- to the left then in your case.
3_BFDCF1_E-_C3_B4-4_BDB-_AB11-_E3021_F93_B79_D.jpg

This is an oversized D-eyed handle similar to yours that I flipped upside down to take a photo. This handle has no offset, yours seems offset to the right.

With the handle flipped, your handle would then bend left, be attached to a left-handed axe, and be manipulated by a left-hander.

I apologize if I’ve wasted more space not writing clearly.
 
If you ask do I feel even more spatially retarded now, left, right, up,down, front, back, flipped, turned, this way that way, then before the answer is yes. But that is my problem Agent_H, no need for apologies. Yes you got beech for your handle me, I got holly.
 
Square_peg said:
During many years in the trades I trained myself to split up the work between left-handed and right-handed. This reduces strain and builds the body more symmetrically which helps alleviate back problems and repetitive stress injuries. Whether hammering, shoveling, axeing, pushing a broom or even raking I will force myself to share the work with my left hand. It's not 50-50 but it's a substantial portion of the work that is done with my left hand dominant.
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Being able to work both right and left handed is only going to be positive. I once was into making my own wood shingles from hardwood using a particular kind of archaic French axe only available in right hand versions, (of course I could have gone to the smid for a custom model, it's still possible) and spent some time training myself in its use. It was fairly successful and soon enough, after the first thousand shingles or so, I began to have this "natural" feeling, ha ,ha, ha. It's funny because it's this feeling that has to be overcome rather than succumbed to and it's here where a rational approach and reliance on the principles involved will strengthen and support your efforts to expand your tool using horizons to the furthest heights getting you unstuck from wrong thinking.
 
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Training your off hand requires careful examination of how you perform the task with your dominant hand.
 
Yes, to take the analytical approach as you say and apply the results to your own particular conditions and include things like, oh I don't know, bevel configuration, angles of approach, resistance, deflection... all these and more having little or nothing to do with how it feels, for example because how it feels is not always in conformity with the better ways.
 
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