A unique and unusual axe (well for Maine at least!) The Basque Axe!

I gotcha covered! The handle on mine shrunk (I believe) so it doesn't fit the best, it's got about 1/32" of the steel sticking over the eye, I need to soak the handle later to see if I can get any of it back.
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DarthTaco123 said:
I gotcha covered! The handle on mine shrunk (I believe) so it doesn't fit the best, it's got about 1/32" of the steel sticking over the eye, I need to soak the handle later to see if I can get any of it back.
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The beauty of slip fit is the head won't fly off! Good chance that Mediterranean wood never dries/shrinks to the percentage it's 'living at' now. Soaking in swel-lok or some such might thicken up the handle for you, or maybe you want to consider installing a very thin taper wedge (or two) so as to expand the wood slightly. The idea here is not to lock the head in place but to gently resize the handle.
 
I was actually thinking of gluing two thin pieces of wood to kerf (can we call it that?) and rasping them to fit the eye of the axe to lock it in place.
 
DarthTaco123 said:
I was actually thinking of gluing two thin pieces of wood to kerf (can we call it that?) and rasping them to fit the eye of the axe to lock it in place.
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I know it's a slip fit, but couldn't you tap down the head and then saw a kerf and wedge it like a normal hang?
 
DarthTaco123 said:
The handle on mine shrunk (I believe) so it doesn't fit the best, it's got about 1/32" of the steel sticking over the eye, I need to soak the handle later to see if I can get any of it back.
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300Six said:
Soaking in swel-lok or some such might thicken up the handle for you.......
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I'd go this route. Remove the head and soak the top of the haft in swel-lock. See how that goes before doing anything else.
 
Tried Swel-lock and it didn't seem to improve much, I'm adding on some wood to the sides of the top of the handle, I'll rasp it out and fit the head. That should do it, I'd think.
 
DarthTaco123 said:
I was actually thinking of gluing two thin pieces of wood to kerf (can we call it that?) and rasping them to fit the eye of the axe to lock it in place.
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DarthTaco123 said:
Tried Swel-lock and it didn't seem to improve much . . .
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I don't know anything about Swel Lock in wood. What I have read from Behlem is it "Actually swells wood . . .". My concern is that if the handle has sucked up a bunch of Swel Lock, how will that affect the strength of the glue bond when the pieces of wood are glued to the handle?

Bob
 
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I'm hoping that the glue will help seal in the swel-lok more, I've used thin layers on khukuri handles (wood and super glue) to help water-proof them if they're taking extended stays in a wet environment with success thus far. Hoping the same principle will carry over.
 
I know this is kinda crude and cheater but I'd rather wrap a handle with friction tape (or some such) to build it out 1/16" than I would want to start trying to laminate on new pieces of wood. Too bad the factory didn't leave an extra 1/4-1/2 inch proud of the eye when they were doing the final fitting.
 
D'oh Six why couldn't you have been the voice in my head saying that last NIGHT. Well, the lamination worked pretty well ( may have got the head fit TOO tight) but I'll be taking it out for some work today, got some Black Cherry that I took down that'll be handles in the future (not the best, I know). Let's see if my plan worked.
 
Twindog , what kind of steel to chop the cars ? Is it CPM3V ? I've got to know !
 
mete said:
Twindog , what kind of steel to chop the cars ? Is it CPM3V ? I've got to know !
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Hard to tell, Mete. Forty-two could be right, but we don’t even know who the maker of those axes are.

The Hachas Artesanas Jauregi Basque axes are described as steel with 0.45 to 0.5 percent carbon and hardened to 55 Rc.

The Bellota axes are F-114 steel with 0.45 percent carbon hardened to 55 Rc.

But the steel those guys are using could be anything. The Basques have been making steel and axes for a very long time. They had mines and coal and quick access to England’s industrial muscle. There is even speculation that the Norse brought Basque axes to Newfoundland before Columbus.
 
Twindog said:
But the steel those guys are using could be anything. The Basques have been making steel and axes for a very long time. They had mines and coal and quick access to England’s industrial muscle. There is even speculation that the Norse brought Basque axes to Newfoundland before Columbus.
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That's not speculation. Port aux Basques (the port town) in NFLD was used seasonally as a fishing base long before the official explorers. Even the Vikings preceded Columbus to NFLD by more than a couple of hundred years. Their settlement is now a world heritage site called L'Anse aux Meadows.
 
Adding extra wood worked! Chopped down a maple (darned woodpeckers killed it) that'll become axe handles.
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