I'm hoping someone here on the forum has had some experience axeing around in Australia. I'm curious about how tough some of the native hardwoods are on axes? Jarrah for instance. Are they so hard they require an axe of particular geometry? Wider geometry? Thinner? Are they tougher to split, or buck, or both?
Our axes rang in the woodlands,
Where the gaudy bush-birds flew,
And we turned the loam of our new-found home,
Where the eucalyptus grew.
- Frank Hudson, "Pioneers"
Aussie here. New to the forums, et al. (This'll be by way of introduction.) A little bit of experience follows, with a fair bit of prognosticatin' and some other accounts.
The classic Aussie pattern is the Tasmanian pattern axe - short, squat, and almost square. The cheeks are fairly round and plump, convex to stop you getting stuck.
Compare it to the softwood axes of North America...well, those softwood axes look like almost like mortising axes. Or the European axes, with their long, gangly appearance and no polls on the traditional Swedish axes. Those were designed for significantly more gentle chopping than the American or Australian axes. (Some Brits who came over and saw Aussie timber-getting in the late 19th-early 20th centuries were taken aback at how "violent" the axemen were with their axes, and noted how they "throw" the axe into the wood.)
However, the Tassie Pattern was probably developed by Plumb or Kelly, or one of the other American Axe makers, definitely not an English maker like Brades or Gilpins. The Tassie is definitely patterned after an American design - it was not a product of convergent evolution. As soon as American axes were available, Euro-style axes were immediately abandoned.
You will see literally none of the Swedish-style battleaxe-type axes out here, no Hudson Bays, except perhaps as novelties or museum pieces.
Hardwood chopping, especially of something like a mountain ash, which could be three hundred feet tall, and eight feet (or more...) in diameter at felling height, is more like a marathon than a sprint. You're only going to get in a few mills deep into the wood, so you rely on geometry to knock out chips. On the plus side, it's not like you can miss.
The closest comparison to the Tassie would be the Connecticut, as mentioned, but the Tassies tend to have a much higher to, rising well above the top of the eye, resulting in a greater, more symmetric curve to the bit. Think of the Hytest Foresters, or the Keesteel washboards (man, do I want a washboard...), or the Brades Cockatoos.
Given the sheer amount of hardwood you had to scoop out to get a belly scarf on a giant jarrah, you'd want a fairly long cutting edge.
Short, fat, round - designed, I suppose, to withstand the shock of hard timber. A cleaver, not a filleting knife!
A lot of eucalypt has a tendency to fiddleback, as well as generate burls readily, not to mention things like gum veins. These are all tough on blades, though it's more of a problem when dry. On the plus side, down low on the trunk, eucalypts tend to be fairly knot-free. That's what makes them such great timber - the jarrahs, karris, spotted gums, and mountain ashs will be nothing but dozens - or hundreds! - of super feet of ramrod-straight wood.
Blocksplitters (mauls) - the traditional Aussie blocksplitter I've always used since a kid has been about the size of a block of butter, with a triangular face coming off it. Neither the toe nor heel comes rises or falls above the eye. Think of it as a milk carton. Made of steel. The fancy Oregon-patterns that look like really heavy axes never took off here. I've split white box and ironbark with these for a lot of my life, and these make short work of it. There's nothing to get stuck or glance off or break. Eh, at any rate, with the weight of the thing, all you have to do is guide it down. Well-seasoned ironbark and white seems to split fairly easily with this. They weigh about 2.5-3kgs, head only.
I'm not so sure about racing axes and professional woodchopping - though Martin O'Toole did note that a lot of American choppers couldn't last on Mountain Ash. I'm not familiar with NA woodchopping, but isn't it mostly on cottonwood or poplar?
