Balancing points

[FortyTwoBlades]

Maybe I should have called it angle of contact instead of angle of presentation. Years ago I thought angle of presentation made me sound smarter. While balance is important, the angle of presentation is more important to me. This all relates to the task you are trying to preform with the axe. You can adjust to the balance, but not so to the angle of presentation that the size and shape of the haft dictate.
Now, don't get me started on the angle of presentation with adzes.

I'd say "angle of presentation" is a good way of saying it, and how I describe it personally. When talking about the head only, I like to borrow a term from scythe blades, which is the "set". The set of the heel on a scythe blade is the yaw of the tang relative to the blade itself, almost as if it was cut there and pinned back together with a pivot. Then, just like with an axe, the hang of the blade is the angle it's attached to the snath (handle) at. With an axe head the set of the bit is how the line between the heel and toe is oriented relative to the eye, and then that impacts how you want to go about hanging the head to get the presentation relative to the handle right.

As far as the balance question goes, you want the point of balance as close to the head as possible, and you want the gripped region of the handle to point towards the center of gravity if at all reasonably possible. If the center of gravity is outside the body of the tool (you can't find a spot where it will balance on your finger) then you can identify the center of gravity by suspending the tool with a plumb line. The plumb line will always describe a line passing through the center of gravity (providing you have it right on your suspension point) and so if you take the intersection of two lines taken at different points on the tool, the spot in empty space where they'd intersect is "X marks the spot". The wider/flatter your handle is, the easier you can apply any necessary counter-torque to overcome any imbalance present, but this only applies significantly to two-handed use anyhow, as one-handed tools are, for all practical purposes, self-balancing, and getting the right presentation is more important in either case. For my purposes I like the line passing through the heel and toe of the bit to intersect with my grip point, though for many they like to have the line pass a bit in front of the knuckles.

 

[Old Axeman]

I like to do all that complicated balance stuff that 42 describes as soon as I put the axe in my hands. I use experience and instinct to find the balance point, it only takes me about 30 seconds.

 

[Curt Hal]

As Marilyn Rice said, “There is no substitute for experience.”

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I like to do all that complicated balance stuff that 42 describes as soon as I put the axe in my hands. I use experience and instinct to find the balance point, it only takes me about 30 seconds.

It's not really complicated, just hard to summarize in words. And yeah, once you know what you're looking for, I'd say it takes more like 5 seconds to eyeball it!

 

[Old Axeman]

I'll do it in 4 seconds. Your bid 42.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Oh, I'm sure you've got me beat due even to tactile memory alone, besides all the rest of the tool literacy your experience brings to bear. All I'm saying is that it's quite quick to check! Feel it in the hands and sight down it a couple quick ways and you can have an idea of where its center of gravity is to a degree of accuracy within a space the size of a quarter, and know where the handle and bit point relative to it and to each other.