Chokepoint in the middle of the eye?

G

Gvard

Joined
May 5, 2017
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So I have two Oxhead hatchet heads I'm rehanging right now. As I was hanging them, I noticed, that after tapering the handle to fit the bottom of the eye, it was getting stuck later on in the eye, which I found odd, since I thought, that the eye of an axe becomes wider towards the top. I then looked at the eye and noticed, that there is a prominent high point in the middle of the eye. I'm concerned about this, since it makes me feel like I have to remove more wood than is needed just to fit through this narrow part. Also, I took the length and width measurements from top and bottom of the eye of both heads and there is no taper.

Is this common or is it just a bad design from factory? The head became loose already once after hanging it, makes me wonder if this was a part of the problem. The obvious solution would be to file down the high points, I guess?

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It shouldn't be that much. And there should be little to no taper in the long dimension of an axe eye because the wedge can't expand in that direction. You could try filing out the ends of the eye with round files.
 
swiss surplus axe was like that had a wide kerf in the original handle figured they pressed it in there.when i was fitting the handle i could not get it back out so i split it and wedged it,the eye was the same size too think its made like that
 
Hmmm, assuming I read what you're writing properly, I think it's intentional. I had an old European axe, most likely still on the factory handle, and the handle was "compressed" at the middle, that protuberance was "digging" into the wood. (It would act like a "reversed" "ridge".) While I understand how a conical wedge would expand the handle towards the top of the head, getting a proper fit at the bottom would involve some trial and error.

I couldn't say for sure what kind of wood it was, I'd guess ash. Would it "compress" easier than hickory? I doubt the wood was green when the head was fitted on it.

FWIW, I didn't rehandle it since, but the fit was perfect.
 
But it's completely normal, the hour-glass shaped cross section, right? Also the concept is understandable, that the wood is tight fitting through the narrow section and expands above there once the wedge is in after seating to prevent it coming back through and tapers below to fill the opening? It seems you are comparing two different eye configurations, the hour-glass to the taper. Who knows which is better, probably it depends. Odd how the unfamiliar gets interpreted as a defect from the standpoint of exceptionalism. Once I gave a reference to a German video posted that lays it all out in its own way.
 
I am well aware that some European axes are made this way by design. I have had, and used many European axes over many years. But, I am an old AMERICAN axeman, and I don't like it. For me, it is a design flaw, so I modify the axes I am going to be using if they are not vintage axes.
 
I've noticed this same phenomena. Thus far it's only been on older factory handmade axes. I.e. Snow & Neally, Emerson Stevens, Katco, PV- axe. My theory was that when, after forging, they slid the axe onto the pin under the percussive hammer to square off the pole it got bounced and rocked forward and backward and so elongated the top and bottom of the eye. Hard to explain what I'm thinking but i hope that made sense. To me it seems it must be a flaw. It becomes impossible to longitudinally fill the eye due to the damn hump in the middle. I've had to make custom handles for them to get the fit right but even still they're not perfect. I'm glad you brought it up because i was curious if others had encountered this issue.
 
Ok, thanks for the replies, I rehung the axe without modifying the eye because I was already done fitting the handle when posting this. It has held up fine for now. After thinking about it, It seems like it's not that big of a problem since the bottom and top will still have good contact after seating the head and driving the wedge in. I wonder if there is any benefit to this design (if this is intentional) though.
 
Yankee Josh said:
I've noticed this same phenomena. Thus far it's only been on older factory handmade axes. I.e. Snow & Neally, Emerson Stevens, Katco, PV- axe. My theory was that when, after forging, they slid the axe onto the pin under the percussive hammer to square off the pole it got bounced and rocked forward and backward and so elongated the top and bottom of the eye. Hard to explain what I'm thinking but i hope that made sense. To me it seems it must be a flaw. It becomes impossible to longitudinally fill the eye due to the damn hump in the middle. I've had to make custom handles for them to get the fit right but even still they're not perfect. I'm glad you brought it up because i was curious if others had encountered this issue.
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My KATCO was like this also. Ended up fine.
 
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