designing our own pattern?

The wider ridge in those vintage axes will release easier than a sharper diamond-based ridge. Think of how eye ridges stop a handle from moving inside the eye.
 
Woodcraft said:
For the record, the new rendition by 42 with glassport bevels and ears and beardless, as phantomknives pointed out and hardened poll looks nice in profile. If you moved the bevels back to the temperline it would solve the sharpening issue. And allow for deep bevels to save weight.
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That style is called the Ideal Ridge, brought out by American Axe & Tool. It looked like this.

40F0482B-E415-48F0-89CC-69916F0DF8AD-16636-000016CC735D2244_zps284f3f00.jpg
 
Square_peg said:
The wider ridge in those vintage axes will release easier than a sharper diamond-based ridge. Think of how eye ridges stop a handle from moving inside the eye.
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Again, as I previously noted, the actual ridge would not be so sharply defined, but would not show up properly in a line drawing.

Square_peg said:
That style is called the Ideal Ridge, brought out by American Axe & Tool. It looked like this.

40F0482B-E415-48F0-89CC-69916F0DF8AD-16636-000016CC735D2244_zps284f3f00.jpg
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That exhibits the sort of hollowing I'm intending in my diagrams, but mine are brought thinner in the non-ridge "web" portion that results in the visual bevel width being narrower. The ridge line would not be so acute, though, as evidenced by the sweep of the bevel shoulder as it rises to join the ridge. Give me a few minutes and I can produce a cross sectional view.
 
A good way to think of that style of geometry is as a flat-cheeked thin-bitted axe with a ramp added down the middle of the bit connecting the edge and the eye.
 
Now what you are describing is a flat bladed ax with a ridge. As has been hashed out with you repeatedly by several people 42, a flat cheeked axe is an inferior design for bucking and felling. The addition of a small ridge to a flat blade is not the answer. I feel like you are just backpedaling anyway. The ability to clear a chip, (as in the axe geometry, not just flailing with a blade on wood and going lookit!) Depends on the cheek.
What these axes have in common with the successful American Felling axe patterns is obvious. I think if we were to design a full size axe ignoring those common features would be foolish.








 
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I would also like to point out that those above back up squarepegs idea that a thicker ridge is necessary. So much so that on racing axes there is more of the fat part of the Y then the tail.
 
Proposed cross-sectional taper progression. Note that this is for the particular profile of the originally posted full-eyed bearded version. The original drawing was done to scale with a 5" wide bit, so that's a lot of steel, and for it to keep the center of gravity inside the center of where the gripped region of a straight handle would run inside the eye necessitates a proportionally equivalent poll, so a bit that wide and deep would quickly balloon in weight if made thick throughout. At its thinnest (along the sides) the bit is 1/8" thick, with the thickest of the three cross sections being 1/2". The bit continues to thicken past that point, but that's where the apex of the ridge line flattens and broadens. This is also simply according to my own tastes and uses. I had this design drawn up months ago as an exercise and it was envisioned as a bit of a do-all but with an emphasis on crafting/shaping/constructing tasks. It does not place a high emphasis on felling or bucking, though it would be capable of performing those tasks and they were taken under consideration in the design--they were just lower on the list of prioritized design considerations than the others.

17458064_10212267990283360_4240922202571437683_n.jpg
 
I had roughly modeled the head in wood and did a submersion test to get the approximate volume and in the original dimensions I had drafted the head weight would have been almost exactly 4lb. The handle shown in the original overall diagram is 30" as measured from the bottom of the eye.
 
The poll adds significantly to the head weight. For most of my applications I'd personally be fine with something more like this, though it complicates idealized handle construction. Something along these lines could probably be done at the original full scale with a head weight around 2 3/4lb.

17523048_10212262805153735_163925748076568769_n.jpg
 
Ok, so it is a gradually steepening convex drawn as a diamond shape with non existent bevels and pointy centerline. It weighs four pounds and is going to be geared for carpentry/hewing type tasks and there is a Ridgeline running/not running down the center. No thanks.
 
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For a lighter head weight obviously all you'd have to do is downscale it. I just happened to draft it originally with a 5" edge when sketching and then when testing the approximate volume for what that kind of size/shape of bit would need for a poll in order to balance that far back in the eye, 4lb was about what it hit. So for a standard 3.5lb rendition if you did a simplistic downscaling you'd be looking at a 4.375" edge instead.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Slip fit eye, but shown on a wedge-fit handle.

17492796_10212262110136360_46693037457491703_o.jpg


Note: the front of the handle's neck should be positioned just a smidgen forward for correct placement, but it's just a rough mockup. The shape of the knob and other fine details would need a little tweaking to get just right.
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Oh yeah
 
Woodcraft said:
Now what you are describing is a flat bladed ax with a ridge. As has been hashed out with you repeatedly by several people 42, a flat cheeked axe is an inferior design for bucking and felling. The addition of a small ridge to a flat blade is not the answer. I feel like you are just backpedaling anyway. The ability to clear a chip, (as in the axe geometry, not just flailing with a blade on wood and going lookit!) Depends on the cheek.
What these axes have in common with the successful American Felling axe patterns is obvious. I think if we were to design a full size axe ignoring those common features would be foolish.








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I like the idea of getting a racing axe. Maybe we should be thinking of that. But like I said before - cheaper to buy what's already available. Right now you can buy a new Arvika racing pattern axe for $130 Canadian.

http://bigbeartools.com/store/?_esc...rvika-Five-Star-Racing-Axe-Pattern/p/28337916

That's a racing axe cheaper than many sissy woodcrafting axes.
 
Square_peg said:
I like the idea of getting a racing axe. Maybe we should be thinking of that. But like I said before - cheaper to buy what's already available. Right now you can buy a new Arvika racing pattern axe for $130 Canadian.

http://bigbeartools.com/store/?_esc...rvika-Five-Star-Racing-Axe-Pattern/p/28337916

That's a racing axe cheaper than many sissy woodcrafting axes.
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I have looked at those more than once. Just never pulled the trigger.
I would love to see what that Stuart at the top would look like/ do downsized to 4lbs.
 
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What it'd look like with a lenticular cross section instead. This was the first version of the cheeks I'd drawn originally, but I determined that it put too much mass in the bit for what I was trying to accomplish with the balance.

17554343_10212276866185252_5541747055652041360_n.jpg
 
Bit, poll, and handle adjusted to account for the thicker lenticular cross section while keeping the weight down. The bit has been narrowed, poll reduced, and handle given a slight offset.

17554496_10212277363597687_6706483074551297017_n.jpg
17554118_10212277366557761_5318415501197276371_n.jpg
 
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