Recommendation? Edge angle?

[Buck268]

What edge angle do people like to sharpen their working axes to? I have two which will need sharpening soon. One is a new CS trail boss. The other is a vintage Michigan bit, unsure of the brand as it’s not at the house to check. Probably 4lb head as it’s a hair smaller than my 4.5lb harbor freight special.

Both axes will be general use and predominantly splitters. The trail boss needs to handle both splitting and various chopping tasks. What is a good edge angle to shoot for? I’m thinking approx 20dps to give good keenness while still offering decent support to the edge. Any thoughts?

 

[EngrSorenson]

Take a look at “An Axe To Grind” by @Old Axeman. A quick google search brings it up (also some terrible looking novel). It’s a free publication and in there he has a 1:1 scale template. I’d us that.

 

[Brent Halverson]

Any axe that was made for chopping is going to have too narrow an angle for splitting unless you are just splitting small diameter, straight-grained wood. In larger diameter logs, especially those with knots you will have a big problem with the axe just sticking in the end of the log instead of splitting it. A real splitting axe is sharpened to between 32 and 35 degrees.

I use a standard axe for chopping down trees and knocking off the branches, and I always use a light maul of about 5-6 pounds for all splitting because it gets the job done easily and you can swing it a long time without tiring, and on my planet all the trees have branches and knots in them.