First Hang

[Ryan G.]

Greetings all. New to the forums and new to the world of axes. I purchased this Collins on ebay, and this is my first Hang so I have several questions. First, is the pitting too deep for this to be a reliable user? After sharpening tonight, I realized that one of the pits (so far) was actually deep enough to expose a chip when sharpened. This being my first hang, does my grain direction look ok? I realize hickory is ideal, but I have white oak, so white oak it is. Will I be sorry? I went pretty thin in one spot (because of comfort), but is .8" too thin? Should I add one of these steel wedges I've read about? I make my living working wood, so I'm confident my tenon and wedge are very tight, but I'm unfamiliar with axes altogether. Lastly, did I make the shoulder too small? Very paranoid about this one after I got it all together.
Sorry for the plethora of questions! Thanks!

Just realized the images may not go through. Here is a link to the dropbox folder.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8enjl4669il3xty/AAAHBJLAoWw0bExcyJtHxJ4Ea?dl=0

 

[A17]

It looks pretty good to me, but I'd definitely taper the haft where it meets the head to match the shape of the eye. You can see how the shape of the handle matches the shape of the eye on this axe, I'd try to do the same thing on yours.

 

[Ryan G.]

Thank

It looks pretty good to me, but I'd definitely taper the haft where it meets the head to match the shape of the eye. You can see how the shape of the handle matches the shape of the eye on this axe, I'd try to do the same thing on yours.

Thank you. It's tid-bits like this I need.