- Joined
- Aug 31, 2012
- Messages
- 390
I got inspired yesterday to sit around the stump with my new found axes and an old hatchet that I hadn't touched yet. The hatchet and Sager Chemical needed the hafts removed. After removing everything from the eyes the hafts would not budge. Well the Sager didn't have anything at all in the eye, not even a wedge. Someone just bought a new haft and pounded it into the eye and threw away the "useless" wedge. It was a surprisingly tight fit.
It was really hot out so I didn't want to go in the shop to work on finishing the process of haft removal.
Then I looked at the plumb tree in my front yard and thought to myself, "I bet if I wedge the head of the axe in the crotch of a branch and the trunk of that tree I could use a drift and tap the haft out". So, thats what I did.
I proceeded to find a suitable crotch in the tree and wedged the head in there so the head was secure on one side and the haft was sticking out the other side of the crotch in the tree. The heal of the bit digs into the bark of the branch and helps keep the axe from falling out. You also need to make sure the poll creates a sufficient notch or flat spot so the axe remains secure and doesn't blow through and fall from the tree. I then grabbed a hardwood drift I like which happens to be an 18" framing hammer handle that will fit into most eyes. Since it was hot and I was lazy I just picked up the other axe and used it to tap the drift as far through the eye as I could.
Once the haft was relatively loose I was able to pull the haft out of the eye leaving the axe head wedged in the tree.
Using the tree to hold my axe heads while tapping out the hafts was a different and interesting technique that I thought should be shared. Good luck and be careful if you should decide to experiment with this technique. Take it slow. Oh and use a relatively hard tree.
It was really hot out so I didn't want to go in the shop to work on finishing the process of haft removal.
Then I looked at the plumb tree in my front yard and thought to myself, "I bet if I wedge the head of the axe in the crotch of a branch and the trunk of that tree I could use a drift and tap the haft out". So, thats what I did.
I proceeded to find a suitable crotch in the tree and wedged the head in there so the head was secure on one side and the haft was sticking out the other side of the crotch in the tree. The heal of the bit digs into the bark of the branch and helps keep the axe from falling out. You also need to make sure the poll creates a sufficient notch or flat spot so the axe remains secure and doesn't blow through and fall from the tree. I then grabbed a hardwood drift I like which happens to be an 18" framing hammer handle that will fit into most eyes. Since it was hot and I was lazy I just picked up the other axe and used it to tap the drift as far through the eye as I could.
Once the haft was relatively loose I was able to pull the haft out of the eye leaving the axe head wedged in the tree.
Using the tree to hold my axe heads while tapping out the hafts was a different and interesting technique that I thought should be shared. Good luck and be careful if you should decide to experiment with this technique. Take it slow. Oh and use a relatively hard tree.