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Hafting axes with skewed eyes

W

wdmn

Joined
Nov 29, 2013
Messages
167
Hello all,

I've got a couple of heads with skewed eyes. One of them seems to be a poor quality axe head (can't see any temper line) that was forged (maybe) with the eye off centre and crooked. The other is a nice swedish made boys axe head that I've used and like, but has a skewed eye so that the bit doesn't line up with the handle. This causes it to stick in the wood and so makes an otherwise great tool into an inefficient one. Maybe this happened through use? The whole poll is slightly twisted.

Anyone have solutions for this problem? Have you had luck shaping the tongue of the handle to compensate? Seems like it would take a lot of time to do this properly, or are there some tricks?

Thanks for reading,

wdmn.
 
My approach would be to reshape. The only real trick is to go slow. The head will go on and off a dozen times as you check alignment and shave off a bit here and there. Alternately you could get a synthetic repacement handle with an epoxy fill and then clamp it straight before it cures. If the eye is real bad I would probably just hang it up or trade up to a better head.
 
You just have to rasp or sand two opposite 'corners' of the haft so that it will twist in the eye. Select a good sized wedge to fill the gap.
 
It is easy to get a crooked hang with a straight eye, so it shouldn't be that hard to get a straight hang with a skewed eye :). Give it a try on the good one and leave the suspect one alone (use it to chop brush and roots).
 
I recently hand made a handle for an older French broad axe, and the eye was forged a bit askew. Just keep relating everything to the bit of the axe, and you'll come out alright. The eye is 'off', but it looks right as a whole.
 
Thank you gentlemen. I'll try it out on the swedish head; it's also got a oval type euro eye so I've got a lot of rasping to do. I'll post some pics eventually.
 
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