Hatchet or Tomahawk?

B

bigvon

Joined
Jan 3, 2001
Messages
23
Pardon my spelling. Looking for a lightweight utilitarian hatchet for backpacking. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Bill
 
Eric,

A hawk is usually typified by a straight handle and light head with a relatively short cutting edge and long haft for penetration. The hawk is more of a combat weapon / tool.

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It's not the pace of life that concerns me, It's the sudden stop at the end.
 
The shape of a 'Hawk head is significantly different than a hatchet. A hatchet is designed mainly for chopping wood so it has to have a profile that at the same time gives good penetration without excessive binding. This is done by using a triple grind, from the spine it goes convex then hollow and then convex.

The first conve grind shapes the cheeks and provides the wedging action that prevents binding, in both chopping and splitting. As well is strengthens the eye to resist deformation during pounding. The hollow grind then slews away all the stock necessary to reduce the profile so as to allow good penetration. The final convex grind shapes the edge.

In contrast a hawk will not have the first grind and usually are just hollow or flat ground to rough out a shape and then convex or flat to profile the edge. If used for splitting or chopping in thicker wood they will bind readily as they don't have to profile to wedge the wood apart.

The basic 'Hawk profile design is also much cheaper to make and fit to a piece of wood than a hatchet as you can simply fold a piece of steel around and be very close to the final profile of a 'Hawk. You need to do a lot more to get the shape of a hatchet, mainly bring in more material to the cheeks.

However I have seen things described as 'Hawks that had features of a hatchet such as very thick cheeks and a hammer poll. The only think 'Hawk like about them was a straight handle and a slip up on eye. As well I have seen "Hatchets" that have the same profile as a 'Hawk just with the handle that you would normall see on a Hatchet. The Estwing Hatchets are one example. I have also seen Hatchets and Axes with straight handles, these are usually designed for throwing but the head profiles would not be confused with a Hawk, double bit, thick cheeks.

Anyway I would second the pointer to the Gransfors products . Andy Prisco also is offering 'Hawks that are getting good press on the forums, and he has a strong background in offering solid performing products as does his partner, I have not used one personally though.


-Cliff
 
What about the Uluchet? It was written up in Tactical Knives a few months ago. Haven't used one, but a really cool concept.
 
Last night I decided to delimb my Christmas tree that's been lying out on my burn pile. It's kind of dried and tough. I started out with a "big knife" (I won't say which one--actually it was three.) and then switched over to the Gransfors Bruks Wildlife hatchet. It terms of hard work, there was no comparison. The hatchet kicked butt. It just melted through the limbs with very little effort or stress on my forearm. The action is more in the wrist than in the arm. The big knives, though, were a little easier to control follow through. I found myself having to choke up on the hatchet cause it was melting through the limbs so rapidly that the head wanted to come back at me when I swung it hard. But big knife or hatchet, you still need to make sure you are slicing so that follow through is along your side and not directly in front of you.

This is the second time I've made this comparison and I get the same results. Hatchets really are effective choppers. My scoutmaster and Nessmuk were correct.
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I still like the big knives though. Easier to carry and control and much better for draw-knife work and slicing. But for all the big choppers out there, in terms of cost per chop, imo it's hard to beat a good hatchet. Even my ancient little Norlund hatchet is an incredibly effective chopper, and more so now since I put a longer handle on it. And a 3/4 axe is awesome. Hatchets may not be the sexiest blades out there but they are still one of the most effective for chopping. In my subjective opinion, of course.
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Hoodoo

I get some pleasure from finding a relentlessly peaceful use for a combative looking knife.
JKM
 
Agreed. I was surpised to see how many guys on this site are talking about the chopping ability of a $200.00 knife, when a $30.00 hatchet will do the job better. I have to admit, if stranded it the woods, I'd rather have a hatchet. One helluva lot easier to build a shelter with one as opposed to a knife.
 
farmboy:

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">I was surpised to see how many guys on this site are talking about the chopping ability of a $200.00 knife, when a $30.00 hatchet will do the job better.</font>
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This depends on the size of the wood. For example, using both the PAB from Strider and the Wildlife Hatchet from Gransfors Bruks, the PAB will slightly outchop the hatchet on small wood (about 1"), and can hold its own up on wood up to about 3" across. I have tried both fresh, one year and 2 year seasoned wood (pine, birch and spruce) as well as a large variety of scrap (mainly pine but some harder wood like hickory). Now as the wood gets larger the hatchet will readily pull ahead, but you have to get to a very decent size before the PAB starts to perform badly in comparison.

The PAB is also not the best chopping blade I have seen, it is outchopped by the Battle Mistress from Busse Combat for example. However the GB Hatchet is the best hatchet I have seen. It is however simply designed for chopping in thicker wood and does this well, getting strong penetration and resists binding strongly, the latter also making it a much better tool for splitting small wood.

Note as well that because the primary grinds on the blade are thinner, their edges can be thicker than a Hatchet of similar chopping ability and thus the blades will have a more durable face. The GB Hatchet has now a multitude of chips in its face just from woodwork whereas a decent large blade will be able to handle this without visible harm. As well be able to take harder work still like seasoned bone etc. .

The Uluchet is a very nice compact tool. It does not have the chopping power of a large blade or full sized hatchet but is much more compact and easier to use for more precise work. It is well made and P.J. Turner stands behind his work. Several reviews can be found in the archive.

-Cliff


[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 04-20-2001).]
 
Have any on you used the New gerber axes with the plastic handles. They feel cheap in my hand (plastic always feels cheap). However the lighter handle lowers that total weight while keeping the weight of the head the same. This seems ideal for hiking where the weight counts.
 
One thing I've noticed about hatchets in general (the ones with wooden handles) compared to big knives is that the wooden handle is a far better shock absorber. Having had severe tendonitis in my forearm, and arthritis in my right shoulder, it doesn't take long for me to assess this particular trait. Thus I find chopping with big knives with full tangs far more fatiguing. They also tend to make my hand and arm numb after a short bout of steady chopping, something I've never noticed in hatchets. I can swing hatchets a lot harder with a much less shock to the body than a big knife. Unfortunately, when you get older, your body has a rather immediate way of informing you of these things.
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When you're younger, your body is far more elastic in the joints and skin and "shock" is far less discernible. But over a day's chopping, I'd be willing to bet you would be far more fatigued using a big knife to chop with than a hatchet. That's one of the reasons why when I used to do framing carpentry, most of the guys I worked with preferred a wooden-handled framing hammer over the rubber-handled Estwing. It was just far less tiring to use. The Estwings are great though because they are nearly indesructable, but just not as comfy as a good hickory-handled hammer. A young guy's hammer.
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I used a 21 oz, 17" Hart hammer last summer to build my gazebo and it was VERY comfy to beat with. Try one and you won't go back to metal-shafted hammers, especially if you are getting near geezerdom.
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Hoodoo

I get some pleasure from finding a relentlessly peaceful use for a combative looking knife.
JKM


[This message has been edited by Hoodoo (edited 04-20-2001).]
 
Chopping with a knife does not have to generate any shock, not in the hand nor anywhere else. Jerry Fisk described the technique for doing this on the Camillus forum some time ago. It is not the technique I use but is generally held in high accord. This assumes of course you have a large knife that has the correct balance and geometry and handle.

-Cliff
 
As I recall, wasn't Jerry talking about slicing through hanging rope? If so, that would be a lot different than chopping large pieces of wood.

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Hoodoo

I get some pleasure from finding a relentlessly peaceful use for a combative looking knife.
JKM
 
Thanks for clarifying that Cliff. However, somehow I missed the part in that thread where anyone said you could chop with no discernible shock to any part of the body, especially if you were chopping into solid wood. Was that just your creative interpretation? I certainly agree you can minimize the effects using Jerry's technique but if you really want to minimize the effect, try a wood-handled hatchet.

Wood handled tools are far better at absorbing the shock (even though it doesn't exist) of impact than solid steel tools. Of course, if I said water is wet, I'm sure you'd find a way to argue about that too.
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BTW, this is my last post on this topic because I can see this is going to turn into an all too typical Cliff Stamp thread.

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Hoodoo

I get some pleasure from finding a relentlessly peaceful use for a combative looking knife.
JKM
 
Vibrations will damp faster in wood than in hardned steel, however this is not the dominant effect in controlling how much shock you feel, technique plays a much larger role as well of course as overall functionality, handle issues and such.

The method described above minimizes the shock by directly reducing the amount of damping your hand does to the vibration of the blade, you can reduce this down to nothing by altering the amount of follow through. On a pure snap cut the vibration is next to nothing as the grip is very loose and there is no effort made to power the blade into the material being cut.

Jeff Randall has described many times a similar method he uses for large machete work. It is near identical to the method described above simply with a larger arc which would be of no benefit to a smaller blade due to its much lower moment of intertia.

The main problems people usually have is lack of technique, my personal problems are I over squeeze the handle and fatigue my grip really quickly, and drive too much with my elbow and fatigue my bicep really fast as well. I have to concentrate not to do this, it comes from habit of not chopping in this manner at all and the built in reflexes are difficult to overcome.

Your comment about hammers was interesting, from memory I recall a majority of Estwing used for heavy construction work. I did a quick poll the other day of relatives who still work and out of the dozen a vast majority used the large metal hammers (10). However personal bias plays a large part here in general they are held in very high accord around here so not using one is looked at as having inferior equipment.

In general though it would seem to me that hatchets would lose out to decent chopping blades in conditions of high fatigue or injury as in general the cross section of an axe head is much more obtuse than a blade and thus needs a much greater momentum to chop into a piece of wood equally. With very nice cutting knives you can make decent penetration with very little effort, the same effort with an axe barely cuts into the wood.

You can see this readily comparing a decent khukuri to a large bowie. For example, in order to get an 18" AK to chop as well as a BM I have to drive from my shoulder in a wide arc, as I progress beyond this the AK pulls significantly ahead. However if I used lower powered techiniques like driving from the elbow, the AK falls behind the BM, if I just use wrist snaps it falls even further behind.

Thats rather an interesting point you brought up, I think I'll do some with the the Granfors hatchet and probably the PAB from Strider when I get a chance and see how the relative ability changes as different techniques are used.

Anyway, the bottom line of course is do whatever works for you with your blades.

-Cliff
 
Been off line for a while.
For chopping its good to get a reasonable swing, with a long arm, even bring it above the head. Accelerate the blade on the down stroke and then let the blade do the work. Other than keeping control of the blade, and holding it firm enough to keep control even with a miss hit, the grip is not overly tight and therefore less fatigue. This works for me with both hatchet and long blades with the minimum of vibration traveling into the arm.

Hatchets are great, but then we all like our knives. Hatchets get the weight behind their sweet spot.
 
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