FortyTwoBlades, I'm with 300six and wondering if you are actually trying to make something that is quite simple, something very technical. Essentially an axe is a sharp piece of steel on the end of a stick. Yes you can change the profile, balance and the way it presents on the target piece of timber but "axis of rotational balance", give us a break. Also, if you lower the angle of your swing, you will increase the translational forces from the vertical plane, to more the horizontal plane in the timber, hence less vertical bounce, more penetration into the timber and less blows to cut through it. Nice little tool though.
-
The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Interesting take on the Central/South American trade axe.
- Thread starter FortyTwoBlades
- Start date
A different axe, but here's an example of the axis of rotational balance on a "Calabria" axe.
I'm not sold on any of this. You are illustrating that that particular axe is not balanced along the axis of the haft (ie the 'hand holds') because the blade weighs more than the poll. An axe with more weight at the poll than the blade will want to tip or flip at the moment of impact whereas an axe with most weight at the blade will want to skew most at the beginning of a swing. Likely why the axe you feature has a rectangular cross section haft. If it were round you'd have a heck of a time keeping it straight during a swing! This is not rocket science! Seems to me balanced head designs evolved through practicality and not at all through wishful thinking.
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 25,999
Geez guys, the axis of rotational balance is very simple. It's just where the tool is balanced around a certain axis. Indeed, it's not rocket science. You can feel this easily. Because the eye doesn't run through the balance point of the head, that's why the angle of the bit is so closed--it causes the bit to still land square with the target. The hands still lie along a point of balance during the delivery of the blow, and so no twisting occurs. When the hand is up at the neck of the axe you're so close to the center of gravity that any leverage on the hands is minimal--there are plenty of patterns with oval handles and similar balance but I don't have them in stock to demonstrate with right now (should around the end of the month so I'll snap pics then.) Try it out with some "conventional" axes and you'll find that it's not really any different...with polled axes more of the handle lies along the axis of rotational balance up near the neck. You'll often hear internet experts go on and on about thus-and-such axe not having enough poll, etc. etc. when really that could be accounted for either with a more closed hang or an offset in the neck. Here's a great example of a "conventional" axe that has a well-done offset in the neck.
Basically, it's just a different approach to produce similar effects. With the long bit/small or absent poll it does give an advantage in allowing for more wear on the bit over the life of the tool without altering its overall performance, and it can bite deeper into a notch without being subjected to the eye glancing off the mouth of it. Sharpening at a low angle generally requires less work as well since straight abrasive implements like files don't have any clearance issues. This is all not a "x is better than y" argument so much as a demonstration that "x is not inherently inferior to y". It's a different approach to accomplish the same goals with a slightly different prioritization on features and which principles of design it exploits to get there.
It all sounds much more complicated than it actually is in the real world. If there's any interest in a pass-around of one of these styles of axes I'd be happy to host one.
Basically, it's just a different approach to produce similar effects. With the long bit/small or absent poll it does give an advantage in allowing for more wear on the bit over the life of the tool without altering its overall performance, and it can bite deeper into a notch without being subjected to the eye glancing off the mouth of it. Sharpening at a low angle generally requires less work as well since straight abrasive implements like files don't have any clearance issues. This is all not a "x is better than y" argument so much as a demonstration that "x is not inherently inferior to y". It's a different approach to accomplish the same goals with a slightly different prioritization on features and which principles of design it exploits to get there.
It all sounds much more complicated than it actually is in the real world. If there's any interest in a pass-around of one of these styles of axes I'd be happy to host one.
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 25,999
Here's the image work done on a conventional polled German axe, for comparison.
I was always told that double bits were a convenient way of having in-hand an acute angle chopping blade and a dedicated steep-angle splitting/grubbing blade but now I'm starting to think that double bit axes were more likely the ultimate embodiment of implement balance!
Your Euro axe (and I have a 50's Austrian version of one of these) has a lot more blade (ie not equally balanced blade : poll) than does a north American head and that might help explain why I've never been comfortable swinging it.
[
Your Euro axe (and I have a 50's Austrian version of one of these) has a lot more blade (ie not equally balanced blade : poll) than does a north American head and that might help explain why I've never been comfortable swinging it.
[
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 25,999
Indeed, double-bitted axes (and other symmetrical tools like many hammers) will inherently have the handle lying along the axis of rotational balance at any point on the handle. However, when looking at Euro axes you can't gauge the balance at a distance quite as easily as when looking at American axes if you're more familiar with the latter since the thinner bits allow the bits to be longer/deeper/broader without shifting the balance of the head as far forward as your eyes (again, used to American axes) would be led to expect. When I get a moment I'll pop the head off of the "American" axe from the OP and snap a picture of its balance point. Much closer to the eye than many would guess by looking at it.
I think you're getting 'all worked up about nothing' and perhaps even more so are increasingly 'grasping at straws'. But then again this is a open and public forum where opinions are welcomed and as long as contributing folks don't cuss or slander then it just keeps on moving.
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 25,999
...I'm not getting worked up at all so I'm not sure where you're getting that from? And not grasping at straws at all. It's all very simple and concrete and you can verify it easily for yourself. I'm honestly not even sure what you're trying to say here. 
I wish I was in the same time zone as you guys, I would love to explore this further but as usual I am asleep when the discussion generally happens. 300six, I am not going to discount the AOR completely just yet as FortyTwoBlades might be on to something. However, I can assure you that when I sit with over 200 of the worlds best axe men in the wood chop arena at the Sydney Royal Easter Show in two weeks, they will not be asking me what I think of the AOR of their axe, they will be asking me if it will cut the wood. Simple as that. If you are interested in the guys I am talking about, take a look at Jason Wynyard on the Stihl Timbersports Series held in the USA each year. I have just done a box of axes for him for Sydney and in all the years I have been involved in the sport! at no time have I been asked about the AOR of any of their axes. hope you don't mind the acronym. I could get into the physics of how and why an axe works, I have explored that to the n'th degree but the combination of power and technique together with good equipment is what ultimately helps these guys to win world championships.
FortyTwoBlades, I look at your last pic and see a very flighty axe, easily fixed by banging the head on up to the point of where the red dot is or even further. Doing that certainly improved the one I had just like it though it probably changed the AOR to a fair degree, it would be interesting to explore that.
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2010
- Messages
- 5,431
A question to help my understanding of your explanation about how that Italian axe hits squarely:
Since the "axis of rotational balance" is along the line made by the string, and the rotation (or twisting) of the axe is therefore balanced around this line (balanced in the right/left twisting of the axe which affects accuracy, which is *not* the same as the forward/backward balance in the direction of the swing), then how does this "axis of rotational (twisting) balance" affect how squarely the bit hits the tree at the end of the swing?
[How squarely the bit hits the tree seems to be more a matter of how one's arms and wrists are bent and moved while the axe is swung.]
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 25,999
Agreed. This was more of a curiosity exercise for me, as I was mostly using the photo overlays to find the center of balance on scythes, where it's pretty important to proper tuning. It can help when trying to match head to handle, though. Mostly I snapped the photos of the axes because I figured it'd do a decent job of showing the difference in how this class of axes are designed to balance. Different method of doing it than in North America, but you still end up with a balanced axe that swings and lands well. I was initially very surprised when using poll-less axes how I didn't actually have any problem landing accurate blows, quite contrary to the dominant paradigm's insistence that it would yield an imbalanced axe that would want to twist. That got me wondering about the how/why of their design and playing around with things like this.
For the average user, or even the above average user who just wants to get the job done and doesn't care for the theory of it, it's something that can be mostly ignored because the body will intuit how to hold the piece and if everything is shaped as it should be (which is the job of the manufacturer, primarily) it'll do its job without complaint.
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 25,999
As far as landing squarely it's a matter of the bit being relatively aligned with the arc described by the swing. In order for the bit to land square with the hang way out of whack you'd need a very awkward swing.
The axis of rotational balance has more to do with wobble during the swing, which is impacted by the distance of the edge away from the axis of rotation. In the case of the Italian axes you have a VERY long bit compared to what most of us are used to, but a fair chunk of it lies behind the axis of rotational balance, making it effectively feel like using an axe with a shorter bit.
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2010
- Messages
- 5,431
Yeah, that was my point, the "axis of rotational balance" affects the right/left twist (or wobble). But, I was specifically asking how this would also affect how squarely the bit hits the tree? (since the "axis of rotational balance" was part of your explanation for why that Italian axe hits the tree squarely).
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 25,999
That has more to do with the orientation of the bit relative to the arc because we're used to looking at axes with an eye that runs pretty much perpendicular to the bit. With the axis of rotational balance being where it is, the axe makes something of a "7" shape. Instead of orienting the axe with the eye square and concluding that the heel is very recessed, we need to look at it with the bit square, which reveals that the eye is angled so that it can bring the handle in line with the axis of rotation. Imagine that you're adjusting the hang of a scythe with the eye being your scythe ring, independent of the blade.
I get a real kick out of this picture.
'Up' turn at the butt goes entirely contrary to the mile-long-arguments (physics invoked too!) favouring 'down'-turned butts in one of the other threads on this forum! There is no gentle "S" shape to this haft! Offset of the blade is minor (easily rectified) and I wouldn't mind having a crack at hefting this baby. There is nothing showing in the picture that makes me think that the balance of that axe is 'way off', either.
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 25,999
On a different thread Folks here have been expounding about the wondrous benefit that pistol grip shaping of the back end (butt?) of an axe handle (haft) does toward more efficiently using an axe.
'Heft' is a verb for describing the motion of picking up, lifting, handling, fondling, pretending to swing, Axe 'haft' can be a noun with exact same meaning as Axe 'handle'. I know it's totally confusing but then again it's English!
In choosing for a purchase I can carefully heft hickory hafts at the hardware store in order to better enable handling of the chore of hafting my axe with another haft.
!