"No unnecessary weight in the poll."

[FortyTwoBlades]

 

[Hickory n steel]

Why do Australians need less weight in the poll ? Why did we create the poll axe to suit our American hard woods when the Australians need less poll weight to get through their much harder woods ?

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

That's a complicated question, and a lot of it has to do with false precepts and myths that have been handed down as part of the lore of the American axe. The primary advantages of a poll are very basic : to simplify the form of an ideal handle, and to add pounding ability.

Less poll gives a deeper bit for the given head weight, which results in fewer clearance issues of the bit/eye transition and lessens the likelihood of barking the neck of the handle in deep cuts, but you need more offset in the handle to get it to all lay along a single axle. Remember that the top-down profile of a bit is constrained by the size and placement of the eye, and that the size of the eye is constrained by the wood used for handles and the mode by which it's affixed to the head (wedged vs. slip fit) among other factors.

 

[Old Axeman]

The simple answer is that Australian axemen are a bit strange.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Tuatahi axes have a similarly small poll, but notice the trajectory of the main length of the handle--it points right towards the center of gravity. The neck is offset to allow for this.

 

[Square_peg]

The simple answer is that Australian axemen are a bit strange.

Indeed. A better balanced axe is a more accurate axe and reduces the work. But differences are subtle and local customs often reign. Also, an axe used for 60 second spurts has different parameters than an axe used for 8 hours per day. A double bit has perfect balance. An axe with a large poll also has perfect balance.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Apologies in advance for the long-winded and technical response.

Indeed. A better balanced axe is a more accurate axe and reduces the work.

Axes (and other swung tools) are always balanced so long as there is only one grip point, as the tool will automatically balance along an axis running from the grip point through the center of gravity, forming an axle around which the tool will naturally balance and rotate. It's only when both hands grip the tool with widely spaced independent axles (that is to say, the axles formed by each grip point are far out of alignment with one another) that you get wobble issues, as it creates a plane rather than a straight line, making each node a lever acting on the axle opposite it. The axle will determine how the tool presents itself to the target in use, and in tools with an off-axis handle (balanced like a "7" rather than a "T", where each point along the handle length yields a unique axle) a grip point higher on the handle opens the presentation of the striking surface while gripping lower closes it.

A double bit has perfect balance.

Presuming the bits are symmetrical, as they are in most cases, yes.

An axe with a large poll also has perfect balance.

Not necessarily true. If as much of the handle as possible runs in such a way as to create a single axis, it matters little if there is a large poll or no poll at all. When this is done, gripping any point with one or both hands along the length does not alter the axle of the tool, and so its natural orientation remains unchanged. Many adze handles exploit this, as in this example (though it looks like it actually may have a little too much curvature in the upper part of the offset.) The entire upper half of the handle lies on a vector running through the center of gravity. My own lipped adze has such a handle, and--suspending it between forefinger and thumb like a plumb line--I can shift the pinch point up and down that length without it pivoting at all, as all points along that region are aligned with the center of gravity and so those grip points all share an axle.

Tom Clark's famous "Buster" axe is an example of an axe with a poll so large (and deliberately so) that the center of gravity lay behind the eye rather than in front of it so it would readily twist upon hitting its mark.

 

[Chris Larrikin]

The simple answer is that Australian axemen are a bit strange.

This is most probably true.

I know very little about axes so just throwing this out there...

Australian timbers tend to be pretty hard. I had always thought that saws were the more prevalent felling tool here. If this is true (and I may be wrong) would that suggest that axes were used more for tasks where a poll wasn't a benefit, eg de-limbing (total guess there).

I am really enjoying this thread. I am generally in awe of your collective knowledge.

 

[Old Axeman]

Collective knowledge, maybe, but with a healthy dose of speculation in some cases.
For what it's worth on getting advise:
1st- make sure that the person giving you advise makes their entire livlihood from using, in this case, an axe. That means food ,shelter etc., you know, pays all their bills USING an axe (as opposed to selling axes). No weekend warriors.
2nd- make sure that they have been doing #1 for at least 10 straight years.
3rd- check their references on #1 and 2.
4th- listen to what your gut is telling you about what you found out in # 1, 2, 3
PS- this also works for advise on legal, medical, plumbing, auto repairs, etc.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Well, if we're vetting sources, I'll gladly post my resume. The nice thing is you can try out everything in my above posts and verify them easily for yourself, as they're based in practical science rather than the aforementioned speculation. The concepts themselves are quite simple in practice, but are unfortunately not the easiest to neatly put into words. I grew up using an axe, and perform both crafting and firewood-related tasks frequently during life on the homestead, and use some manner of swung tool on just about a daily basis (with which all of these principles apply.) I'm also a tool designer and researcher. As a result of both, I spend a lot of time dissecting tools to understand the factors that drive their performance and how best to apply them for greatest results.

As far as how long a fellow has been doing a thing and making a living at it, I'd caution that there's a world of difference between doing a thing and understanding a thing. There are a great many men who have been putting bread on their table their whole lives with skills they can perform but not explain well, and an even greater number of men who have done a thing their whole lives, but done so incorrectly or inefficiently. By the same token there are men who have worked in a field but a short time and are more proficient in their technical or practical prowess than many old-timers in that field either due to raw aptitude, hard work, or learning accelerated by access to technical resources. As Kant said, "Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play." A healthy does of both theory and practice in roughly equal measure greatly aids when it comes to describing how a tool functions.

For example, I once had an older fellow who had done trail clearing all his life professionally tell me about how steel in a machete will lose its carbon, and therefore hardness, over time and how he would he would heat his Collins ( ) up to red heat with a torch and the sprinkle Borax on it to put the carbon back in! Not only does heat treatment and hardness in steel not work like that, but Borax doesn't even contain carbon...and the fellow had been doing this his whole life. Poor man must have been working many orders of magnitude harder than he had to all those years using an annealed machete.

 

[Canadian Mojo]

I thought it was charcoal you sprinkled or used a carburizing flame to harden. Borax is an old-school fluxing agent so if anything it probably would have helped leach out any minimal amounts of carbon sooty torch flame might add... but I'm not a blacksmith.

I have a hunch that this minimal poll weight is mostly just marketing to appeal to the subset of axe users that are lugging an axe by hand over long distances. The same sort of people who would potentially be attracted to a pack axe, cruiser (it's considered a light double bit, right?), or boy's axe over here. It would also appeal to people who like to hit things with a high speed rather than a high weight to impart force. I know I fall into that category for sledges, I'll take an 8lbs over a 10lbs any day of the week but with axes I seem to go the other way when it comes to weight.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I thought it was charcoal you sprinkled or used a carburizing flame to harden. Borax is an old-school fluxing agent so if anything it probably would have helped leach out any minimal amounts of carbon sooty torch flame might add... but I'm not a blacksmith.

That's the point. It doesn't work the way he thought it does at all, but that's what he did because he incorrectly thought it was. Carbon doesn't leak out of the blade over time and heating the blade to red and then just letting it cool is going to ruin the heat treatment and make the blade soft. Sprinkling Borax on it does nothing in that circumstance because it's used as a flux in forge welding, not as a carbon-adding voodoo ingredient.

I have a hunch that this minimal poll weight is mostly just marketing to appeal to the subset of axe users that are lugging an axe by hand over long distances. The same sort of people who would potentially be attracted to a pack axe, cruiser (it's considered a light double bit, right?), or boy's axe over here. It would also appeal to people who like to hit things with a high speed rather than a high weight to impart force. I know I fall into that category for sledges, I'll take an 8lbs over a 10lbs any day of the week but with axes I seem to go the other way when it comes to weight.

It has to do with the conflict between desired bit geometry vs. desired head weight. For a given head weight you have a certain amount of steel, which can then be shaped in only so many ways. If you needed lots of material in the bit to attain your desired geometry, having a large poll would increase the head weight for those bit dimensions, so removing weight from the poll allows you to have the same bit dimensions as a larger axe in a (comparatively) lighter head. Or, another way to phrase it is you get the bit of a larger axe on a given head weight.

 

[Canadian Mojo]

That's the point. It doesn't work the way he thought it does at all, but that's what he did because he incorrectly thought it was. Carbon doesn't leak out of the blade over time and heating the blade to red and then just letting it cool is going to ruin the heat treatment and make the blade soft. Sprinkling Borax on it does nothing in that circumstance because it's used as a flux in forge welding, not as a carbon-adding voodoo ingredient.

I got the point, I just found it amusing how wrong he got it. I should probably use smileys more often.

It has to do with the conflict between desired bit geometry vs. desired head weight. For a given head weight you have a certain amount of steel, which can then be shaped in only so many ways. If you needed lots of material in the bit to attain your desired geometry, having a large poll would increase the head weight for those bit dimensions, so removing weight from the poll allows you to have the same bit dimensions as a larger axe in a (comparatively) lighter head. Or, another way to phrase it is you get the bit of a larger axe on a given head weight.

So basically, you have a practical/comfortable swing weight and based on that you determine the 'best' cutting surface... 'best' being determined by a good half dozen or so criteria that can be in conflict with one another. In this case it leans towards a wide cutting face. I was thinking that this axe was more of an exercise in weight reduction vs. an attempt at cut optimization.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I was thinking that this axe was more of an exercise in weight reduction vs. an attempt at cut optimization.

It's sort of both at the same time, depending on how you look at it. They could have that same bit on a heavier head by just adding to the poll, but you could have the bit of that heavier axe on a lighter head by reducing the poll. But in both cases, the effort is being made to alter the weight without changing the depth, thickness, width, or other geometrical aspects of the bit itself. The advantages of better durability when pounding or the ability to use narrower blanks/straighter handles were evidently of less importance in the design of this head than getting a certain bit geometry and proportion without bloating the head weight excessively.

 

[Park Swan]

I am tending to agree with Mr. FortyTwo on these matters. There are myriad factors contributing in varying degrees to the balance of a swung tool, but for the most part it's pretty simple. I don't need to question his means of earning a living because simple physics discussion can be factually interpreted, therefore I don't consider it "advice" (not to mention we live in a society where many, if not most, people gain very little true credibility in their field based only on the merit of their employment in it. Rather, we live in a largely marketing-driven economy, where economic value is more often squeezed out of the ability to trick/convince people that a product or method is superior regardless of the actual design or engineering benefit. Of course this applies to American axe manufacturers, even in the "golden age" of axe use).

Looks like an excellent axe, I'd love to get my hands on a collie king like that!

 

[Old Axeman]

Science is speculation !

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Science is speculation !

Really? Care to explain? You can do some very simple experiments to repeatedly and reliably verify the things I've asserted.

spec·u·la·tion
ˌ/spekyəˈlāSH(&#601n/
noun
noun: speculation; plural noun: speculations

1.
the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.

 

[rjdankert]

I am tending to agree with Mr. FortyTwo on these matters. There are myriad factors contributing in varying degrees to the balance of a swung tool, but for the most part it's pretty simple. I don't need to question his means of earning a living because simple physics discussion can be factually interpreted. . .

A discussion involving "simple physics" and axes would be great if you and/or "Mr. FortyTwo" would ever care to go in that direction. :thumbup:

Bob

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I've got some stuff in the works right now, complete with diagrams to help simplify visualization. It's just still in progress.

 

[Square_peg]

I see this as just promotion of a product.