Poll: If we were to commission a sub-forum custom axe design, what type should it be?

What type of axe would you prefer to have designed?

  • Full-size Single-bit

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Full-size Double-bit

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Boy's Axe

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Cruiser

    Votes: 1 100.0%

  • Hatchet

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    1
Who would you commission? A full size single bit is going to be expensive even if you get 50 people to prepay for one (right now you have 45 votes and not a single option over 50%), so I think a hatchet is the most likely to get the most people on board to even reach a "group buy" number.

You might also consider skipping on the handle altogether and just commission heads, then sit back and enjoy what each member turns his axe into afterwards. A hatchet or even a boy's axe can have the widest range of handle lengths I think.

ETA: I just read the veering portion of the post but seriously, what's the point if the whole idea isn't even feasible from the start? Rooster would be the first person to talk to about how realistic this would be even for a production company like Council.
 
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cityofthesouth said:
Who would you commission? A full size single bit is going to be expensive even if you get 50 people to prepay for one (right now you have 45 votes and not a single option over 50%), so I think a hatchet is the most likely to get the most people on board to even reach a "group buy" number.

You might also consider skipping on the handle altogether and just commission heads, then sit back and enjoy what each member turns his axe into afterwards. A hatchet or even a boy's axe can have the widest range of handle lengths I think.

ETA: I just read the veering portion of the post but seriously, what's the point if the whole idea isn't even feasible from the start? Rooster would be the first person to talk to about how realistic this would be even for a production company like Council.
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You would not use council. For a limited run you would use a company that does small orders. A custom forging or milling company. I would imagine it would be cheaper to have them machined at this low of a number than any other way. Rooster, (awesomely) got a design pushed through into a production axe. This is a small group order, a one of. I also mentioned for the "grinder" friendly types that a simple block with the eye milled out may be the way to go. I would be down for this. If a group can agree on the block size.
Then we could have a grind along thread. Share patterns and ideas. Then see what we did. Then some, or several lucky blade forums guys that do heat treatment could get some business as well. The guys who want a single bit and boys axe could share block size if that chose to agree on a full size eye.
 
cityofthesouth said:
Who would you commission? A full size single bit is going to be expensive even if you get 50 people to prepay for one (right now you have 45 votes and not a single option over 50%), so I think a hatchet is the most likely to get the most people on board to even reach a "group buy" number.

You might also consider skipping on the handle altogether and just commission heads, then sit back and enjoy what each member turns his axe into afterwards. A hatchet or even a boy's axe can have the widest range of handle lengths I think.

ETA: I just read the veering portion of the post but seriously, what's the point if the whole idea isn't even feasible from the start? Rooster would be the first person to talk to about how realistic this would be even for a production company like Council.
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Excellent suggestion (monetarily and effort-wise) to produce heads only. I might be enticed to support a forum effort (I sure don't need another axe) but wouldn't want something like this to include the expense of a fitted piece of wood.
 
This is really all a thought experiment more than anything else, as far as I'm concerned. Realistically you'll be looking at easily north of $200 apiece just for the heads and they'd probably be cheapest to have them done as one-offs by an experienced blacksmith, in which case there's not really any volume savings to be had as a "group buy" so you might as well just independently commission your own dream axe.
 
Precisely. My point about Council is that it's so unrealistic to commission a custom maker that you'd be looking at a sprint run like the Traditionals guys do from a production manufacturer which would be Council in our case (S&N maybe), which then dilutes the thing down to a thought experiment - to us 42's words - because it's not like you switch around a slip joint and run a couple hundred with different covers.
 
The axe market today will dictate that the most produced will be the ones with the most ability to sell......that means your general Joe Blow homeowner that does't really know what he has.

Hence the axes/hatchets currently at Lowes/Home Depot.....from salsa town....Johnny Suburb won't pay for a Gransfors.

And again why Wetterlings is down, and other than Council which has military/municipality contracts and USA behind it, and Gransfors, who can really get after making axes?

Liam Hoffman can. Quality is 100X Council and Gransfors. You will pay for it, but only once. Just like a Keen Kutter back in the day.
 
cityofthesouth said:
Precisely. My point about Council is that it's so unrealistic to commission a custom maker that you'd be looking at a sprint run like the Traditionals guys do from a production manufacturer which would be Council in our case (S&N maybe), which then dilutes the thing down to a thought experiment - to us 42's words - because it's not like you switch around a slip joint and run a couple hundred with different covers.
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Why would you use Council? Why would you use a custom maker? There are umpteen milling CNC shops that will take small and custom orders. They do not make axes and that is the point. You will not be anywhere near 200 an ax to turn out ten or so axes from blocks of 5160. And they will be made to extremely tight tolerances. Think about it.
 
Operator1975 said:
Liam Hoffman can. Quality is 100X Council and Gransfors. You will pay for it, but only once. Just like a Keen Kutter back in the day.
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The quality of his Craftsmanship from what I have seen is undeniable.
For $400 I personally would not buy a flat cheeked axe. Between the flat cheeks and bit angle he has sticking issues. Over penetration. If he gave that ax a high centerline, or steepened the angle and ground the corners on the cheeks and ground some phantom bevels in...........
Like his craftsmanship is truly undeniable, so is it that that ax is not a completed design.

Go ahead and let the poo flinging begin, but it is true.




https://youtu.be/f8j782m_mEc
 
cityofthesouth said:
Precisely. My point about Council is that it's so unrealistic to commission a custom maker that you'd be looking at a sprint run like the Traditionals guys do from a production manufacturer which would be Council in our case (S&N maybe), which then dilutes the thing down to a thought experiment - to us 42's words - because it's not like you switch around a slip joint and run a couple hundred with different covers.
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Drop forging dies cost something like $10k apiece at least. They could be investment cast in low volume but there would still be about a $2000 tooling cost (if I remember correctly) for the aluminum wax-casting dies, so the more folks you got on board to buy the lower the per-unit fixed cost would be. Alternatively it's possible to 3D print the wax forms for even lower volume, but the time it takes to 3D print the wax forms does mean that you end up paying for more machine hours so that method is more commonly used for prototyping when you might need to make revisions before finalizing a design with an aluminum casting die.

While there's a stigma against casting, modern methods have come a long way to the point where you could cast an axe that was more than strong enough. There's just no directional grain flow to the metal so it's equally strong in all directions rather than having a directional bias like a forged head. But to have low-volume custom forged heads, that's where open-die forging comes in and you'd do best contracting that through an experienced blacksmith.
 
H&B and Wolf Creek currently forge custom axes and tomahawks. So do smaller smithies. Basically we'd be specifying a single design to someone who would then agree to make them at their usual axe prices, expecting enough identical orders to bother with us, and perhaps make it a 'regular' item in their lineup. We'd be offering them an opportunity to replace a dozen cranky picky customers with just one design and a lot of good publicity for a well-designed head.

The big shops are too big for us.

Also recall that just because someone voted hatchet as their preference doesn't mean they wouldn't buy a full-size single-bit. But anyway, we don't need a large number and as 42 said, it's mostly a thought experiment at this point. If we can work out where to spend our design time, then maybe we can reach a design consensus on a pattern or two. From there one or more might be made by intrepid forumites willing to be one-off customers. *shrug* We debate the merits of design all the time, we're just heading towards drawings instead of rehashing the same old stuff. If you think it's pointless, no need to crawl down this rabbit hole with us.

I might be willing to diagonally split a block of material and drill/grind a couple pieces. I *might* be able to heat-treat a block that large, depending on the material. Not sure I could harden the poll, though.

I generally agree with the notion that handle length should be left to the user if possible. Interestingly, Council won't sell a bare head, but the makers we'd deal with might not have an issue with that.
 
Honestly it should not be that difficult of a machining project if you approach it from the right direction. Especially for hatchets, 4140 can be purchased in 1" thick by 4" or 6" bars. Positioned on edge, a waterjet could easily cut a perfect eye shape and the initial cheek bevels for a number of head from one long bar with almost no waste. Then it's a matter of profiling and removing some cheek material.
 
Park Swan said:
Honestly it should not be that difficult of a machining project if you approach it from the right direction. Especially for hatchets, 4140 can be purchased in 1" thick by 4" or 6" bars. Positioned on edge, a waterjet could easily cut a perfect eye shape and the initial cheek bevels for a number of head from one long bar with almost no waste. Then it's a matter of profiling and removing some cheek material.
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Sounds feasible and quite interesting, to me. That still doesn't address blade and poll temper hardening but at least there's a fully formed head to work with.
 
You'd have to machine the eye for taper. Flat eye walls wouldn't be fun to contend with.
 
daizee said:
Simply don't correct for the jet cone shape? :-P
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You'd even get built-in micro-ridges. :p In all seriousness, if going for a conventional wedge fit eye type, you need both a top and bottom taper, and for a slip fit you want a taper on all sides, but the most desirable amount of taper may or may not be similar to the angle of the jet diffusion.
 
David Martin said:
WOw, soo fast to shoot this project down.? DM
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Lol, "committee shoots itself in foot, disassembled"

I talked to a couple of shops today milling/CNC and both of them said shoot over a drawing and measurements and they would give a quote. They completely understood what I was on about and seemed to have no hesitation that they could completely do what I wanted. Of course I need the steel type, and rough number wanted and drawing;)
I am actually getting a price for one I have been working on.
 
Woodcraft said:
Lol, "committee shoots itself in foot, disassembled"

I talked to a couple of shops today milling/CNC and both of them said shoot over a drawing and measurements and they would give a quote. They completely understood what I was on about and seemed to have no hesitation that they could completely do what I wanted. Of course I need the steel type, and rough number wanted and drawing;)
I am actually getting a price for one I have been working on.
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Sweet.
I work in deep sea oceanography, and we build one-off crazy machined crap all the time. An axe head would be a fun project for one of those shops. Though they usually work in titanium and delrin. ;)
 
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