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actively parsing hurf durf
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- Nov 28, 2006
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I finally got the time to rehaft a bunch of axes I have. I've been meaning to transition everything over to straight handles, to refurbish a double bit plumb 3lb head and to shave down the gransfors handle. All this after reading "The Axe Book", and specifically these two pages (if it's against rules to post these I'll take them down, I've seen others post them online and I can grab a link vs. original image, or just not post it at all):
The axes:
The gransfors is really awesome, but it felt like an 8 pound sledge hammer when I first got it. I didn't understand why until I read the page on handle thicknesses, the gransfors falls under the catagory in the book that he describes as 'You could drop a cow with the last one on the list, it's that heavy'. Here it is next to the 36" double bit from link, which was more appropriate for the books description straight from the factory:
The grain of the handles is frustrating. There are 2 of the ones I purchased that I'm going to burn as firewood because the grain runs perfectly perpendicular to the bit's edge, pretty much a gaurenteed breakage if i actually used them. These are better, but no where near as good as the hickory heartwood handle on the gransfors american felling axe.
In the book it says that you should use the hardest wood possible for wedges. I know theres varying opinions on this topic, but I figured I'd go the full length with using the books advice, so I went with the hardest wood I have/know of, lignum vitae:
The weight difference shows just how much denser the lignum vitae is compared to the (pine?) wedge supplied with the link handles. 12g for the light wedge, 28g for the lignum vitae at roughly the same size. It's an interesting wood to work with since you can barely split it where you want, you have to carve or sand it to shape because of it's crazy convoluted grain structure, and it's tendancy to shatter/splinter off:
The rough cut:
after shaving it down, new vs. older thicker handles:
Super dense wedge:
Because lignum vitae comes from a small trunked tree it's hard to get anything larger than 2x2, so I had to make multiple section wedges to completely fill the wedge space and the gaps:
what i was working with on the double bit:
I straightened out the felling bit side, and thinned out both bits, but haven't taken a photo of it yet. Needless to say on the entire process that I had no idea that I was using handles that were so thick that they gave no cushion to the vibration shock of striking hardwoods, I just thought that was part of the deal. These handles handle like a dream, the weight of the head feels more appreciable, the action more smooth and 'soft' in the hands. I haven't gotten to use them on wood yet, but I can feel the benefits just swinging them in air.
The axes:
The gransfors is really awesome, but it felt like an 8 pound sledge hammer when I first got it. I didn't understand why until I read the page on handle thicknesses, the gransfors falls under the catagory in the book that he describes as 'You could drop a cow with the last one on the list, it's that heavy'. Here it is next to the 36" double bit from link, which was more appropriate for the books description straight from the factory:
The grain of the handles is frustrating. There are 2 of the ones I purchased that I'm going to burn as firewood because the grain runs perfectly perpendicular to the bit's edge, pretty much a gaurenteed breakage if i actually used them. These are better, but no where near as good as the hickory heartwood handle on the gransfors american felling axe.
In the book it says that you should use the hardest wood possible for wedges. I know theres varying opinions on this topic, but I figured I'd go the full length with using the books advice, so I went with the hardest wood I have/know of, lignum vitae:
The weight difference shows just how much denser the lignum vitae is compared to the (pine?) wedge supplied with the link handles. 12g for the light wedge, 28g for the lignum vitae at roughly the same size. It's an interesting wood to work with since you can barely split it where you want, you have to carve or sand it to shape because of it's crazy convoluted grain structure, and it's tendancy to shatter/splinter off:
The rough cut:
after shaving it down, new vs. older thicker handles:
Super dense wedge:
Because lignum vitae comes from a small trunked tree it's hard to get anything larger than 2x2, so I had to make multiple section wedges to completely fill the wedge space and the gaps:
what i was working with on the double bit:
I straightened out the felling bit side, and thinned out both bits, but haven't taken a photo of it yet. Needless to say on the entire process that I had no idea that I was using handles that were so thick that they gave no cushion to the vibration shock of striking hardwoods, I just thought that was part of the deal. These handles handle like a dream, the weight of the head feels more appreciable, the action more smooth and 'soft' in the hands. I haven't gotten to use them on wood yet, but I can feel the benefits just swinging them in air.
