Sharpened Prybars vs Axes

When I get a chance I am going to sharpen up a prybar and post a review. Watch the Knife Reviews and Testing Forum....

-Cougar Allen :{)


[This message has been edited by Cougar Allen (edited 27 November 1999).]
 
I think johno got the physics of it. I would take a 3/4 axe or full size axe over a large knife. But also, I think I would take a Battle Mistress or Ang Khola over a hatchet. The large knives are more versatile than hatchets. But a good size axe is the way to go for serious heavy chopping.

If chopping brush and other small size chopping chores are your goal, then the versatility of the large knive wins. If you are chopping small or large logs or splitting logs, I'd go with an axe.

Let me give you an example. Last summer I was visiting a friend who lives in the boonies of Wisconsin. While I was there, a severe thunderstorm swept through. On the drive home that night, the road was blocked in a 1/2 dozen places by fallen trees. I got the full-sized plumb axe out of the back of the truck and chopped my way down the road. Which tool would you want in a situation like this, a full-sized axe or a large knife? IMO, it's no contest. The axe saved my butt and got me home fairly quickly with the least amount of effort. Also lying in the back of my truck was a heavy duty, full-sized Barteaux machete. As far as I was concerned, the choice between the two was a no brainer.

------------------
Hoodoo

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

[This message has been edited by Hoodoo (edited 27 November 1999).]
 
I agree with several of the above posts. Let`s keep the comparison fair. You can`t really compare a 16" camp knife to a 36" long axe. If you wanna do that there are some monster 2 handed khukuris that are in the 36" class that should give you average axe a run for it`s money. Fact is they just fit different niches. Who carries a full sized axe backbacking? In this case I`ll take a big camp knife. Ask me to cut a clearing in a stand of trees(without a chainsaw) and I`ll take the axe. There`s really no comparison to be made here IMO. Marcus
 
Cougar, when you get that prybar sharpened let me know. I have a "mad pig" tactical prybar you can use to do a head-to-head comparison with.

------------------
Hoodoo

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
not2sharp,
Hatchets are another story. Usually when I build a fire with logs I just burn one end at a time and have the logs radiating out from the fire like a *. If I need to feed the fire I just nudge the logs further towards the center. If done right the fire stays in the middle and I don't have to do any chopping.
wink.gif


------------------
Paul Davidson

Them:"What's that clipped to your pocket, a beeper?"
Me:"Uuh....yeah, something like that."


 
I agree with Paul. Star fires are the way to go. But I've also been in camps where they only allowed fires in fire pits. Sometimes these are elevated off the ground or have elevated edges, making it difficult to build a star fire. So you have to feed it with the short stuff.


------------------
Hoodoo

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Hoodoo :

Doesn't the longer handle on an axe give you more leverage, making the work much easier so that you tire less easily?
Click to expand...

No, while there is some prying involved on missed strokes, primarily it allows for greater speed and thus impact energy. In regards to comfort it allows you to fell trees close to the ground without bending over, this being the main consideration I would have.

D. Epstein :

large knives like Bowies and Kukris are first and foremost combat weapons, not practical tools.
Click to expand...

No they are uniformly not. While of course there are bowies and khukuris that are weapon based there are those that have been developed for utility. Specific to khukuris, the Ang Khola, Salyan and Tin Chirra are all heavy utility based.

Will :

I prefer a 20" Ang Khola (really 22") that weights 3.75 lb over my axe. The axe is a cheap hardware store model so my opinions are bias.
Click to expand...

The normal hardware store axes are not designed for cutting wood. The faces are much too thick and not nearly as broad as they need to be. An axe designed for felling wood will have a very broad head that is very thin in the bevel area. The weight depends on the person but they usually are heavier than that khukuri.

Paul :

I wonder how many big knife fans have actually cut down a sizable tree with a knife?
Click to expand...

Define sizable and I'll let you know.

If big knives worked as well as axes then our ancestors would have used big knives.
Click to expand...

It is far easier to make a workable axe head. Besides the ease of making, the geometry does not need athe same level of strength/durability a large knife requires. Take a look at some very old axes/hatchets and see if it would be feasible to make a working 10" class bowie out of similar material.

In terms of cutting up wood (not felling it), both axes and knives will be outcut by a buck saw in terms of speed and effort to the extent that you would not even rate them in the same class. I should make a note of this in the BM writeup and do an extended run. The saw of course is an even more restricted tool.

Anyway, back to the question at hand, a large utility class khukuri is very similar in edge geometry to a nice axe. For chopping up downed wood or any sort of preperation I would chose the khukuri as it leaves me with one hand free to control the wood. Axes are difficult to work with felled wood unless it is large enough so that it does not need to be stabilized, this is pretty much at the insane level for camp work however. For felling wood, if I had to do this for an extended time I would chose an axe, not for the power, but because the longer handle would allow me to work closer to the ground.

Now bowie class knives are very different, they do not come close to the chopping abilities of axes/heavy khukuris but have a much wider scope of use. It is for example very difficult to clear light brush with a khukuri and near impossible with an axe. Most food preperation and other non-power chopping cutting is similar.

-Cliff


[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 28 November 1999).]
 
Understandably, camp fire come in all shapes and sizes. Where you camp, the availability of materials, the condition of the surrounding vegetation, the number of people in the group, and the length of your stay in the camp, will determine whether and how you build a camp fire.

Our typical camp fire has a fire pit measuring about 2x2 feet, and is usually kept going with 4-8" diameter logs 4-6 feet long. If managed correctly a single tree (about 30' with) can supply us with all the fuel we need for about a week.

One good size log is usually enough to provide most of the fuel we use each night. The log is laid across one side of the fire pit to dry until it starts to burn and then rolled to the center. When the center burns through we simply pitch both ends into the pit. The smaller branches, cut to 2-4 foot lengths are used to get the fire going until the larger log catches.

This is enough to give us plenty of light for about 8 hours and the resulting red hot ash will provide good heat until the next morning.

The sharp metal things come in at the beginning. One of the first things we do after selecting an camp site is to forage around the camp looking for a suitable piece of deadfall. Because of the level of traffic in many of these sites, we might have to go out about 100 yards to find something. That tree then needs to be reduced into portable portions which is where most of the axe work comes in.

I usually build this kind of camp fire when canoe camping. While backpacking, I usually travel light, without an axe or hatchet, so camp fires are either reduced to small hand warming 1 sq. ft. firepit feed with twiggs and branches that I can pick up or break off deadfall by hand (or with the help of a sturdy knife); or, ommitted all together.

As Cliff mentions above, breaking up deadfall takes a bit of work. But when you are comming off your typical 9-5 (more than a little optimistic
smile.gif
), I can't think of a better way to burn off the extra energy and stress, while doing an ice breaker with the other members of the group.

[This message has been edited by not2sharp (edited 28 November 1999).]
 
Cliff,

"The normal hardware store axes are not designed for cutting wood"

What are normal hardware axes designed for then?
 
Not2,

I don't want to speak for Cliff, but I'm betting he thinks hardware store type axes are mostly designed to collect your money, and little else. There is A Lot of that kind of thing in the world today.

Paracelsus
 
Well, it depends on what you mean by "Do it all". If you want to cut wood, there's no question; the best tool for the job is, BY FAR, a chainsaw. Between the aforementioned items though, an axe is much better. That's what it was invented for. If you mean for some sort of mobile survival AND combat situation, a large knife would probably be a better idea. If the situation does NOT entail combat, however, a hatchet might be a better item. Personally, I prefer the herring. As of late, I have been experimenting with a shoebox. It has proven quite difficult, but you get a great sense of accomplishment.

Howie
 
I used to think the hatchet was one of the most useless tools ever invented, and often said so in posts. Too heavy to be worth carrying anywhere, too poor a tool to be worth bothering with even if someone else carried it for you. Joe Talmadge and Cliff Stamp and some others kept telling me I was right about ordinary hardware store hatchets but there are some hatchets with thinner blades and better design that are not useless. Eventually it occurred to me they might know what they were talking about so I decided to shut up about it pending a chance to try a different hatchet design....

Then I won a Uluchet in one of the monthly drawings here at Bladeforums. It's not exactly a hatchet ... well, it is a hatchet in the unfolded mode, a short light hatchet with a 1/4" (6.35mm) blade. It chops better than a much longer and heavier conventional hatchet -- I'm still trying to figure out exactly why. It's not heavy and it's very convenient to carry in the folded mode (and useful as a kind of weird knife in that mode -- ideal for skinning big game). It's much more convenient to carry than a bolo, too -- just for convenience, even aside from not making me look like Conan the Barbarian.

I miss all the fun I used to have writing sarcastic posts about hatchets.

link to P.J.'s Uluchet website: http://dns1.silverstar.com/turnermfg/index.html

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Cliff,

>No, while there is some prying involved on missed strokes, primarily it allows for greater speed and thus impact energy. In regards to comfort it allows you to fell trees close to the ground without bending over, this being the main consideration I would have.

Cliff, since you get more speed and greater impact energy, you get more work done in less time. You also use less energy to get the same impact energy than for shorter axes or knives. So work rate is reduced and energy is saved. Whether you talk about calories/hour, Joules/s, Watts, kilopond-m/min (look that one up), whatever, anyway you slice it, you save energy by doing less work for identical tasks.

For instance, if you chop a log in two with an axe versus a hatchet, you expend less metabolic energy with the axe. Simple as that. And if you expend less energy, you do less work and reduce fatigue.

------------------
Hoodoo

He who slings mud generally loses ground.
Adlai Stevenson

[This message has been edited by Hoodoo (edited 28 November 1999).]
 
Hoodoo wrote:
Doesn't the longer handle on an axe give you more leverage, making the work much easier so that you tire less easily?

Cliff wrote:
No, while there is some prying involved on missed strokes, primarily it allows for greater speed and thus impact energy. In regards to comfort it allows you to fell trees close to the ground without bending over, this being the main consideration I would have.

I guess you were thinking of 'leverage' as being something else, but in the context of the discussion I would consider an ax as offering more leverage as it allows for greater speed and impact energy due to the longer handle, and the weight being concentrated at the end of the handle. We can discuss a simpler model like what makes a good hammer if an edge on the tool obscures the issue, as this seems to be a very basic issue on how things work and it's something that doesn't seem like it's being acknowledged. This obviously doesn't have any bearing on how versatile a given tool may be, how durable, etc., and on attributes like edge geometry, comfort, etc., which will have a large impact on performance.

Cliff wrote: The normal hardware store axes are not designed for cutting wood. The faces are much too thick and not nearly as broad as they need to be. An axe designed for felling wood will have a very broad head that is very thin in the bevel area. The weight depends on the person but they usually are heavier than that khukuri.

One common type of broad head describes what some call a 'swamper', a double bit ax designed for limbing and for clearing brush as the large head will help to minimize misses. Traditional falling axes, like a double bit Puget Sound pattern, had longer, narrow heads for better concentration of energy for deeper cuts. The older falling axes also tended to be harder than most modern axes. You're right about the edge geometry as most that I've seen lately don't have much of one, I guess since most use axes for splitting.
 
No axe. If you REALLY need to do heavy cutting while backpacking, go w/a Pocket Chainsaw. Weighs about 3 oz, cuts faster than an axe w/less energy. No chance of bouncing off a knot and splitting your skull (yes, it can happen, esp if you're tired). Literally fits in your pocket. Best $20 you'll spend.

(...and I'd take a REAL chainsaw over a 36" axe!)

Glen
 
Just to confuse matters, here's Heimo Roselli's idea of a hatchet, along with son-in-law, the logger, and grandson Cameron learning about splitting firewood. That thick blade against the end grain makes the wood come apart right away, and doesn't get stuck.

<A HREF="http://www.chaicutlery.com/roselli/Cameronmakeskindling.jpg" TARGET=_blank>
Cameronmakeskindling_small.jpg
</A>

And, to cause more confusion, let's throw in a billhook. An axe sort of handle, a machete sort of edge.

<A HREF="http://www.chaicutlery.com/kellam/marttiini-billhookandknife.jpg" TARGET=_blank>
marttiini-billhookandknife_small.jpg
</A>


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001


[This message has been edited by James Mattis (edited 28 November 1999).]
 
Paracelsus,

I read Cliff statement about modern axes the same way; but, I didn't want to jump to conclusions.

I am currently using an Estwing #5 Camper as my 3/4 size axe. Its a heavy axe but it does seem to have the blade profile I'm looking for. Can anyone recommend a good 3/4 size axe? 3/4 size axes are very rare down my way.
 
Not2sharp try Gransfors Bruks they make great forged axes at very resonable prices.

Also I split some large squash today with the old CS trailmaster to great effect I wouldn't have wanted to try it with the ax myself.
 
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