Straight Handle on a Single Bit Axe

[FortyTwoBlades]

Peter Vido has said that "a competent mower can use the worst scythe, but a poor mower cannot use the best scythe." Again, substitute "axe" or any other tool for "scythe" and it's still true.

That's what I like to call the "Expert's Paradox". The better you get at using a tool, the less you can sufficiently make do with...while at the same time the more benefit you're able to get out of more premium tools. The novice, by contrast, is wasted on the high end stuff, but will have a very hard time finding the "voice" of the tool if all they ever know is a poor one.

One thing I find is that since I've spent more time with crosscut saws, scythes, broadforks and axes I'm not using the power equipment near as much. In its place, sure -- but it isn't my go-to anymore and frankly I'm enjoyin' the peace & quiet and exercise.

Same. :thumbup:

 

[300Six]

That's what I like to call the "Expert's Paradox". The better you get at using a tool, the less you can sufficiently make do with...while at the same time the more benefit you're able to get out of more premium tools. The novice, by contrast, is wasted on the high end stuff, but will have a very hard time finding the "voice" of the tool if all they ever know is a poor one.
):thumbup:

Interesting observation! I would imagine that professional users knew exactly just how much they could get away with and still perform the work. I have a hard time imagining a desperate guy standing around in the bush, with a contract to perform 'X' amount of work, wasting many hours in searching for and rendering that perfect tool handle he'd like to have had. Smart guys might have made handles on rainy days and put away a few in reserve but I don't think human nature has changed all that much. "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow"!

 

[untamed]

Which, to a traditional fencer, are anathema. The original purpose of the various designs of "anatomic" fencing weapon grips was to allow people with injured or malformed hands to participate in the sport.

But to be fair, like our discussion of straight axe handles, it's what you use. As a foil fencer I prefer a very stiff blade and a French grip. The sensitivity is in how you hold it, and some people using anatomic grips can really hammer you because they don't have that "sentiment du fer."

A friend of mine has a single-bit axe with a straight handle, but the handle-maker put a "hook" at the end instead of swelling or knob. He prefers a slightly shorter handle than common, which puts his left hand solidly down into that hook when he's chopping.

Interesting discussion and I just had to participate in.

I'm also glad that the post above in a way illustrates what I sort of have difficulty in conveying. Similar to Skiv, my main background is in weapons/martial arts (FMA and a smattering of others) and I also have a fascination with gear design and ergonomics (purely amateur).

I think it boils down to user-adopts vs. tool-adopts.

Just simply to add to this that broadly speaking, a straight handle coaxes one to have a "living grip" (a universal martial arts term) makes the user/operator's body to "adjust" (sensitivity), either subtly or grossly, to the dynamics of the anatomy in relation to the "work" (physics context) applied. The curved handle on the the other hand "accommodates" to the user/operator a lot more. This "accommodation" could either be a form of cheat or an enhancement of the work. The key issue is how much ergonomic "curve" could be done conservatively until a point of diminishing returns is reached where there is no benefit at all (i.e. - the haft having too much curves, the curvatures being to severe or just placed wrongly).

Given enough time, by maintaining a simpler design (i.e. - straighter handle), the body (notwithstanding injuries or physiological differences) will always find a way to make adjust to the specific "work". Hence the two ideas below. . .

I am certainly no expert but I don't know that I would go as far as to say that the California-pattern framing hammer really has any kind of tradition to speak of. It is a realatively new hammer head pattern. If you go to Vaughan's website they have many more Califronia framing hammer options with straight handles for sale than they do with curved handles.

I swing a hammer for a living and have always preferred the straight handle over the curved one on all my hammers including my California framing hammer. Whenever I swing someones curved handle hammer it always feels weird to me. Choking up on the handle gives a much different feel to the hammer depending on how far up the handle it is held. You get very different head alignment depending on where you grip the handle. Turning it around to use the claw just feels wrong and forget about an accurate swing with the claw side. Your "ergonomic" handle becomes very "unergonomic" as soon as you turn it around or hold it anywhere except at the grip.

The beauty of a straight handled California rip claw hammer is that the head alignment is the same no matter where on the handle you hold it or which side of the hammer you are using.


As far as single bit axe handles go, I have only used curved ones. However, I have been splitting a lot of firewood over the last couple weeks using a maul. I noticed today that when stricking some of the more stubborn rounds I was striking exactly the same spot consistently. Is that because the haft is straight or is it because its a maul and it doesn't stick easily so I am not changing my foot placement to retrieve the bit from the round?

This thread is making me want a straight hafted single bit. Every straight hafted single bit pictured in this thread is beautiful.

That's what I like to call the "Expert's Paradox". The better you get at using a tool, the less you can sufficiently make do with...while at the same time the more benefit you're able to get out of more premium tools. The novice, by contrast, is wasted on the high end stuff, but will have a very hard time finding the "voice" of the tool if all they ever know is a poor one.

 

[Skiv]

I have a hard time imagining a desperate guy standing around in the bush, with a contract to perform 'X' amount of work, wasting many hours in searching for and rendering that perfect tool handle he'd like to have had. Smart guys might have made handles on rainy days and put away a few in reserve but I don't think human nature has changed all that much. "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow"!

I can see some guys doing that -- maybe a lot of guys, in fact. Might have done it myself. I got to thinking about some other guys I've known, though. Guys who carried a four-in-hand in their lunch bucket and could re-shape an axe handle to their preference in five or ten minutes on smoke break. They were for sure good enough to be able to use it any way they got it, but they always used to say it was two things: 1) just making it "theirs" and 2) making it fit the way they wanted to work. One old boy told me, "It's like a little splinter in your finger. Sure you can ignore it for days but it's gonna bug ya. Takin' a second to fix it just makes life less aggravatin'."

Amazing how many years it took me to appreciate some of the wisdom given for free in my youth.

 

[lmalterna]

Something curious to me in the discussion of an anatomical grip. Tools that I see intended for one hand are usually curved in some manner. Tools intended for double grip are almost always straight(baseball bat, golf club, swords in the sport end of tools). The sliding of the one hand mentioned elswhere does add a variable.

I use both but I do not use them professionally so I adapt to the tool. Just for my own preference, I like a cruved grip for agility like limbing or busting brush for trail. Prefer straight grip for heavier hitting.

My current lineup is a crazy mix of both.

Bill

 

[untamed]

Something curious to me in the discussion of an anatomical grip. Tools that I see intended for one hand are usually curved in some manner. Tools intended for double grip are almost always straight(baseball bat, golf club, swords in the sport end of tools). The sliding of the one hand mentioned elswhere does add a variable.

I use both but I do not use them professionally so I adapt to the tool. Just for my own preference, I like a cruved grip for agility like limbing or busting brush for trail. Prefer straight grip for heavier hitting.

My current lineup is a crazy mix of both.

Bill

Man, I think you bring up a valid point specifically with regards to conditions imposed by length and how it affects the physics of the tool.

On the handle, I think that the ergo curve is a subtle enhancement to compensate for a limited space the grip has to work with by creating a "follow-thru" effect on the application of the force by shorter-handled tools. For longer tools however, this "might" seem superfluous or even detracting from the action.

Again though, its still a matter of how much and proper placement of the curvature is on the haft.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Interesting observation! I would imagine that professional users knew exactly just how much they could get away with and still perform the work. I have a hard time imagining a desperate guy standing around in the bush, with a contract to perform 'X' amount of work, wasting many hours in searching for and rendering that perfect tool handle he'd like to have had. Smart guys might have made handles on rainy days and put away a few in reserve but I don't think human nature has changed all that much. "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow"!

All too often "good 'nuff" was the way of things. I can't even begin to tell you the atrocities I've seen with scythes. A scythe requires much more fine-tuning and adjustment to the user to work properly (just one thing off a bit can mean the difference between miserable or joyful work) and yet I've seen so many half-baked jackass repairs that it makes all those hatchets with 50 roofing nails and broken keys in the eye look professional by comparison. Mangled sockets with screws or home-cobbled metal plates holding the blade in place (how they busted the socket in the first place I'll never know), loose nibs that are held in place with electrical staples or with screws and nails between the loop and the snath (when you can just disassemble it and snug up the shape of the band with a few taps of a hammer) and blades that were locked in a vise and twisted to adjust the lay of the blade instead of properly heating and bending the tang.

It's amazing the creativity and effort people use to do things the WRONG way. I think that nearly anyone can learn how to use skill-based tools well, but some folks can let the tool teach them and others need an experienced fellow to walk them through it one or five times before they can reliably do so on their own.

 

[300Six]

FortyTwoBlades: I have only ever swung a scythe a few times, enough to know why gas-powered trimmers have entirely taken over; no skill required VS lots of skill, experience, and, finely tuned blades and handles on well cared for tools.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

FortyTwoBlades: I have only ever swung a scythe a few times, enough to know why gas-powered trimmers have entirely taken over; no skill required VS lots of skill, experience, and, finely tuned blades and handles on well cared for tools.

By contrast, once you figure out how to use one right you'll wonder how gas-powered trimmers ever got popular.

 

[Ernest DuBois]

Are you on about mowing the lawn or the pasture, or the berm of the road or what, FTB? There's a big difference. And what has happened to all that other advertising clutter on your entries?

E.DB.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Advertising clutter? Pardon me?

And in terms of the particular mowing tasks I do a little of all of that, personally. Knocking down weeds in the pasture that the horses won't eat, mowing the lawn and using the clippings as fresh fodder for our meat rabbits and horses, keeping the edge of the road and the electric fence line clear, and also a bit of brush removal, field mowing and the like for friends and family.

At any rate, I brought it up just as an example of the ugly shortcuts a lot of folks seemed to settle for back in the day. While I think that there were MORE people that paid close attention to tool choice and tuning historically, I still think that they represented only a small slice of the total tool-using population just like today. I simply spend more time around old scythes than I do old axes (though I've seen plenty there as well.)

 

[Ernest DuBois]

I had to go and open my big mouth, so to speak. In fact it seems when I am signed in a good deal of that junk disappears, otherwise , there is it again. Some kind of inducement on the part of somebody or other, wanting this or that, I guess. It's a market driven mystery. Another in a series. Of course what comes through on my engines of search might not be the same as yours. You see I am on the Tor network for an anonymous computer presence and have been since long before our hero E. Snowden came on the scene.

No, I was just wondering about tips for lawn mowing. I have no trouble mowing the pasture and keeping high weeds in check but mowing the lawn is a challenge for the scythe blades I have. I end up leaving that job to my wife with her fuel powered mower.

E.DB.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Ah--gotcha. I do leave my lawn a hair more shaggy than a mechanical mower would (I prefer the more vibrant look--the grass looks dead and diseased to me if cut as close as a mech. mower does) but I still get quite a close-cropped result. A lot of the trick really comes from just tillering the scythe a bit to adjust the run of your stroke closer to the ground and getting a very exaggerated circular stroke with an especially keen edge. I find a lower/wider stance tends to help with this, as well. I often will use a hybrid continental-bladed/American-tanged blade for my lawn work just because it's so light but I actually get the best results from my favorite all-around unit--my blue Sta-Tite "Success" snath with a True Temper Kelly Works weed blade of somewhat heavy build but good forging, with the tang given only a partial pitch. The run is just right so that I can tiller the blade up for bush work, low for light grass, and in the neutral position for general clearing. The curves of both the snath and the blade are just right, the snath itself being light for an American and yet strong enough to shrug off clearing the occasional bush or budding sapling. The blade being glassy hard helps, too, since it can take an absurdly fine edge.

I find that getting a picture-perfect swath on a lawn is one of the more challenging tasks with a scythe, along with cutting swampy tall, fine grasses that have been blown over and rained on, but even for those that are fairly fastidious a scythe is still great to pair with a reel mower. Since reel mowers tend to have trouble with growth that gets above about 2" and in some places/seasons it can be easy for the grass to quickly shoot above that mark, a scythe can be used fairly sloppily and still get the grass clipped low enough for the reel mower not to suffer from indigestion.

 

[Skiv]

No, I was just wondering about tips for lawn mowing. I have no trouble mowing the pasture and keeping high weeds in check but mowing the lawn is a challenge for the scythe blades I have.

Proper hafting is the key. We'll assume you've got that figured. Three other keys: make dead sure the blade is freshly peened and honed, mow in the morning before the sun heats up the lawn, and use a little down pressure on the blade.

Our lawn has a lot of clover -- which is super easy to cut. It's also a small yard, so zip-zip with a scythe is less work than digging out the reel mower and pushing it back and forth. This time of year the deer are keeping it mowed for me.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Yeah clover is so easy to mow it almost feels like cheating. There's so little feedback during the stroke that you don't even really get the satisfying sensation of the stalks severing. And yes--gentle downward pressure helps.

 

[Ernest DuBois]

Peening could be the key I suspect then, as well as proper expectations. If only it were as simple as masking all that advertising stuff.

E.DB.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

It's sort of like straight razor shaving. At first you're not going to get as close of a shave and you're not going to have as fine of an edge on it as you really need. Practice makes perfect, though! Or more specifically, practice makes permanent--only perfect practice makes perfect.

 

[Briarbrow]

See for yourself. Just some hardware store trash here ordered up by the purchase order clerks.

the chap on the springboard to the right looks rather stern; perhaps more literal in his speech and terminology and likely referred to these as adze-handled axes due to the similarity. The one on the left a bit flamboyant; speaking more poetically called them whip handled axes because the way they felt when swung.

The two hunkering below seem to be in agreement these were azzwhooping axes because of the way they tucker a feller.

 

[idle]

Originally Posted by Thomas Linton
Which professionals used curved-handled axes?

See for yourself. Just some hardware store trash here ordered up by the purchase order clerks.

The tall guy on the right looks like he has a straight hafted axe. It does have a slight belly in it, but it is much straighter than his co-workers, and currently produced handles.

His side does have more wood removed fwiw.

It mic's out to about 40" to 42" long if he's 6'3".

 

[CedarEater]

Hey Idle, how long is that haft on the left if that guy is 5'11"(which I would bet is a little tall for that fellow)?