suggestions for "all around" Mid-size Axe

Since you live in Maine you should check antique shops, flea markets and yard sales for old axe heads. Some of the finest axes ever made were made in Maine. I would look for a 2 1/4 lb. and a 3 lb. or 3 1/2 lb. single bits. Put the former on a 26" and the latter on a 30 or 32 inch handle. With those 2 axes you would be all set for just about any task.
 
Samon said:
LOL! don't go there girlfriend!
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Some people get 20 years of experience, some people get 1 year of experience 20 times.

European axe makers have great experience in making specialty wood working axes. They excel at this and make numerous wonderful designs. But in North America and Australia the felling/bucking axe came to it's climax. No where in Europe was the felling/bucking axe ever tested so intensely as it was in the heyday of the timber industry in North America and Australia. The timbermen found what worked - found what Europe never discovered in 3000 years of axe making.

This is (I think) what G-pig is talking about. And he can go where ever he likes, sweetie.
wink.gif
 
Square_peg said:
Some people get 20 years of experience, some people get 1 year of experience 20 times.

European axe makers have great experience in making specialty wood working axes. They excel at this and make numerous wonderful designs. But in North America and Australia the felling/bucking axe came to it's climax. No where in Europe was the felling/bucking axe ever tested so intensely as it was in the heyday of the timber industry in North America and Australia. The timbermen found what worked - found what Europe never discovered in 3000 years of axe making.

This is (I think) what G-pig is talking about. And he can go where ever he likes, sweetie.
wink.gif
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Do I get a fan girl as back-up too? har har!
 
Nothing against Swede's, really. Love Swedish knives, and the old axes were great before they jumped the shark. I just have a problem with the ones they produce now. Can't really blame them, since it's the hipsters and hyper intellectual pseudo naturalists that are lapping up the, as another member put it, "Neo-rustique" style.
 
Is your problem that these new Swedish axes - not sure quite what that means - don't throw plate sized chips?

E.DB
 
Samon said:
So a meager 250 years of history predates thousands of years of European axe making?

LOL! don't go there girlfriend!
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The last big advance in European ax making happened when they quit using their bronze pole axes. :) The 250 years of American ax making occurred in a period of accelerated technological advances in metallurgy and industry. Of course many of the modern axes will be superior to older patterns for specific purposes.
 
Just to add to what's been said above, the Europe vs. America timeline is a bit specious. The people who settled the U.S. during the first 100 plus years largely came from Europe. They brought all that knowledge and technology with them. Then they were given a better environment and market to test them in. Really pretty simple.
 
John Frankl said:
Just to add to what's been said above, the Europe vs. America timeline is a bit specious. The people who settled the U.S. during the first 100 plus years largely came from Europe. They brought all that knowledge and technology with them. Then they were given a better environment and market to test them in. Really pretty simple.
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I think this is exactly the argument being made. The development of the axe in the Americas was simply the ultimate refinement period in the global development of the axe. You just can't compare logging North American forests with what was available in the Scandinavian countries, or probably Europe in general, what with the high population density for so many centuries now.

When other posters speak of Swedish axes, I assume they are talking about the big name current makers and their current models (GB, Wetterlings). While these axes are great medium use camp and "bushcraft" axes, they're perhaps not the woodchoppers that the early-mid 20th century American axes are, for a variety of reasons. What the current production Swedish axes DO have going for them is not insubstantial: quality materials, skilled and knowledgable employees, excellent marketing departments, and aesthetically first-rate finished goods. If they'd just put out a 3-3.5lb head with the right overall shape/geometry, they'd have the winner in the woodchopping area, most likely. Of course, name me more than one CURRENT US axe maker who is putting out quality product. The dilemma comes in that US users are more or less left to sort through yard sales and flea markets to find the "ideal" axe.


As is always the case, YMMV, and you don't have to put any stock into my words.


-ben
 
bjp said:
When other posters speak of Swedish axes, I assume they are talking about the big name current makers and their current models (GB, Wetterlings). While these axes are great medium use camp and "bushcraft" axes, they're perhaps not the woodchoppers that the early-mid 20th century American axes are, for a variety of reasons. What the current production Swedish axes DO have going for them is not insubstantial: quality materials, skilled and knowledgable employees, excellent marketing departments, and aesthetically first-rate finished goods. If they'd just put out a 3-3.5lb head with the right overall shape/geometry, they'd have the winner in the woodchopping area, most likely. Of course, name me more than one CURRENT US axe maker who is putting out quality product. The dilemma comes in that US users are more or less left to sort through yard sales and flea markets to find the "ideal" axe.

As is always the case, YMMV, and you don't have to put any stock into my words.
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That's a very good assessment.
 
John Frankl said:
Just to add to what's been said above, the Europe vs. America timeline is a bit specious. The people who settled the U.S. during the first 100 plus years largely came from Europe. They brought all that knowledge and technology with them. Then they were given a better environment and market to test them in. Really pretty simple.
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My biscuit nibbling aside, I think that ^ is pretty much it. I would add though, that it was also an evolution in the needs of the tool. They were made larger, heavier and longer - why? to cut those hard ass 'merican trees! Wood so hard that the standard axes just couldn't cut it (pun intended.. har har) and a new line of axes made by Europeans so they could build their new world in the americas.

That being said, Gransfors Bruks haven't ripped anyone off. Their axes are great for European enviroments and trees, but not brilliant in north america or canada where trees species vary with significantly harder woods. So to imply they've copied canadian desings isn't quite right, or logical. GB have produced an american felling axe to satisfy the big time wood workers in north america and canada, but their majority of previous models are tradtional examples/patterns that have been used for hundreds of years.

Now let's try not to bring the origin of the tomahawk into discussion.. lol! (atleast untill I'm done curling my hair and painting my nails!)
 
Ernest DuBois said:
Is your problem that these new Swedish axes - not sure quite what that means - don't throw plate sized chips?

E.DB
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I don't like the flat geometry of the cheeks parallel to the edge (lack of "high centerline"), I don't like the concavity from the edge moving up the cheek and face to the beginning of the eye either. I don't like the handles they come with either, they are too thick and the curves are in the wrong places.

Samon said:
My biscuit nibbling aside, I think that ^ is pretty much it. I would add though, that it was also an evolution in the needs of the tool. They were made larger, heavier and longer - why? to cut those hard ass 'merican trees! Wood so hard that the standard axes just couldn't cut it (pun intended.. har har) and a new line of axes made by Europeans so they could build their new world in the americas.

That being said, Gransfors Bruks haven't ripped anyone off. Their axes are great for European enviroments and trees, but not brilliant in north america or canada where trees species vary with significantly harder woods. So to imply they've copied canadian desings isn't quite right, or logical. GB have produced an american felling axe to satisfy the big time wood workers in north america and canada, but their majority of previous models are tradtional examples/patterns that have been used for hundreds of years.

Now let's try not to bring the origin of the tomahawk into discussion.. lol! (atleast untill I'm done curling my hair and painting my nails!)
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For softer woods, especially resinous/very green ones, a thin bit (like GB) is not particularly well suited. Without the high centerline on which to pivot the axe loose, and the concavity from the edge to the upper "working" face (part of the face actually in play as a contact point) lacks the ability to regulate the depth of the cut. That results in not only excessive sticking, but poor chip throwing (since chopping is as much the splitting of fibers as it is the severing of them).

For whatever it's worth, as an evangelical wood cutter by hand with the crosscut saw and axe, I would much rather cut a green Maple or Birch, or fresh Ash, than dry conifers. The season during which the tree is cut, and whether it is green and freshly cut are more deciding factors in whether it is a "joy to cut" as opposed to more a drudgery.
 
So, effectively then, once we get past the subjectivity of opinion and taste, and with the exception of the wood part on there, which arguably should not be included in any case, the answer to the question is yes, I take it.

E.DB.
 
3 lb head 30-32 inch handle, wedge tight, bit sharp, use common sense, and away you go.

Don't over complicate things.
 
Ernest DuBois said:
So, effectively then, once we get past the subjectivity of opinion and taste, and with the exception of the wood part on there, which arguably should not be included in any case, the answer to the question is yes, I take it.

E.DB.
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Sorry you were irked by elaborating on why I don't like them. I suppose that I'm not European enough in my methodology to meet such rigorous standards of expression. As someone who makes handles (a fact that is known by most regulars here, unless I am mistaken), I felt that adding that "critique", pretty distinctly separate, was an acceptable elaboration.

I had hoped that the response to Samon would also clarify my opinion of them in terms of geometry. The answer is very much "Yes" to your original question.
 
bjp said:
I think this is exactly the argument being made. The development of the axe in the Americas was simply the ultimate refinement period in the global development of the axe. You just can't compare logging North American forests with what was available in the Scandinavian countries, or probably Europe in general, what with the high population density for so many centuries now.
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I don't think we can really underestimate the importance of the cultural differences, with Europe being established in its methodology, with its own established authoritarian infrastructure, and America being a convergence point of eccentrics, with a much different culture (or lack thereof, within being the general crux of my point).
 
Let me propose in terms of this angle an attempt at clarity, for all the confused. Sticking rigidly to the literal topic at hand, that is, something to do with an all-around axe, the typical felling axe pattern, high centerline, broadly cheeked and all that as it may be, is a specialty axe with a fairly narrow, (ok, I could go further and write obscure even), utility.

E.DB.
 
Ernest DuBois said:
Let me propose in terms of this angle an attempt at clarity, for all the confused. Sticking rigidly to the literal topic at hand, that is, something to do with an all-around axe, the typical felling axe pattern, high centerline, broadly cheeked and all that as it may be, is a specialty axe with a fairly narrow, (ok, I could go further and write obscure even), utility.

E.DB.
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As I define serious use, or application, I don't see an axe of those parameters, of the right weight, given an appropriate handle and a proper sharpening (Read: proper), being of "narrow" utility. In other words, cross grain work like bucking and felling, limbing, splitting, various hewing processes (scoring, waste removal, and finishing), as well as countless "odd jobs" like sharpening trellis poles, carving and processing craftwood are all accomplished easily enough. The parameters can of course be altered to suit the ratios of use.
 
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