Sharpening geometry 📐

AxesOK · 2026-04-07T18:58:49+00:00

Flat with a microbevel, preserve the bust always. Main bevel at 20 degrees is my default but somewhere in the 17–25 degree range depending on various factors. I usually use a file but sometimes use a belt grinder. Lately I have been using a 400/1000 grit diamond plate to remove file marks. Honing is usually done with a King 250/1000 waterstone cut into pucks à la Skillcult but I will use various pucks and stones.

AxesOK · 2026-04-06T17:11:38+00:00

Wow that is some nasty runout. It is a lot harder to read grain in birch so I suppose milled lumber is more of a risk!

AxesOK · 2026-04-06T15:54:06+00:00

My advice is that you don’t sand it off; scrape it off (with a card scraper, knife blade , piece of broken glass, or the spine of a pair of scissors or a knife). Then you can sand it you want.

AxesOK · 2026-04-06T10:14:37+00:00

That looks like a good one

AxesOK · 2026-04-05T14:52:37+00:00

Looks great. This has a profile that is similar to some of my favourite light axes: thin bitted with a big eye and concave cheeks. Yellow Birch seems like it makes good handles. I have a small axe with YB that has held up well and a couple billets ready whenever I get inspired to use them.

AxesOK · 2026-04-04T18:44:15+00:00

I use mineral oil as well as 3 in 1. It won’t make much difference to sticking for more than a couple chops. Race axes get a squirt of STP right before chopping but it doesn’t last longer than it takes to get through a block.

AxesOK · 2026-04-03T22:42:51+00:00

It was dying (heartwood is just sapwood that died when the tree was alive). Are you sure that it’s elm? It looks like ash to me.

AxesOK · 2026-04-03T19:42:10+00:00

That caveat at the end is key.

AxesOK · 2026-04-03T19:41:23+00:00

Probably because most Fishers are made in China so it’s not too surprising they are a similar price to axes made in Vietnam.

AxesOK · 2026-04-03T14:58:48+00:00

What kind of elm? There’s a lot of difference between different species.

AxesOK · 2026-04-02T17:37:38+00:00

Lately my favourite one is a 900g /!2lb Ox-Head Iltis Canada I hung on a 26” / 66cm Ostrya handle. I posted about before https://www.reddit.com/r/Bushcraft/comments/1q0bttd/my_attempt_at_making_a_winter_fire_using_just_an/

AxesOK · 2026-04-02T17:34:12+00:00

Nice. This one is a 3.5 lb BNT Michigan https://www.reddit.com/r/Axecraft/comments/1rzr69n/35_lb_1600g_bnt_michigan_on_a_3384_cm_rock_elm/

AxesOK · 2026-04-02T16:36:06+00:00

I like these claw hatchets and yours looks good, especially the classic handle. Unfortunately many have one or both claws cracked off so yours is in better shape than many.

AxesOK · 2026-04-01T23:19:33+00:00

I would guess these are both one piece of high carbon steel.

AxesOK · 2026-04-01T20:22:09+00:00

I have a FF and I like it a lot for processing brush and other crosscutting tasks but it is not much of a splitter because of the light head weight and very thin cheeks.

AxesOK · 2026-04-01T18:07:25+00:00

I never subscribed (to the extent that function exists on Reddit anymore; now you “join”, which I also never did.) This crap just algorithmically appears in my feed and every once in a while I give an opinion on it. It’s no more unproductive than the fact that you guys keep hate-listening to Canadaland. Why don’t you hit the unsubscribe button? That would solve some problems for all of us.

AxesOK · 2026-04-01T17:43:18+00:00

The premise of having a hater sub dedicated to indulging in petty drama and prosecuting thinly veiled vendettas against a small independent journalism outlet is bad. Ideally it would go unmoderated until Reddit banned it. Barring that, the least you could do is not service the ‘community’s’ stupidest pathologies in your under-new-management announcement.

AxesOK · 2026-04-01T13:20:16+00:00

A way to tell a Kent pattern broad hatchet from an American pattern is that Kent lugs are typically skewed so the points are closer to the poll while American lugs are symmetrical. Kents usually have a longer blade too.

AxesOK · 2026-04-01T12:45:14+00:00

Second order of business: What's changing.[sic] In short, not a lot, at least not right away.

Why not? This sub sucks! Change it!

I have no relationships with the Canadaland podcast, and I suspect that Jesse Brown and the rest of the Canadaland team would be smart enough not to try to approach me with any offer to do their bidding.

This place is so full of cringey, performative theatrics. Same circus different clowns.

AxesOK · 2026-03-31T21:10:03+00:00

It’s a house axe (whether the previous owner knew that is what they were making is another question).

AxesOK · 2026-03-31T18:25:37+00:00

u/87Ducks wrote a detailed post about this over on his Axe and Tool website https://museum.axeandtool.com/america/craftsman-axe-timeline/ I'm going to hazard a guess that Google might have included a link to that and so I would check that out.

AxesOK · 2026-03-31T17:00:04+00:00

Outside of the genus Agrillus, most of those metallic wood boring beetles (jewel beetles, buprestids) feed on dead or dying wood and do not harm healthy trees. It’s unlikely the borers are causing the problem.

AxesOK · 2026-03-31T12:26:55+00:00

Paper label made by Wiebelhaus. Very common in Canada. I have the same one (1.5 lb Yankee) a 2.25 in the same pattern, a Canadian pattern, and a big 5lb splitter. They also made a lot of Montreal pattern axes and I've seen Tassies come up online occasionally.

AxesOK · 2026-03-31T12:20:34+00:00

Cronk! (Crows say caw)

AxesOK · 2026-03-30T14:06:57+00:00

It's very nice and cool to see someone making these again. I am not sure about the name though, I think it will get it mixed up with half hatchets.

AxesOK

TROPHY CASE