# Hey ERNIE!!



## TNHermit (Jul 14, 2005)

I'll put this here for everybody but This would be a nice add in to your knives

http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/how-to-make-an-axe.aspx

By Bill Coperthwaite 
February/March 2005 

 

 









Enlarge this pattern to trace out your broadaxe.
_

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_Bill Coperthwaite writes about finding beauty, justice and pleasure in mastering the everyday tasks and skills of self-reliance. The following is an excerpt from his book,_ A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity.
It is hard to find a good broad hatchet â a small, broadaxe with a wide cutting edge beveled on only one side, like a chisel; this special bevel makes it easier to hew to a line. After 40 years of hunting in antique shops and flea markets, I have found only two broad hatchets that passed muster. And for friends who sought one of their own, the outlook was also discouraging: They could get one made â if they happened to have a good design, if they knew a good blacksmith and if they could afford the price.
Or they could make an axe themselves, but by the time they had learned to forge a fine one, they would have become blacksmiths. This is an elite tool.
While traveling through Japan, in the Tosa region of the island of Shikoku, I was surprised by the number of blacksmiths. Each village had its own smith, and they all could make excellent edge tools. It was delightful to see the grace and skill of those smiths. I became friends with one who made a broad hatchet to my specifications. Twenty years went by, and in the interim I studied many axes and blended what I learned into my concept of an ideal broad hatchet.
A few years ago, I carved a wooden model and sent it off to my blacksmith friend in Shikoku. Yes, he would make it for me. Two years passed, and it did not appear. I assumed the project was forgotten. While visiting Italy, I came upon an elderly smith who had made axes years ago. I carved another pattern, and he forged the axe. Now, these are far from democratic tools. To get one you first have to design it and then know a smith in Japan or Italy or wherever who is able and willing to make an axe from your design.
I doubted the axe from Japan would materialize, and the Italian smith was old and sick, and probably would not make another. Good broad hatchets for students and friends were as elusive as ever. And though this axe adventure was exciting, and I had acquired some fine ones, we badly needed to have some inexpensive ones available.
While I was studying in Switzerland, the breakthrough came. The tiny fellow who lived upstairs (and works mostly at night) shouted âEureka!â He presented me with a full-blown design for a democratic axe.
I could hardly wait to get back to my bench. For steel, there was an ancient plow point of about the right thickness lying behind the barn. Into the bonfire it went, and when it glowed red, we heaped ashes over it and let it remain until morning, cooling slowly and releasing its hardness. The next day, I reheated and hammered it flat using a handy ledge for an anvil. When the steel cooled, I drew the pattern on it. Three hours of work at the vise was needed to cut it to shape with a hacksaw, and then another hour to dress it with files.


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## TNHermit (Jul 14, 2005)

OK this is suppose to be in SEP. The whole editing system is coming apart. Couldn't get bold to work this morning. And the spell check constantly quits. Still don't know about the PM thing

Just tried to edit a posted message and I get a message to short alert. It was an add on


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

An interesting axe, but I think it's got some major problems. 

First, the metal is not centered in the wood. With every whack you're going to be putting stress against the handle with those rivets through the wood. It is not going to last very long. I guess it would work in a pinch, but that's not something I'd ever want to sell. It just looks like it'll come apart too easy, aside from having a crazy weird balance.

Also, it's not a broadaxe. A broadaxe has a different shape. It is more of a "bearded axe", which was a fighting weapon, not a farm tool.

Bookmark that one for the apocalypse when we all have to make our own hand tools because the stores are all empty.


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## TNHermit (Jul 14, 2005)

Ernie said:


> An interesting axe, but I think it's got some major problems.
> 
> First, the metal is not centered in the wood. With every whack you're going to be putting stress against the handle with those rivets through the wood. It is not going to last very long. I guess it would work in a pinch, but that's not something I'd ever want to sell. It just looks like it'll come apart too easy, aside from having a crazy weird balance.
> 
> ...



Change the shape and cut a slot in the handle like you do a knife and rivet. Make it your own design


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

TNHermit said:


> Change the shape and cut a slot in the handle like you do a knife and rivet. Make it your own design


That would work, if I could get the balance right. I would much rather split the metal and then wrap it around the end of the handle and rivet that down, but I don't have the equipment needed right now. One of multiple reasons why I don't make axes.


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## 95bravo (Mar 22, 2010)

TNHermit said:


> Change the shape and cut a slot in the handle like you do a knife and rivet. Make it your own design


I dig your idea. I think a full tang axe would be cool. I guess the vibration would jar your joint to bits if you had to use it.


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

i would love a skatchet...i could kick myself for not buying one back in the 80's when you seen them in the magazines.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

95bravo said:


> I dig your idea. I think a full tang axe would be cool. I guess the vibration would jar your joint to bits if you had to use it.


I saw a guy cut off two toes using a full tang axe, so maybe not as cool as you think.

He was chopping against a frozen log and the kinetic vibration has no place to go in a full tang axe except for your hands. He lost control of it and it bit into his foot.


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

the late ron hood made a similar tool on left.


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

both you just cut a stick in the woods for a handle...heres rons design as an axe.


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

http://www.mcgowanmfg.com/index.cfm?category=1

http://www.mcgowanmfg.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=3


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

a little drift here...my favorite gutting tool is the gerber ez skinner ulu and i love their ez saw for opening up the chest.


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## Forerunner (Mar 23, 2007)

The real benefit to TNH' axe is that it would be much simpler to make w/out heavy smithing tools and excessive heating capabilities.

Lightly modified, it would fill the bill nicely.....until a fellow got his smelting and forge shop put up. :thumb:

In the mean time, be hitting the flea markets and picking up axe and hammer heads of your preference....dirt cheap and handles are much easier to make than heads.........


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

i pick up every axe head i can get my hands on.


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## TNHermit (Jul 14, 2005)

Estwing makes a full tang hammer . Its wrapped in leather an does a pretty nice job. expensive too.

Maybe you cant build a log cabin with it. But it may be nic and inexpensive enough to get some firewood for a rocket stove


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

i think i could take a carpenters hatchet and turn it into a skatchet only a very improved one.

i am not to familiar with the taking off of metal and keeping it cool or how to reharden it and sharpen it back and i think i would want a little larger gut hook on it.

it would be a much better hammering tool too.


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## Forerunner (Mar 23, 2007)

Elk, if you ever do wander over in this direction for that strawberry/weeding session......we'll mosey on over to the shop for a few grinding, cooling, heating, tempering and sharpening lessons. :thumb:


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

I think there's a lot of designs that one-up the axe for just gathering firewood, but if I had to chop down an entire tree then I'd definitely want the big axe.

For just shrubs and cutting off limbs, I use a big kukri.


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## plowhand (Aug 14, 2005)

It'd be handy for chopping up punkins....be better to split a piece of pipe, saw in handle, slide in blade, pipe on each side of handle, rivet the devil out of it. Glorified bush axe!


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## Nate_in_IN (Apr 5, 2013)

95bravo said:


> I dig your idea. I think a full tang axe would be cool. I guess the vibration would jar your joint to bits if you had to use it.


I always thought the wood in the handle was very important for an axe. It stores the energy of the stroke and then snaps back straight delivering increased power. That is what made hickory the wood of choice in axe handles. A full tang would prevent the handle from flexing.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

TNHermit said:


> Estwing makes a full tang hammer . Its wrapped in leather an does a pretty nice job. expensive too.
> 
> Maybe you cant build a log cabin with it. But it may be nic and inexpensive enough to get some firewood for a rocket stove


Yup, I use a 22 oz. straight claw, best hammer there was 20 years ago,don't know about now.
As far as hatchets, Elk mentioned a Fiskars awhile back, that sounds nice for working out in the woods. I like a dull hatchet for splitting my kindleing, I split on a small slice of wood next to the cookstove,sometimes I can miss, being dull has saved me my fingers/hand.


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## Ohio Rusty (Jan 18, 2008)

Doa google search for a japanese carpenter axe. That axe has that shape where you can put your hand behind the blade for finer work. The japanese carpenter axe is an axe head with an eye for a handle. 

Ohio Rusty ><>

"Control the food, and you control the people, control oil, and you control nations" ....... Henry Kissenger, 1970


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

Ohio Rusty said:


> Doa google search for a japanese carpenter axe. That axe has that shape where you can put your hand behind the blade for finer work. The japanese carpenter axe is an axe head with an eye for a handle.
> 
> Ohio Rusty ><>
> 
> "Control the food, and you control the people, control oil, and you control nations" ....... Henry Kissenger, 1970


Not that radically different from the Viking-era bearded axe.

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One of the reasons that axes were so prevalent in various cultures as weapons was that there was a shortage of steel. In Nordic society, steel for swordmaking was reserved for the nobility as they had almost no real steel industry of their own. An axe required less steel and could even be made of iron without having too much ill effect from the brittleness.

The shorter-handled bearded axes also had an advantage in combat that a sword didn't have. It was common to reach over the top of an opponent's shield with the "hook" of the axe, catch the shield and bring it down, allowing either your either hand or your buddy to strike at your target while his defense was down.


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