I have to rehandle a medium weight carving axe and have apple, plum, yew, cherry, hawthorn and hazel, holly and laurel to choose from. Which wood would you go with? Also, any thoughts on a good handle design for a carving axe? Short, long, straight or curved? Thanks in advance, Andrew
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Axe handle design and timber
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I take a dim view of an axe being an acceptable wood carving tool. Yes, it is possible.
Is this a carving axe head with a single bevel, one side? Right or left?
Axe handles in North America are made, traditionally, from a ring-porous species such as Ash or Hickory. The mechanical properties are much alike to a compound leaf spring, represented by the stack of growth rings. All of the woods you name are diffuse-porous, certainly not useful elasticity.
Over and over again here in the Pacific Northwest, First Nations wood carvers cut axe heads in half.
One half is a D-adze blade and the other becomes an elbow adze blade. Those are carving tools.
I say go for it. I say use apple as the wood has some useful elastic properties.
Pay attention to the orientation of the grain (or like a baseball bat, it will shatter.)
What is the strike face and shock in a bat, relative to the growth rings? Can you remember?Brian T
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I use small axes/hatchets as my main roughing out tool, primarily it will be used to take archery bows from roundwood to within a couple of mm from finished when I switch to gouge/chiselYou do not have permission to view this gallery.
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