I bought a hewing ax that is in incredible condition and it has a curved bevel. I thought I had to flatten it but I'm glad I watched this before I ruined my ax.
Took me a while to figure out that the secondary bevel on the single bevel axe--was on the opposite side of the blade--not on the same side as when talking about a secondary (or micro) bevel on a chisel or plane blade. But I got there in the end! Very interesting information on the action of the convex bevel. I haven't done much axe work and had no idea. We still have a fair bit of wooden boat building going on here in Maine and a co worker told me about a customer who brought some rough timbers to the yard where he worked at the time, and wanted them adzed smooth. He was very loud and brash about it and insisted that the boss 'put his best axeman on it'. In typically Maine fashion, the boss just nodded--and did just that! The customer was very upset when he came back for his beams. They were perfectly silky smooth. He'd wanted the rough hewn surface that you get in old barns! We do use broad axes occasionally on timbers of large vessels--mainly out of interest. If you have a Mafel power plane with a six inch blade, you can be knee deep in heavy shavings in no time--and it gets the job done--that and a chainsaw. We all love old tools and have some we use constantly.
Awesome video! This just connected a bunch of concepts for me, totally makes sense you want the tool to ride back out of the cut when hewing, and tool geometry is the key to forcing the cut into a curved path. Understanding a tree as a long bundle of fibers is how I was taught to fall timber and buck logs, we almost always cut the compression side first to maintain control as long as possible. The side under tension is really what’s keeping a live tree standing, or a big log spanning a draw from shattering/exploding. Really cool to think about the axe creating tension in the fibers at the cut (and compression on the outside of a chip as the chip is forced into a curve). Really glad I saw this before attempting to tune up my old broad axe! I would have just flattened the back like a chisel. Thanks again, this kind of wood and tool knowledge is hard to find in my part of the world.
I’ve been waiting for a guy like you to make a video on hewing axes on the internet for a loooong time bud! I’ve found such a huge variety online I’m always trying to sus out why they have the variety they do and what is best for what I need.
great vid. helped clear up some stuff ive been finding on bought axes. ive managed to get a kent axe to work nicely as a nimble hewing axe. please more vids theyre great quality. audio is however in mono so i panicked thinking my speakers were broken
You've done a fine job with your explanation. Also, this information has given me hope for a single bevel hatchet that has had a second bevel poorly ground onto it. I now believe I can finish it's restoration as a convex bevel with secondary bevel and find a place for it's use. Thank you.
Well done Stuart, very informative. Great to see you back. I've been working with a bloke whom was telling me about a you tube channel regarding fluid dynamics in catching gold, I mentioned mad scientist prospecting and too his surprise, he said yes 👍
@@ChestnutnagsToolsFromJapan lucky you, I've got to go painting, hope you get out, it's hard sometimes to get up and get the motivated to do the things we love. Wish I could come.☹️
@@craigparry5648 It can be a sign of depression. My mental health has been so much better this year but it took a few hits in the last week. Its why I'm kinda forcing myself to go out today.
Thanks for this video! I'm trying to restore a single-bevel hewing axe and this is helpful for knowing what to do (or not do) with the back. I do still feel like I could use more guidance about how much "secondary bevel" there should be (in degrees, or maybe in gap distance under a straightedge held on the face) on the non-beveled/"flat" face for the various purposes you mentioned (around 8:00) - roughing, smoothing, and finishing. And should it be just a slight convex curve along the whole axis from eye to edge, or more of a gentle rounding over near the edge with the rest of the face quite flat? I've never handled a functional hewing axe before, and so at this point I'm totally guessing.
A concave bevel that's precise: Remove the bench grinder from the bench and secure it at about eye level. Lash the the axe head to a stick of the right length - pound a nail in one end of the stick, backwards - point out. Place the tip of the nail in a marked hole in the floor. If the stick is the right length the grinding wheel will make contact where it is supposed to. The long length of the stick allows for arcing the stick/head with precision. The hole in the floor is marked to be used over and over after you quench the steel. (how I pre-sharpened wide plane irons on narrow grinding wheels - the minimal arc is taken out on the waterstone) Might work, I never tried it on an axe.
You are more than welcome Nicholas. Sometimes the hardest thing is to choose what video to do. So when someone asks a question like yours that deserves a detailed answer it provides inspiration. Without your inspiration I don't know how much longer it would have taken me to do another video. So my thanks to you.
I like the Japanese finishing adze...if done right it leaves a beautiful wavey finish almost like rounded fish scales that is beautiful and almost glassy smooth...
G’day. It is a pleasure to listen to a young men like you. I know exactly what you are talking about and you have explained it extremely well. THANK YOU.
Dan Dustin believes that the point of a single bevel axe is to simply make the edge sharper. He hewed with the bevel side towards the work piece. Everyone interested should watch "from tree to beam"
How sharp something is and bevel geometry are two different things. A piece of glass or perfectly square edged piece of steel can be just as sharp a tool with a single bevel at an acute angle.
@ 20:50 was very helpful. I just bought Marble's Camp Axe - $28 + shipping. 1 1/2 lb head , 16" long. I want to sweat over it and make a carving axe out of it. Before watching your video I was going the make one face flat, flat as the back of a chisel, maybe with a micro-bevel. Now I see I must go more as is seen @ 20;50. I'll be making shoe lasts with this experiment - light work, no heavy swinging. The art is in how much curve goes into the flat side of the mostly single bevel axe. Thanks. This really helped. Now, why aren't my pear trees producing fruit? Subbed
Convex is easy. You rough it in with a wheel, and finish it with a belt. The stretch of the belt, as you work, actually helps with this. Concave is harder, unless you have the right tools. $400/each diamond wheels, are not a thing most people just have laying around.
I brought a big American made broad axe from a well known tool maker abs dealer in the U.K. I let him talk me into the one he had fully prepared over the one he hadn’t touched it was awful as the back was dead flat. It’s now been rectified and works well but it’s first thing I look at now as I had a new grandsfors that was concave and awful to use.
Yeah the bigger they are the more I'd be inclined to have more secondary bevel. It takes a lot more control with a flat back on a hatchet let alone a big broad axe.
When you say secondary bevel, you still mean a single sided bevel with an unbeveled opposite side, right? Or is the secondary bevel a *very slight* bevel on the other side? Sorry, just a bit confused.
Thanks my Viking. I first got into hewing because of my interest in longships and later mortise and tenon timber framing. One day I want to build or at least help build a longship or three. My plan was to start with a Faering but there are a number of smaller Japanese boats I'm thinking of starting with. Looks like you have some cool videos on your channel.
@@ChestnutnagsToolsFromJapan Funny, as my interest in longships brought me to your channel. I want to improve my understanding of how the different ship-building tools were prepared for different purposes, as dressing trunks with various axes. If you want to build a "Viking craft", a færing is a good place to start. The Gokstad færing is a challenge due to the complex stem and stern timber, so a more recent boat type is more forgiving for a newbie in lapstrake. Check out the oselvar, strandebarmer and nordfjord færing, for instance. The Vikings, or at least the medieval Norse (pre Black plague), used a special type of timber framing called "grindverk" for construction. A brilliant procedure that can be carried out using no nails at all, only trunnels with visible or hidden wedges.
"Secondary bevel" and "double-bevel" seem to be used interchangably here. ' A secondary bevel is a bevel that one adds to the primary bevel. As such it must be at a higher angle than the primary bevel. For example, a primary bevel may be 25 degrees. The secondary bevel may be anything from 26 degrees upward. Sometimes secondary bevels are referred to as “micro bevels”.'
Bother I had hoped that I'd made the difference clear. Micro bevels and secondary bevels are not synonymous. Sometimes the micro bevel may be a tertiary bevel :). Secondary bevels and double bevels are completely different. A chisel is almost always a single bevel tool. It may have a micro bevel or a secondary bevel (in this case the same thing). A falling axe is a double bevel tool. It has both left and right bevels.
I only keep a secondary bevel on thin edged axes such as gransfors level of thickness, and then only about 2-5 degrees deeper the the main concave bevel, because too steep a secondary angle makes for inaccuracies in cutting because the presentation is different. I only keep a secondary bevel on axes that I rough out with really, my carving axes all have flat bevels ground to zero and I’ll try only to work in green wood, where the sharpness of the grind really proves itself, less effort to cut accurately so less stressful. Neither do I keep a concave ground axe with a secondary bevel as that would negate the effectiveness of the concave grind altogether. Just my tuppence worth of opinion 🙂
Very informative. Thank you. One thing I didn’t get is, should you have any sort of bevel on the flat side of hewing axe? or does the secondary bevel go on the beveled side?
I personally like a very slight bevel on the "flat" side of a hewing axe, and I find that there is one on most of the hewing axes I have examined closely (in the U.S. Northeast) if they are not too rusted and pitted to tell. Having the back perfectly flat makes the tool too aggressive, tending to hog into the surface. I have seen Scandinavian hewing axes where this back bevel is quite large, perhaps half the size of the bevel on the side away from the wood. This contradicts the statement made early in the video that there are only two types of hewing axes, either single or double-beveled. Actually there is a range of in-betweens, depending on how much bevel is on the back side.
Stuart, mind blown dude. So much info in this video. Totally worth watching mate. Great vid. Please keep them coming across your channels. Hey must soon be time for bees and apple pressing yeah?
@@andrewaltschwager5000 Bee stuff appears on "Stuart Chignell" and I've got a number of things I need to do. My back is shot so I need to build a hive lift. Apples are in Autumn. Didn't do any filming this year. We had a reasonable run but LOTS of fruit fly.
its insane that people will spend half an hour listening to this theoretical blah blah instead of just going hands on and see whats good for them. folks, hewing is a multisecular art thats been passed on orally without the need to split hairs like this young man is trying to do here. many great hewing videos on youtube but this is not one of them.
To each his own. This man just laid a foundation of understanding wood fiber in relation to cutting forces that is better than anything I’ve ever come across on TH-cam. I’m a woodcutter, carver and timberfaller. Understanding a tree as a long bundle of fibers, and knowing how you’re affecting the tension and compression within those fibers gives better control of the process and a more predictable outcome.
You are correct about traditional ways of knowledge being passed down, and hands on is the most important way to learn. Wish I had a 400 year old master craftsman as a guide.
I bought a hewing ax that is in incredible condition and it has a curved bevel. I thought I had to flatten it but I'm glad I watched this before I ruined my ax.
Took me a while to figure out that the secondary bevel on the single bevel axe--was on the opposite side of the blade--not on the same side as when talking about a secondary (or micro) bevel on a chisel or plane blade. But I got there in the end!
Very interesting information on the action of the convex bevel. I haven't done much axe work and had no idea.
We still have a fair bit of wooden boat building going on here in Maine and a co worker told me about a customer who brought some rough timbers to the yard where he worked at the time, and wanted them adzed smooth.
He was very loud and brash about it and insisted that the boss 'put his best axeman on it'.
In typically Maine fashion, the boss just nodded--and did just that!
The customer was very upset when he came back for his beams. They were perfectly silky smooth. He'd wanted the rough hewn surface that you get in old barns!
We do use broad axes occasionally on timbers of large vessels--mainly out of interest. If you have a Mafel power plane with a six inch blade, you can be knee deep in heavy shavings in no time--and it gets the job done--that and a chainsaw. We all love old tools and have some we use constantly.
Awesome video! This just connected a bunch of concepts for me, totally makes sense you want the tool to ride back out of the cut when hewing, and tool geometry is the key to forcing the cut into a curved path. Understanding a tree as a long bundle of fibers is how I was taught to fall timber and buck logs, we almost always cut the compression side first to maintain control as long as possible. The side under tension is really what’s keeping a live tree standing, or a big log spanning a draw from shattering/exploding.
Really cool to think about the axe creating tension in the fibers at the cut (and compression on the outside of a chip as the chip is forced into a curve).
Really glad I saw this before attempting to tune up my old broad axe! I would have just flattened the back like a chisel. Thanks again, this kind of wood and tool knowledge is hard to find in my part of the world.
Thanks for that. It's really touching when you people appreciate your efforts.
Great info, best explanation of the secondary bevel I’ve found.
I’ve been waiting for a guy like you to make a video on hewing axes on the internet for a loooong time bud! I’ve found such a huge variety online I’m always trying to sus out why they have the variety they do and what is best for what I need.
great vid. helped clear up some stuff ive been finding on bought axes. ive managed to get a kent axe to work nicely as a nimble hewing axe. please more vids theyre great quality. audio is however in mono so i panicked thinking my speakers were broken
You've done a fine job with your explanation.
Also, this information has given me hope for a single bevel hatchet that has had a second bevel poorly ground onto it. I now believe I can finish it's restoration as a convex bevel with secondary bevel and find a place for it's use.
Thank you.
Wow. That was fascinating. Excellent explanation.
Well done Stuart, very informative. Great to see you back.
I've been working with a bloke whom was telling me about a you tube channel regarding fluid dynamics in catching gold, I mentioned mad scientist prospecting and too his surprise, he said yes 👍
Thanks Craig. If I can get my gumption up I'm going out today to find some yellow. Haven't decided where yet.
@@ChestnutnagsToolsFromJapan lucky you, I've got to go painting, hope you get out, it's hard sometimes to get up and get the motivated to do the things we love. Wish I could come.☹️
@@craigparry5648 It can be a sign of depression. My mental health has been so much better this year but it took a few hits in the last week. Its why I'm kinda forcing myself to go out today.
Thanks for this video! I'm trying to restore a single-bevel hewing axe and this is helpful for knowing what to do (or not do) with the back. I do still feel like I could use more guidance about how much "secondary bevel" there should be (in degrees, or maybe in gap distance under a straightedge held on the face) on the non-beveled/"flat" face for the various purposes you mentioned (around 8:00) - roughing, smoothing, and finishing. And should it be just a slight convex curve along the whole axis from eye to edge, or more of a gentle rounding over near the edge with the rest of the face quite flat? I've never handled a functional hewing axe before, and so at this point I'm totally guessing.
A concave bevel that's precise: Remove the bench grinder from the bench and secure it at about eye level. Lash the the axe head to a stick of the right length - pound a nail in one end of the stick, backwards - point out. Place the tip of the nail in a marked hole in the floor. If the stick is the right length the grinding wheel will make contact where it is supposed to. The long length of the stick allows for arcing the stick/head with precision. The hole in the floor is marked to be used over and over after you quench the steel. (how I pre-sharpened wide plane irons on narrow grinding wheels - the minimal arc is taken out on the waterstone) Might work, I never tried it on an axe.
When you strop the edge, you always get a convex edge, a tiny micro convex edge. Because the leather is soft.
Tack Stuart, what a treat!
You are more than welcome Nicholas.
Sometimes the hardest thing is to choose what video to do. So when someone asks a question like yours that deserves a detailed answer it provides inspiration. Without your inspiration I don't know how much longer it would have taken me to do another video.
So my thanks to you.
I like the Japanese finishing adze...if done right it leaves a beautiful wavey finish almost like rounded fish scales that is beautiful and almost glassy smooth...
Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Really enjoyed this video.
Interesting information. Nice to see you again. Hope all is going well with you and yours.
Thanks Keith. I've been well but very busy.
@@ChestnutnagsToolsFromJapan Excellent
That was a great video, thank you, can you demonstrate how to sharpen a hewing axe?
Great explanation. A real treasure and wealth of knowledge!
Thanks Alex. If things go well I might have some land with trees in a few months. Then I'll be able to get really serious.
Awesome video this has been extremely helpful
Thank, very knowledgeable!
super great info. Love this stuff. Time to practice some hewing!
I'd love to have a few logs to work on right now.
Thanks for the explanation!
I've had a double bevel grandford brooks for twenty five years
Great video! Think it helped to cement some knowledge.
G’day. It is a pleasure to listen to a young men like you. I know exactly what you are talking about and you have explained it extremely well. THANK YOU.
Thanks Matt.
Dan Dustin believes that the point of a single bevel axe is to simply make the edge sharper. He hewed with the bevel side towards the work piece. Everyone interested should watch "from tree to beam"
How sharp something is and bevel geometry are two different things.
A piece of glass or perfectly square edged piece of steel can be just as sharp a tool with a single bevel at an acute angle.
@ 20:50 was very helpful. I just bought Marble's Camp Axe - $28 + shipping. 1 1/2 lb head , 16" long. I want to sweat over it and make a carving axe out of it. Before watching your video I was going the make one face flat, flat as the back of a chisel, maybe with a micro-bevel. Now I see I must go more as is seen @ 20;50. I'll be making shoe lasts with this experiment - light work, no heavy swinging. The art is in how much curve goes into the flat side of the mostly single bevel axe. Thanks. This really helped. Now, why aren't my pear trees producing fruit? Subbed
Convex is easy.
You rough it in with a wheel, and finish it with a belt.
The stretch of the belt, as you work, actually helps with this.
Concave is harder, unless you have the right tools.
$400/each diamond wheels, are not a thing most people just have laying around.
Love it!!!
Love...that... HAAAAAAIR
I brought a big American made broad axe from a well known tool maker abs dealer in the U.K. I let him talk me into the one he had fully prepared over the one he hadn’t touched it was awful as the back was dead flat. It’s now been rectified and works well but it’s first thing I look at now as I had a new grandsfors that was concave and awful to use.
Yeah the bigger they are the more I'd be inclined to have more secondary bevel. It takes a lot more control with a flat back on a hatchet let alone a big broad axe.
Back in the old days, when English was being cobbled together, we called them treble bevels.
What is the name of the saw used to crosscut at 0:43? Thanks!
When you say secondary bevel, you still mean a single sided bevel with an unbeveled opposite side, right? Or is the secondary bevel a *very slight* bevel on the other side? Sorry, just a bit confused.
Great video, just got yourself another sub 👍
Brilliant video! Thanks.
Thanks my Viking. I first got into hewing because of my interest in longships and later mortise and tenon timber framing. One day I want to build or at least help build a longship or three.
My plan was to start with a Faering but there are a number of smaller Japanese boats I'm thinking of starting with.
Looks like you have some cool videos on your channel.
@@ChestnutnagsToolsFromJapan Funny, as my interest in longships brought me to your channel. I want to improve my understanding of how the different ship-building tools were prepared for different purposes, as dressing trunks with various axes.
If you want to build a "Viking craft", a færing is a good place to start. The Gokstad færing is a challenge due to the complex stem and stern timber, so a more recent boat type is more forgiving for a newbie in lapstrake. Check out the oselvar, strandebarmer and nordfjord færing, for instance.
The Vikings, or at least the medieval Norse (pre Black plague), used a special type of timber framing called "grindverk" for construction. A brilliant procedure that can be carried out using no nails at all, only trunnels with visible or hidden wedges.
"Secondary bevel" and "double-bevel" seem to be used interchangably here. ' A secondary bevel is a bevel that one adds to the primary bevel. As such it must be at a higher angle than the primary bevel. For example, a primary bevel may be 25 degrees. The secondary bevel may be anything from 26 degrees upward. Sometimes secondary bevels are referred to as “micro bevels”.'
Bother I had hoped that I'd made the difference clear.
Micro bevels and secondary bevels are not synonymous. Sometimes the micro bevel may be a tertiary bevel :). Secondary bevels and double bevels are completely different. A chisel is almost always a single bevel tool. It may have a micro bevel or a secondary bevel (in this case the same thing). A falling axe is a double bevel tool. It has both left and right bevels.
Hmmm probably should have changed accounts before replying
Nice video, thanks.
Thanks Murray.
I only keep a secondary bevel on thin edged axes such as gransfors level of thickness, and then only about 2-5 degrees deeper the the main concave bevel, because too steep a secondary angle makes for inaccuracies in cutting because the presentation is different. I only keep a secondary bevel on axes that I rough out with really, my carving axes all have flat bevels ground to zero and I’ll try only to work in green wood, where the sharpness of the grind really proves itself, less effort to cut accurately so less stressful. Neither do I keep a concave ground axe with a secondary bevel as that would negate the effectiveness of the concave grind altogether. Just my tuppence worth of opinion 🙂
Smart man. You got my subscription
Thanks for that.
@@ChestnutnagsToolsFromJapan Your welcome. You really helped me. Thank you.
Very informative. Thank you. One thing I didn’t get is, should you have any sort of bevel on the flat side of hewing axe? or does the secondary bevel go on the beveled side?
I personally like a very slight bevel on the "flat" side of a hewing axe, and I find that there is one on most of the hewing axes I have examined closely (in the U.S. Northeast) if they are not too rusted and pitted to tell. Having the back perfectly flat makes the tool too aggressive, tending to hog into the surface. I have seen Scandinavian hewing axes where this back bevel is quite large, perhaps half the size of the bevel on the side away from the wood. This contradicts the statement made early in the video that there are only two types of hewing axes, either single or double-beveled. Actually there is a range of in-betweens, depending on how much bevel is on the back side.
Great video!
Thanks!
I'd be interested to hear why you say 'falling axe', rather than 'felling axe'
Good explanation but, you should show each type axe bevel angle u are talk about.
Yeah it would be good but often I have to just get things out or not at all.
how does it go with shaving 🤔
None of them are sharp enough for that.
That can be fixed though.
🤯
Stuart, mind blown dude. So much info in this video. Totally worth watching mate. Great vid. Please keep them coming across your channels. Hey must soon be time for bees and apple pressing yeah?
And I can't wait for you to get out on the gold again to. Give us South Aussies something to look forward to and live vicariously through you. 😁👍
@@andrewaltschwager5000 Bee stuff appears on "Stuart Chignell" and I've got a number of things I need to do. My back is shot so I need to build a hive lift. Apples are in Autumn. Didn't do any filming this year. We had a reasonable run but LOTS of fruit fly.
@@andrewaltschwager5000 Planning to head out today with Morag. Charging all the cameras and stuff now.
Hmmm convexed bevel okay
what would you let your wife have a go at using? 🤔
Which one?
its insane that people will spend half an hour listening to this theoretical blah blah instead of just going hands on and see whats good for them.
folks, hewing is a multisecular art thats been passed on orally without the need to split hairs like this young man is trying to do here. many great hewing videos on youtube but this is not one of them.
To each his own. This man just laid a foundation of understanding wood fiber in relation to cutting forces that is better than anything I’ve ever come across on TH-cam. I’m a woodcutter, carver and timberfaller. Understanding a tree as a long bundle of fibers, and knowing how you’re affecting the tension and compression within those fibers gives better control of the process and a more predictable outcome.
You are correct about traditional ways of knowledge being passed down, and hands on is the most important way to learn. Wish I had a 400 year old master craftsman as a guide.