What did you rehang today?

Square_peg said:
HRC 65 does seem impossiblty hard for an impact tool.
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Kevin Houtzager said:
Not really, I can honestly say, but it depends on the tool: A hewing axe as is only used for an up or down motion. There is nog sideways play whatsoever. We you cut down a tree there is always some sideways play. Thats why axes snap that are to brittle. This thing wil even chop knots.

For most users though: I wouldn't recommend 65. You have to treat it with a lot of respect in order for it to work like you want. The same with racing axes: They can work in normal trees, but you have to be on you guard to not abuse them.
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You still encounter knots in hewing and the work requires enough force to easily chip a 65 HRC bit. A knot of our hemlock would chip it like glass. But a tool could be useful at HRC 65 if one was very careful in selecting what wood to use it in.

You have to be careful drawing too much information from an HRC testing file set. It's only an approximate measurement and can be skewed by surface oxidation which can be harder than the underlying steel.
 
I wonder how a bit that hard would hold up to the forces encountered while limbing? Lots of different stresses on the ax when limbing.
 
You misunderstood what I said about hemlock. No, hemlock is not a hard wood. But hemlock knots can be glass hard and have a reputation for damaging axes. You may have different varieties over there.
 
Kevin, you are not using a fresh file every time I guess :), and their tollerance is anything but tight to begin with (as far as I recall, the hardness testing files have a delta of 3 HRC vs the nominal hardness). I've seen a few debates about what a scratch is even supposed to mean :), based on the instructions they come with. Unless you are using a professional HRC tester and make sure that you are indeting the surface perpendicularly (which, given the geometry of an axe may be tricky), you should take the results with a big grain of salt.

I'm a European guy and know how hard Black Locust can get when dried for years (as I'm sure our American friends do, too) but, hard and abrasive as it may be (which is why it dulls everything so fast), it won't get into hemlock knots territory. Not hemlock, but hemlock knots.
 
Kevin Houtzager said:
I wouldn't do that. Its a hewing axe, why would you want to use it for limbing?
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It was more a comment on how the an ax that hard would hold up under different stresses.
You probably would never let your hewing ax hit the icey ground either but here we have someone doing that very thing starting at 3:58 in this video. He seems to have hewed once or twice as well.



So if limbing is to out of this world for you;) I will change my out loud mildly curious wonder to ice instead.
I wonder how a bit this hard would hold up chinking into the ice on the bottom of a stroke;)
 
https://books.google.com/books?id=X...epage&q=why are hemlock knots so hard&f=false


"The hard knots of the coniferous trees and the shell-like substance of the nuts and fruit-pits of the deciduous varieties probably represent the hardest substances produced by vegetable life."


Mama always said Hemlock knots contained evil woodland spirits for which we were lucky weren't free to turn the rest of the trees to stone.

Take your pick though ;)
 
Perhaps a new thread to discuss bit hardness and applications would be a good idea so we can get this thread back one track with recently hafted axes.

Also as a side note if you select the menu option on prior posts created by yourself you can edit them. It's a better option when having issues with embedded content rather than duplicate posts. When posting images you can either wrap the URL for the image (not an URL that you can view the image from) in
tags or if available from the hosting site select the BB Code provided to embed on sites such as this one.
 
I don't know what makes the stuff so hard, but all old axe manuals from US make it a point to mention that hemlock knots are indeed evil :) and will chip a hard axe. I cannot verify this here, as we don't have this tree growing. Square_peg had a picture with a badly chipped axe in such a knot? I think it was a cold morning as well, when it happened, hopefully I recall the incident well.
 
Moonw said:
Thanks, Kevin. They do show up now.

HRC 65? That is old school straight razor territory. No disrespect intended, but do you trust whomever made those readings? With angled surfaces it can be a little tricky.
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Very tricky. I couldn't get it done with the set up I had. And I believe you need to file down to fresh steel. The test method that the FSS specifications call for involved cutting the axe head. There is a scratch test but I believe it will just get you in the ball park.
Kevin Houtzager said:
It is over here. But I don't know f there is a difference in European or American Yew?

Best handle material ever, since it was kind of a test. It tends to be springy (they used to make English longbows auto of that stuff), but hard the same time. So it very resilient, and does not have a lot of shock (least i've ever felt actually). The problem is: It's kind of expensive en hard to come by. For one handed axes (its about 55cm long) die ring shape on the underside works wonders, since you can "roll"it with your wrist, giving it a the more cutting power.



Yes I trust them, since it happens to be me. ;) File tested. I was surprised the first time too, but the thing is: It has a bevel of roughly 20 degrees, weighs about 6 pounds, and i use it one handed. So it kinda has to be that hardness in order for it to work. It works fine though, since there not wall hangers but users. I've made the table where the axes ar laying on with it. Try hewing yew with a softer axe with more bevel: It wouldn't work. Let alone things like azobe (iron wood?)



Not really, I can honestly say, but it depends on the tool: A hewing axe as is only used for an up or down motion. There is nog sideways play whatsoever. We you cut down a tree there is always some sideways play. Thats why axes snap that are to brittle. This thing wil even chop knots.

For most users though: I wouldn't recommend 65. You have to treat it with a lot of respect in order for it to work like you want. The same with racing axes: They can work in normal trees, but you have to be on you guard to not abuse them.
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I have seen the European yew and I can't visually tell the difference. I have not worked with the European stuff, it's been reported by those that have that it is the same.

It seems to be a light salmon color with the wider growth rings, say between twenty to forty rings to the inch. Around twenty to the inch is about as wide as I have seen. Which may be why your haft so so light colored. It seems to get darker with the tighter growth rings. It's true character comes out when you get to the tighter ringed stuff. The really close ringed yew some of which I have seen up to a hundred rings to the inch is what myth and lagends are made from.
 
Here is one I hung recently about a week ago, but I've been spending more time wrenching on my cars and less time working on my axes lately and I hadn't gotten around to taking pictures until now.

BSA National Side by MJGEGB, on Flickr
BSA National BSA Stamp by MJGEGB, on Flickr
BSA National Profile by MJGEGB, on Flickr
BSA National Side in Block by MJGEGB, on Flickr

A 1.25 lbs Plumb National Hand Axe with an Official BSA Stamp on a 14" Hickory handle made by an Amish man in OH. A friend of mine is attempting to get a supply of these handles available for axe enthusiast in a few different sizes. He's even gone as far as to carve two blanks for use on the copy lathe. I must say this was the least amount of reshaping I've done in a long time.
 
garry3 said:
Very tricky. I couldn't get it done with the set up I had. And I believe you need to file down to fresh steel. The test method that the FSS specifications call for involved cutting the axe head. There is a scratch test but I believe it will just get you in the ball park.
Click to expand...

Thank you for confirming. Makes sense.
 
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