how to sharpen/repair a folded axe edge

C

craft

Joined
Feb 24, 2013
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Hey everyone, been a long time forum reader but this is my first post! (Well technically, my second, the first was in the wrong forum!)

I purchased a new Wetterlings Bushman Axe and fell a small hardwood tree this evening, after which I noticed the toe end of the bit had curled over! Disappointed but not surprised, as I had read about issues with this axe. The factory edge it came with was rather sharp, which I'm suspecting is the cause of the failure? The Bushman is fairly wedge shaped which seems optimized for splitting, so why put a thin edge on the blade? I know it's supposed to be for bushcraft, but what good is an axe if you can't take down a small tree?

Anyway, to my actual question. How do I fix this? Should I use a wet axe stone in a circular motion to grind off the curled toe end? What about the rest of the edge? Should I make it more dull? How do I do this?

I've watched several videos on sharpening axes but could not find any about fixing a curled edge. Is the term 'folded edge' correct? There is also no specific instructions on how to make an edge more dull.

I'm new to edge sharpening in general, so any help or direction to resources would be appreciated.

Thanks
folded.jpg
 
This is the trouble with an axe being "too sharp". Too acute of edge angle leaves the blade weak. And making the edge harder can lead to it chipping. There's a happy medium for every edge.

The damage to your axe is very slight. Your first instinct is right, just hone the curled edge off with an axe stone or whatever stone you have. Make the edge a little less acute than it is now but still try to make it sharp. Honing it with progressively finer grits can get an edge shaving sharp while still being thick enough to survive as an impact tool.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.
 
The technical term is a "rolled" edge and that is indeed what happened based on your provided picture. Sucky that it happened, but much better than it chipping out. Any chance you might have hit a knot or been working with really hard trees? Either way, if that's the sort of wood you're intending to cut and the sort of work you're intending to do, it is an issue...

As to fixing it, if you have another metal edge that's harder than the bit, you can steel the edge first (push the metal back to center) to make sharpening easier and to lessen the amount of metal you end up having to take off during the process. I generally end up using the spine of my fixed blade to steel my axes as it's usually on my belt in any situation I'd be using an axe. You'll want to make sure the knife is treated to a higher hardness than the axe bit though. Mine's O1 tool steel hardened to 59hrc, but with axes generally being ~55hrc, anything equal or higher to that would work.

The damage actually looks pretty minor to me, but it's significant enough to where it would personally prompt me to make the edge ever so slightly more obtuse. When you sharpen, you might want to give it a slight mini-bevel at about 20 degrees on either side then perhaps convex that bevel to meet the rest of the edge. The roll doesn't seem too bad, so you probably don't even need to make the mini-bevel too large to prevent future rolls.
 
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@ square_peg - Thanks for the feedback and letting me know that the damage is not too bad. I've never had an axe roll on me so have no comparison.

@ bearhunter - Thanks for the welcome!

@killa_concept - Thanks for the technical lingo :) I will take your advice on bending the roll back and taking a larger angle to the edge.

Wetterlings has been having some issues with their heat treatment, so I am hopping that this problem is merely too sharp of an edge, rather than the steel being too soft.

I will fix the edge and take it out for some real work over the weekend, will try and post my results back here.

Thanks for the advice guys.
 
craft said:
Wetterlings has been having some issues with their heat treatment, so I am hopping that this problem is merely too sharp of an edge, rather than the steel being too soft.

I will fix the edge and take it out for some real work over the weekend, will try and post my results back here.

Thanks for the advice guys.
Click to expand...

Rest assured that if your axe is ground similar to the one below, I'm about 95% sure it's the blade geometry and not a heat treat problem:
bushman_zpse570bbf5.jpg


It's a very solid full wedge shape which is great for splitting but if they gave it a conventional edge, it wouldn't be too great for felling or other such tasks as it would be to thick and wouldn't give good penetration. To compensate, they put a very aggressive high grind to keep more of the edge thin. Too thin. This would be fine if they added more pressure onto the belt sander to give it a gradual convex to the edge, but from the looks of it, it's MUCH too gradual a convex (nearly flat) bevel. The end result is that the blade is probably about 25-30 degrees overall at the edge without much metal to back it up.. and that's not going to hold up to heavy chopping. Ideally you probably want 35-40 degrees overall (like the axes to either side of the bushman). You don't have to completely reshape it though.. I'm pretty confident a micro-bevel will do the trick.
 
Yeah I guess I didn't look at the picture very closely - looks like it rolled about 45 degrees off center so the metal is definitely compromised. I retract my statement on steeling :(
 
I am obligated to state my opinion here, being a big fan of wedgy axes of all sort--

No, that axe is not profiled for splitting. it doesn't have the hollows of a normal thin "chopping" axe. Both axes in Killa's photo would be easier to turn into "splitting" axes by fattening the edges. It would take a lot more removal to make the middle bushman axe into a splitting axe. the shape of the face 2 and a half or 3 inches up the face doesn't have much to do with the presentation of the first 5MM or so, which is the important area in regards to being suited for a specific task (followed in importance by the subsequent next 5MM). The straight line wedge shape does help when you are chopping green wood though, where biting too deep can sometimes be a concern.
 
So, I ended up filing off the roll and took the axe with me over the weekend. Sure enough, most of the remaining factory edge rolled on me. I filed everything off and put a small (1-2mm) secondary bevel with an additional 10-15 degrees on the entire edge. Took down three, 7-8 inch Maple trees without any problems. Whether that factory edge was too thin, or it was just composed of crappy steel I wont know, because I don't plan on going back to such a thin edge, unless I'm spending the day carving.

I am happy this Wetterlings axe was not a lemon, as I've read they've turned out a few, because of heat treatment issues.

I was skeptical about the straight handle, but I quickly grew to like it, especially when limbing felled trees. The extra length on the handle equates to a healthy does of additional leverage and makes this axe very versatile.

Applied some linseed oil on the handle and welcomed her to the family :)

Thanks again for the advice everyone, greatly appreciated.
 
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