Axes and Hatchets: Choosing and Sharpening

Carving axe or felling axe

A felling or splitting axe has a heavy head and a fat, convex edge that throws chips and resists hardwood. A carving axe (hatchet) has a thin, flat bevel for paring and controlled slicing ¹. Gränsfors puts it simply: thin, straight edges for carving; rounded edges for chopping in the forest ¹.

What to look for:

• Weight: roughly 0.5-1 kg (1-2 lb) for the head. Heavier removes wood faster with less effort; lighter gives control for long sessions.
• Handle: 30-40 cm (12-16 in). Long enough to swing, short enough to choke up for fine work.
• A long, curved edge with a “beard” (the edge drops below the handle), so you can grip right behind the head and pare.
• Bevel: double bevel for general work; single bevel for flat hewing. Single-bevel axes come right- or left-ground; for a right-handed carver, the flat face goes toward the work ¹.
• Sharp out of the box, or at least correctly shaped.

Sharpening

Gränsfors Bruk’s guidance ¹:

1. Keep the original edge shape. Lay the whole bevel on the stone or file; don’t change the angle.
2. Work both sides evenly and along the whole edge.
3. Cool often. Overheating draws the temper - if the steel turns straw or blue, that part is soft. Power grinding is where axes get ruined; files and hand stones are safer.
4. Hone with coarse then fine whetstones, moving in small circles, until the feather edge (burr) is gone from both sides.
5. Strop on leather.

Target angle for a carving axe: about 25-30 degrees ¹. A good carving axe will shave arm hair and leave a shiny, faceted surface on green birch. If it crushes fibers instead of slicing, it’s dull. Touch up with a fine stone before every session; regrind only when chipped.

Keep the edge covered with a sheath whenever it’s not in your hand.

On the block

Most axe work in sloyd happens with the blank standing on a chopping block at about knee height ²:

• Hold the blank by its upper end; the axe works only the lower half, and every cut finishes into the block. Then flip the blank end for end and do the other half.
• Stop cuts: make a saw cut across the grain where you want a shoulder (where a spoon’s bowl meets its handle), then axe down to it. The chip pops off at the saw cut instead of splitting along the handle.
• Tilt the blank, not your swing. Change the angle of the work to change the angle of the cut.
• Choke up behind the head for fine paring; slide back toward the end of the handle for heavier cuts.
• Let the axe’s weight do the work; short, controlled strokes beat big swings.
• Never cut toward your legs or holding hand, never axe on your lap, and don’t carve tired.

Barn the Spoon describes how the axe should feel in the hand, and how much of a spoon can be shaped with it before switching to the knife - more than beginners expect ³.

What to take from this

A carving axe is light (0.5-1 kg head), short-handled, and thin with a flat 25-30-degree bevel; felling axes are fat and convex. Sharpen to the existing shape, evenly on both sides, cooling often, and hone off the burr. On the block, hold the top, axe the lower half into the block, use saw stop cuts at shoulders, and tilt the work rather than the swing.