For years now I have been telling customers that I would be adding axes to my site in the near future, well finally that day has arrived! When the next round of orders come up there will be a carving axe head available to buy.
I have finally refined the design to a point that I am confident that I will not suddenly feel the need to change it, I do love to tweak designs like this, but after at least a couple of years of trialling the many prototypes I am happy with where I have got to. Less visibly I have trialled different steels and heat treatments and am pleased with what I have come up with. Importantly I have refined the production process so that I can consistently make the heads the same, I don’t want to be listing individual heads, I expect to be within 25g of the target weight and 1/4″ in measurements. Apologies for the mash-up of metric and imperial- I always think of edge lengths in inches, but final weights in grams. Still I have customers in Europe and the States so it seems appropriate.
A satisfying by product of forging accurately to size is that the initial blank of round bar I start from looks improbably small.
These heads will have an edge length of 6″ ( measured along the cutting edge – is about 5 3/4″ as the crow flies) They will be symmetrically flat ground, the steel and heat treat I am using will hold an edge at 29deg which is much finer than standard axe grinds, they tend to be a fair bit over 30deg. The tips at heel and toe are fine, they will stand up to sensible use but are not designed to be used to pry with, these are carving axes and these tips are for getting into and out of concave cuts. I prefer to think of these heads as a ‘knife on a stick’, albeit much prettier hopefully, rather than a jack of all trades tool. I have made the throat quite narrow as I like the dramatic ‘Viking’ look this gives, I have however left it a bit thicker than normal to be sure that strength is maintained, you can see this in the profile picture at the bottom of the page.
The toe is quite pronounced but due to the long cutting edge this is balanced out by the large beard, it makes for an agile head that will shape well but still have enough edge length for planing cuts, the edge is pretty straight which aids both the planing cuts and the more extreme tips. The weight at 650 is fairly heavy for a carving axe- not far off a GB carver but, but it is certainly not excessive. I may well introduce a scaled down version around 500g
I have put some subtle decoration on the heads, as I mentioned at least a year ago part of the rationale behind this was to reinforce the point that these are not heads bashed out at speed but works I have poured a lot of effort and care into, I enjoy making them and don’t want them to become a huge part of my production schedule. If they do the frisson of excitement I get from an axe making week coming up will be lost. And it was such fun that I went ahead on the dates that I had marked on my calender despite them coinciding with the hottest days of the year- the workshop has never been so hot, which was challenging. I also spent some of this week making the fourth prototype for a larger head that I hope to put into production next, but currently I am struggling to make them using the techniques that I want to at a speed that will make them commercially viable.
I should also say that whilst the carving head may seem expensive at £210 it is from my point of view under priced, I still take too long over them. I could make them quicker but there are so many tweaks and refinements that I feel are necessary to make these the best Axes I have ever made. My hope is that with practice I will speed up to a point that they do become worth making financially, they are fantastic heads and I enjoy forging them, but if I only made these heads I would struggle to stay afloat. So I will put these up in the next round of back orders, will be really informative seeing how many are ordered. When they have been made and posted out I will then take stock and see if it will be possible to repeat next month. I certainly hope so.
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