Dave, I find the bench mounted belt and disc sanders to do a nice job in cleaning up bad rust pits and applying the bevel with its desired sweep. I use what is available, if I had a large hand held grinder I would surly give it a go. I keep a dip bucket very close by. As I am holding the tool, without gloves, I can feel the heat, I want a cold feeling on the steal. I have used a squirt bottle, too. With a hand held grinder you should take extra precaution to keep the work cool.

It is interesting to see the nick lines left in hewn surfaces. They all didn't spend hours taking the nicks out of the edge. They touched up the edge and went back to work. On this one frame you could see which timbers this axe was used on, through out the frame.

Nice link to some edge cutting tool, DL.

Hello,


That is what I was getting at and not the idiosyncrasies of sharpening in general. And how one maintains tools is really very personal so I wouldn't intrude there either.

But when I first get hold of a tool whether new or used I want to have it technically in shape and a blade with either machining marks or showing pitting from age cannot be given a sharp edge. It is technically not possible. If you want to get a true sense of that, try doing your best sharpening on an old straight edge razor and then shaving with it.

My rule of thumb for power tools is that as long the tool is cool enough to touch, you are safe. I can only take maybe 120 F, so that's really safe.

I don't get too worried about nicks in my axes. As you said, in pretty much all of the old hewn timbers you can how many nicks there were. I've even found timbers that had smooth cuts on most of it, then a nick right after a knot.

I've touched up old straight razors before. That is an art in itself. Nothing like waving 4" of the sharpest thing you'll ever see past your eyes and nose.

This may seem like blasphemy to some but *gasp* an axe does not need to be razor sharp, not even a smoothing axe. It may help a little bit, but it is not nearly as important as with a plane or chisel. And I really don't notice a whole lot of difference between the performance of my axe when smooth and when it gets a nick in it. So what if it leaves a tiny line on the timber? Unless the nick is a big dent, I usually don't worry about it and let it gradual disappear on its own over successive sharpenings or the occasional retouching of the bit to reestablish the proper bevel.

My general procedure is to sharpen all of my tools before I put them away, and touch them up when I get them out to use them as well as once or twice while using them for a long period.

A barber in Thailand once used a straight razor on my neck when cutting my hair, it was a wild experience. That guy was amazing though, you'd go sit down, and he was done.

I find a noticeable difference in the effort and quality of cut with my broadaxe if it isn't sharp. I'm not too worried about nicks, however.

Here's some of my axes, don't know if I've ever put pics of them up here or not.

First, Das Breitbeil. My favorite axe, Pennsylvania Dutch Goosewing. What looks like a crack in the second picture is actually just a spot of oil.




The next, my long handle hewing axe. When hewing by my self, I use this axe to score and hew to the line whilst standing on the log. Then I clean up with my goosewing.



my adze. works quite nicely.


a pile of axes and axe related tools, though not all of them.
From the top left corner clockwise:
1 Rough hewing broadaxe, German Pattern
2 Gransfors Swedish broadaxe, universal.
3 Hudson bay pattern axe made by estwing. Kind of a general purpose axe.
4 12" PA pattern broad axe
5 Froe
6 Hungarian pattern side axe.
7 Stossaxt/stichaxt. Is it an axe or a chisel? No one knows... It is used somewhat like a froe (but in my opinion works better and is more versatile)
8 Adze
9 old stanley hatchet. Used for miscellaneous odds and ends because I'm not worried about it.
10 Hungarian carving hatchet.
11 Another goosewing. This one is mostly for decoration (i was real cheap) but can be used and does work well enough.

Most of these axes are used largely for joinery, carving, and other detail work. As you see there is no felling axe among them, because I don't have one. I don't have one because I have yet to find use for one.

Anyone have an idea of what these axes were used for:

http://www.ebay.at/itm/alter-Axtkopf-Bei...15#ht_500wt_758

I've seen a bigger one with a 12" handle, a few the same size and lots of slightly smaller ones.

Hello up there. As we also have beards and bearded broad axe also has something to do with beards...wished to share with you some latest work what we have done in traditional hand hewing tool making.

One is Goosewing replica of Baltic traditional finishingg hewing axe lines. Ornament from one old Austrian goosewing axe. We have done research on many Austrian axe ornaments, also on D L Bahler's. So finally we made ornament after one about 250-300 years old Austrian goosewing.

Bearded broad axe made as union depending on some old Baltic and Finnish historical broad axe research.

Both axes are laminated steel, Rockwell 59-60 HRC. North European elm handles.

See the pics there:

Wow! How much is the one in the last photo?

that is just beautiful...