Stuart, I was looking through your posts. Here's a little information about some Central European axe tradition.
This tradition is, as best as I can tell, spread by German-speaking people, such as the Bavarians, Austrians, Swiss, etc. Names seem to reflect this.
There are many variations of this, but here is more or less how the hewing technique works:
You start off with a narrow-bitted axe on a long handle. A narrow bit allows you to make very steep shouldered notches, so it makes quick work of the notching.
After notching you use this narrow axe to split away the waste.
Then you take a broad axe with a very long handle and get the surface down to its dimensions. You could also use this axe to remove the waste instead of the narrow axe, but it is heavy so I do not like to swing it that much.
Then you take the goosewing with the short handle and clean up the face, making it very smooth. Here you are removing very little material.
If you pay attention to the waste on the ground, you can see just what is removed at each step.
