I've learned that there is an art to swinging things. It's important for a couple of reasons. When forging iron, there is no point in driving the hammer into the iron as hard as you can, you will just get hurt. Put some force into the swing, then just guide the hammer home. Hewing, as taught to me by Jack Sobon, is much the same. I haven't hung my smaller broad axe head yet. I tried hewing with a coopers broad axe, but it is too light, and not shaped properly. I tried several different axes at the workshop, and I found the one I liked the most was 7". I turns out that I had 7" and 9" broad axe heads in my shed. I've got a 40' plate to hew out for my barn repair project, so I need to start practicing.