Don, nice axe! Certainly unique to us, though I am sure in its particular region it is not all that unusual.

I have a particular interest in 'odd' axes.

I made a revision this past week to my own hewing setup, the setup for when I am working by myself.

Previously, I had my timbers set up higher, at a height that is comfortable for cleaning up with the broadaxe, but I changed my whole method.

Typically in the past I have done all of my hewing in the woods, but with my new setup I am altering that a little bit.

I have switched to doing only the rough squaring off in the woods, hewing them about a half inch over size, and with a bit of a rhombus shape since I am not leveling out the sides yet.

This work, notching and juggling, is done with my big Austrian rough hewing axe

to work with this axe, I set the logs low to the ground. A general guideline might be putting the center of the log about 4 to 6 inches below knee height. I notch while standing on the log, and cut out the waste from beside the log.

It's then that I take the now squared off timbers up out of the woods and haul them off to my shop.

For this next step, I use my nice Breitbeil


What I do here is I set the timbers up fairly high, maybe about waste height or a little lower. I mark 2 faces at once to be cleaned up, with lines snapped on top and below and shave away at the face until it matches both lines fairly closely. Doing it this way, I don't have to worry if the timber is perfectly level when I finish it off. The Germans would use a board with a plumb bob attached to check the straightness of hewn faces. here all I need is a straightedge to line up the two snapped lines.

working this high, I have a lot more control over my axe and it is easy to keep it from breaking out the lower edge. It is also very important to work the axe in a circular motion, pulling it toward you when cutting. This means you are doing more cutting than chopping, which leaves a nicer finish and won't tear out edges.