Having a sharp axe can mean all the difference between getting your chores done and a hospital visit. To learn how to get a perfect edge for any axe, watch the video below. These tips are also excellent if you're living off the grid and plan on using an axe on-going for a variety of tasks.
This method of marking the bit before making a single stroke of the stone is ingenious. Of course, the amazing and likely very expensive sharpening tool is bound to make your job much easier.
Even if you don't have one of these great tools, utilizing the edge-marking method is still going to do a lot to help you maintain clean strokes and keep your edge as clean and straight as possible.
Sure, you probably don't need to be able to shave with your splitting maul, but you can bet it's not going to slip from its target.
I know a blade that’s too thin doesn’t split worth a damn. Ive had axes that simply sunk into wood to the handle without causing splits in the log but dinging the handle, usually really wet segments like alder from the PNW. when a good blunt and wide maul will bust that same piece up with barely any more effort.
Axes arnt supposed to be razor sharp. Thats what razors are for.
Every tool has a purpose.
That edge is used for cutting downg, a plotting axe for splitting.
as a kid our main and often only heat was a wood stove. we felled trees that were really too large for chopping especially when you had to segment em down for splitting, One axe for brush or delimbing and splitting, and a chainsaw that I’m pretty sure competed against Paul Bunyan at some point back in the days of legend
Raven Arnold