Woodworking Axes and Adzes: Types, Grinds, Handles and Care

Gränsfors Bruk tells buyers to start from the task, because the differences lie in the shape, edge and weight of the head. It sorts the most important difference this way: some axes are made to chop or split by driving the wood fibres apart, others to slice into the wood with control, and some tools have the edge set across the handle for shaping and hollowing. A woodworker mostly wants the second and third kinds. Gränsfors names its Carpenter's Axe and Swedish carving axes as the common woodworking axes, used to hew wood roughly ready for woodworking and carpentry. Forest and splitting axes are made for felling and firewood and are outside this guide.

Makers use these names for size and purpose, not by a fixed handle length. Hults Bruk calls its tool with a 375 mm handle a hatchet and the one with a 600 mm handle a forester's axe; Gränsfors calls a tool only 28.5 cm long a carving axe, because of what it is made to do. So a 'wood carving hatchet' and a small carving axe overlap. What sets a carving tool apart is the edge and grip: Gränsfors gives its carving axes a long, curved edge and offers a one-sided carving grind, Hults Bruk puts a finger notch on the Hultån so the hand can grip close to the edge, and it says the Åby's semi-straight edge and broad grind give control for carving. The knives and gouges that finish carved work are covered in carving tools.

• Carving axes. Gränsfors grinds its carving axes on both sides as standard and offers, to order, a carving grind on one side for right- or left-handed carving, with a short bevel on one side and a longer, slightly concave bevel on the other that supports the axe as it cuts.
• Broad axes. Gränsfors's broad axe comes knife-ground on both sides, or to order scissor-ground with one flat side, or reverse scissor-ground. Its handle can be straight or angled left or right; with an angled handle, the maker says, the hands stay farther from the timber.
• Edge shape. Gränsfors explains that hardwood wants a fairly thick bit and a rounded bevel face, softwood a more pointed edge, carving a thin, straight edge, and forest chopping a rounded edge. The only angle it gives is 25° to 30° for its own carving edge, and this guide gives none for any other axe.
• Steel. Gränsfors lists its axes as recycled high-carbon steel, C55/C60. No hardness figure is given here, and no steel is ranked.

Both makers fit hickory handles; Gränsfors calls hickory strong and flexible. The handle is held in the eye by a wedge, and Gränsfors stresses that handle and wedge must be very dry when fitted, or they will shrink later and loosen the head. It also says to store an axe dry but not so dry or warm that the handle shrinks in the head, and to check regularly that the handle is secure. A loose or cracked handle is not used until the axe is rehandled; Gränsfors publishes its own rehandling method, and warns never to burn an old handle out of the eye, because the heat can ruin the steel's temper.

Gränsfors is plain about it: axe heads are forged for cutting or carving, and only the poll of a splitting maul is strong enough for hammering in a wedge. Do not use other axes as a sledgehammer or a wedge; hammering too hard on or with an axe can deform or break the eye and loosen the head. A froe, which is struck, is driven with a mallet — see working green wood and woodworking mallets — and a hammer has its own uses, in the hammer guide.

• Keep the edge's original shape: Gränsfors says a wrongly ground axe slips more easily.
• On a double-sided edge, take the same amount from each side and along the whole edge; a fine file removes nicks.
• If a powered wheel is used, do not overheat the steel, or it will lose its temper.
• Finish on whetstones, coarse then fine, to remove the thin feather edge left by grinding; Gränsfors adds an optional strop on leather.
• Store the head oiled and dry, as the maker advises.

Gränsfors's own advice for woodworking with an axe is short. Work on a chopping block kept for the purpose, not the one used for splitting logs, which carries sand and soil that blunt the edge. Hold the piece away from you on the block, so that if the axe slips it is more likely to strike the block than you. Let the edge meet the wood with a falling motion, so the cut runs from the lower corner of the bit up along the edge, which the maker says reduces the risk of slipping. Cut with the grain, or pieces meant to stay will split away. How green wood is split and roughed out is covered in working green wood.

• Working wet wood, riving and drying: green woodworking.
• Carving tools and technique: carving tools and wood carving.
• Striking tools: woodworking mallets and the hammer guide.
• Drawknives and spokeshaves for shaping after the axe: spokeshaves.