Bushcraft Axe Work: Safety & Technique

Description

Axe safety is paramount in the field, in this video we take a look at Axe safety when chopping logs for firewood.

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Video Transcription

hi there guys it's Mike remember Sookie bushcraft here and I finally got myself a slightly larger axe than my grandpa's Brooks wildlife hatchet which I've used for quite a few years and it served me very well and will still continue to serve me very well but I wanted something just a little bit more versatile with a bit more weight behind the head and slightly longer handle so I could use two hands if need be to just tackle those bigger jobs because sometimes when you go out with small tools it can deter you away from tackling the bigger jobs that you really need to do to get things done and to be comfortable for a night or for a week or forever long you're out for especially in cold conditions and they do need a slightly heavier axe just to tackle those thicker bits of wood is very important but a bigger ax like this is a is much more useful and a little bit safer than a smaller axe especially when you're wielding it to split logs but it can still be very dangerous because it's actually in reality quite a short axe but only 20 inches and the danger is that when you're standing up and you draw the axe down if you maintain a kind of curved and swing with the axe you can follow through and you might hit your leg or go into a limb and there's a number of different ways in which you can use an axe very safely I'm in the field right kind of getting any injuries because when you get an injury with an axe they really are quite unforgiving and I know quite a lot of people including myself of almost lost fingers very close when using axes and things just going wrong when I'm splitting logs like this and I'm standing up which is obviously a very comfortable way of chopping into a log if it's a very big log you need you need to put a bit of swinging it this one's pretty small and I could actually batten through it by just placing my axe on top hitting the top of the axe I'm just going straight through it like that gives me a lot more trol and accuracy if I'm not particularly accurate with my swing and it's a good thing to do if you don't have a lot of experience and you might be using an axe and you're worried about injuring yourself if you're away from home another thing you can do is place the log beneath the axe like this and you can strike it down onto the piece of wood and if it's a straight grained log that you're using or piece of wood it should split very very easily and that's a great way of also making kindling using an axe a fee outdoors is all about matching up the tool you're using with your skill set and the environment around you you'll notice that I'm standing up most using an axe which can be dangerous but there are a number of things I'm doing to make it very safe I've got a very high chopping block I'm standing on a bit of an incline so I'm leveled up with a chopping block and the axe is quite long so I can keep the head well away from me and with a bit of simple technique I can make things very safe for myself you'll also notice but I'm putting the block of wood I'm chopping right on the far side of the chopping block and that means if I miss or I go straight through too much power it won't tip off the edge go into the ground or come back on me if I was using a small hatchet on my chopping block was very low I'd be kneeling down simply because I want to minimize that angle of injury and if you're not confident with an axe or you're new to using axes I'd advise you strongly to kneel down to minimize that angle of injury and keep things safe but when I'm standing up like this I just like to bend my knees slightly as I swing the axe down and this way it keeps the axe facing down all the time like this as it pushes through and it stops me from swinging like this and chopping through the end of what could be a soft workstation and then following through into my limb but there's another important thing about chopping through logs then you might want to remember and it just helps preserve the edge over the actual axe and we'll have a look at that now generally when you buy a good quality axe it'll come razor-sharp and this one came with a mirror finish blade it's incredibly sharp I can shave hairs with it can you find the tasks with it it's a very versatile tool and for me I like to preserve the edges on my tools as best I can using various types of technique to minimize fatigue on them sometimes you're working with really hard woods and there's just no choice in some cases things are going to dull quicker than if you're working with soft woods and that's just life but certain little techniques you can use will really preserve the edge on the axe if you're splitting and if you look at the workstation that I'm using that it's a stump and it's an ash thump and ash is a hardwood and if I'm driving through this piece of wood here I'm whacking the stump

every time I smack through a log so I'm going through with too much power bang hitting the stump I'm dulling that edge and by the end of the day it's going to need attention and it's not going to be quite as good on those finer tasks and it may not even bites or split quite as one so there's just certain little things you can do so if I'm cutting this piece of ash here just sitting on top when I'm on an ash dump I'm cutting ash as well I go through as I bring the axe through as I hit it I just flick the blade like this I usually flip to the left and all that does Drive two pieces apart and it halts the axe from going any further and stops it hitting the base with too much impact and that way you'll just preserve that edge that little bit more you won't need to look after your axe as much let's have a look at that technique in practice

when you use this technique you want to make sure that nobody else's around you which you do anyway when using an actually want to be well clear of it I'm very far away and I'm using the actor full arm's length so if I deflect off in any direction I won't hurt anyone and there's nothing wrong with deflecting off sometimes you just catch a bad hit and it happens with big logs like this often the temptation is to whack it straight in the middle this isn't a log splitter this axe it can split wood as many axes can but splitter will have an armored shoulder and it will have a obviously a different design wedge of a head purpose for splitting this is a versatile back packers axe or hunters axe and it's designed to do a variety of different jobs and it can split but not as well as a splitter you could put an armored shoulder on this and use it for splitting much like a log splitter and I will armor this with leather eventually and that will help protect it and provide me with a bit of a handle to work with although it's not entirely necessary it's just there to preserve the life of the shoulder if I ever make a mistake and catch it real bad which can happen and you can chip away at the Hickory there and damage it so with an axe like this you want to be striking it on the edge there and splitting it that way so this shoulder does not make contact with the log below once you've thinned it down you can see you're less likely to touch that shoulder swinging an axe to split a large log is a very efficient way of cutting wood and it relies on the weight of the head and also the swing in your arm bit of accuracy and a good edge on the actual axonal biting and split would very easily and if you're working with woods with straight grains that split nicely like ash or poplar then they're going to split very well but when you get very tall pieces of wood like this one here that I've split through battening you stand that up it's not really an ideal piece of wood to swing it because the axe can spin off quite easily as the grain goes down it'll tail off in most cases and ping out sometimes it'll split beautifully but maybe you want to make a half board for a bow drill set and you want some accuracy well in that case you could place the axe on top and just batten straight through the piece of wood and you could do that on either end of the grain to reduce yourself a flat half board with a nice dry straight grained piece of wood but there are other ways of cutting wood for example we could make kindling and you want to place your axe over the top of the grain just like this on the edge of your workstation not like this because what that does is it causes the axe to clip into the handle on the edge it'll always make contact with the face of the head of the axe and it will never flip the actual piece of wood back up into your hands and clasp it together you can see if I strike the axis here it makes nice contact and even I'm holding it in two places it's not going to make ever make contact with my hand and I can split the piece of wood very easily just like that if we get this other piece I did a slightly different way the wrong way let's bite it in first and I start hitting it there it makes contact with the handle and potentially smack my hands together so always work on the edge of your workstation we're making kindling this way it's a very efficient way of splitting wood the nice straight grain to actually make smaller pieces in this video today we've had a look at a little bit of axe use and safety with a backpackable axe like this a 20 inch X which is a very versatile length it's lightweight and it allows you to allows you to carry it around and use it quite efficiently for a variety of heavy and light jobs as a narrow edge on it really narrow face so it can do fine jobs as well as do splitting providing you don't give it too much work to do and start smacking it into enormous great logs that chip away at the shoulder so one thing I will do with it is put a leather shoulder on a very thick leather shoulder it'll go around the neck of the axe just that that'll stop any mistakes that I might have because they happen sometimes you split a log and you just catch it wrong and they gave you've cracked a little bit of wood off of the handle there or chipped out a bit of the grain and it's disappointing you don't really want that that leather will just take the brunt of the impact provided it is a strong thick piece of leather on splitting axes you have a steel guard here like an armored guard that goes up into the actual head when they hang the handle on it they're very tough and you can split all day with them not worried about the handle at all because they're predominantly done designed for splitting although you can split with this it's not specifically designed for splitting just as its sole job it's designed for all manner of different things but things can be done just to protect it if you wish to do splitting with it and tackle some heavier bits of timber with it this axe is a relatively new purchase for me this is a hultafors classic hunter and it's a 20 inch x with a hickory handle a hand forged two-pound head by hultafors Brooks and it's beautiful a lovely axe and I've owned this for two weeks and you may say well you've only only for two weeks how do you know how good it is well I've worked there doing bushcraft for a good few years now and we get issued these at work and I've used them at work for quite a while and I've had my eye on them but I've always stuck with my grandpa's Brooks wildlife hatchet because it was bought for me as a gift and I thought you know I'm going to give this axe a very good going for its money I used it for about three or four years and it's a it's served me well but I generally use it for lighter work at home now like making kindling or doing carving when I'm out in the garden and I've got some lighter work to do because it's got a very light head on it it's probably about that long it's quite a small axe so when you're taking it out here and you're doing heavier jobs with it it can be off-putting as I said earlier if you've got small saws little knives and little axes and you have to tackle a big job like make a very robust shelter you're going to live in for a while or a raised bed or just tackle some big jobs it can be can be very difficult in the colder months of big axe or heavier axe like this it's very useful because it allows you to cut up or chop up bigger pieces of wood to make a hotter fire with that keep you warm so it's very useful oaks are very hard wood and you need good tools to work with it all day your shoulders and your arms will be aching and once you start playing around with it so I hope you enjoyed this video in another video we'll have a look at putting the leather shoulder on this and I'll show you how to make one you don't need to buy one they're very easy to make and you can just use some belt leather you can even use paracord and wrap it round and then fuse it with resin which is a bit trickier if you don't do it right has a tendency to come apart but it is a it is something you can do in a pinch if you're out with you you know you really need to to make something to strengthen it can even use a piece of bark if you really wanted to go back to basics but I hope you've enjoyed this video and I hope you found it useful and I'll see you very soon in another one thanks again for watching