Reply To: Choice of carpenter's axe
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I’m not sure where you are taking this. Try YouTube and type in Hewing at the search prompt.
For the axe I think this is probably a status thing. If you need to buy a Rolls Royce to take the kids to school, go ahead but compare the price of a wetterings axe with the price of a bandsaw.
Then you can only split with the grain, so you need a broad axe to make your board acceptably flat. For me a car boot sale item is fine as long as it holds a decent cutting edge long enough for what I need. I have to make the point though that I use a workbench that I am not afraid to use. I was looking at the router table cabinet on Marc Sommerfelds you tube videos. This is supposed to be a tool but for me it would have to live in my main room in the house. Over £100 just for drawer slides! Keeping in line with the topic. I am going to make a house in a foriegn country and if I can get tree trunks at a good price then I am convinced I want to try hewing. That said it will be more than 1 axe and the axe blades will have tool steel welded to the shape I desire. You can look at it from different views. Do you want something that will do the job or do you want tools in the workshop that you invite friends to come and see?
As for the rip saw the short answer is no. Even wonderful saws need sharpening. If you do not intend to file your own then go buy modern saws in bulk at your diy centre. Here you can buy in packs of 5 for under £20 I imagine that equates to same in $s, and you then throw them away. Although it is not impossible to resharpen them, but putting set to then is difficult (the teeth crack) because the teeth are hardened for cutting engineered boards