![]() Try it with the identical head on different handles, point the axe toward someone and have them watch for the center of rotation as you twist your wrist back and forth. The axe head, being more massive than the wood handle, is little affected by whether a handle is straight or curved. Twisting your wrist back and forth will result in the axe head pivoting about the center of mass. It doesn't matter if you hold the axe horizontally out in front of you, or vertically upward or downward. The axe head and the handle will rotate about the center of mass, and not some imaginary point the curved part of the handle points toward. You will find that the laws of physics have not been repealed. Grasp a curved handled axe near the end of the handle, and twist your wrist back and forth. If anyone thinks that a curved axe handle will magically enable the user to cause the entire mass of the axe head to rotate about a point above the poll of the head with a mere twist of the wrist, I'd like to see someone demonstrate it. On top of all of the above, I wish to add that the club-like contemporary handles (with the Wetterling /Sandvik/ Granfors Brunk qualifing as such) we avoid like the 'plague' - other than for the occasional 'testing purposes'. Also, a poorly-shaped head on a good handle distorts the conclusions. Comparing one's already favoured ax with another is hardly an objective test. Switching at each 1/2 hour or so intervals should eventually reveal 'the winner'.īy the way, I do not believe that 'Woodtrecker' - the most outspoken critic of whatever I (or Dudley Cook) had to say on this subject - had done this. Then spending several hours using them both - felling, limbing and bucking. (Not infrequently their bits as they come from the store are sloppily shaped and/or ground) Remove their handles and outfit one of them with a straight and the other with a curved handle (of exactly the same dimensions). Some low-cost Chinese or Mexican-made versions suffice for this experiment, but they should be sharpened equally well. One alternate (and ultimately the best) way for an individual to settle the matter may be to purchase two axes with identical heads. (Please keep in mind that the curve I consider undesirable is the one near the knob.) It was only later that we came across Cook's book - the one which also explained why a longer fore-section demands more skill on part of the user (a fact we had already felt by experience). After several years of playing with MANY axes, we (as a family) noticed that we all gravitated to those with straight handles and tended to 'avoid' those with very curved ones, even if the latter were otherwise good/famous brand heads. I did not come to the conclusion that straight handles are 'better' because I read D. With regard to axes, it seems to me that it is definitely the hand close to the knob that ultimately controls the swing - and thereby determines accuracy. Also, my grasp of theoretical principles of physics in general is mediocre at best - and I always needed to first grasp by bodily experience whatever theory I subsequently embrace or dispute. In any case, I've been so focused on scythe-related matters lately that to switch to discussing the theory of ax handle design seems an order too tall for me. Apparently, he has not gotten around to it yet, or is possibly equally stumped.?. Way back when I first read your respectfully presented - but a brain-twisting (at least to my brain) - comment, I felt 'unfit' to respond comprehensively or intelligently, and so I asked someone else (a ax-experienced cowboy from Australia) to fill in for me. I do regret the long delay in responding. Could the effective angle to the rear be more akin to an average of the grip angles of each hand thus cutting it in half from that illustrated in the diagram? Reply Delete (This disappears if the grip is aligned vertically as if for a downward stroke.) Perhaps this mitigates to some degree the presumed "foresection" angle. They are not in a straight line but in a slight "V" or chevron shape. If one makes a fist with both hands and holds them shoulder height, horizontally aligned, and touching in front of ones body as if mid swing in an imaginary level "felling" stroke there is a misalignment of the fists. Could this upper hand grip orientation perhaps mimic that used on a straight-handled axe? My upper hand (the control hand) is always on the portion of the handle that, for the most part, is in line with the eye. On the few two-handed axes I have used only my lower hand is in contact with the curved portion of the handle - the hand that, for me, supplies power. Having said that I am uncertain about the geometry of curved axe handles and their effect on an axes longitudinal pivot axis. As an armchair axe user my opinion should probably be discounted.
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