“It’s not a fur coat that warms a peasant, but an ax,” says popular wisdom. Irreplaceable assistant in the household, the "right hand" of any carpenter is all about a completely unpretentious tool called an ax.
Whether it is an ax for a summer residence or for professional use, the demand for this tool will never disappear.
A conscientious attitude towards operation, the ability to properly prepare the tool for work, will not only help to avoid troubles, but will also serve as a guarantee of the successful completion of the planned work.
Experienced craftsmen know how to make an ax. Understanding technology and learning practical advice, making an ax with your own hands will not be difficult for a layman.
Stabbing ax attachment
When choosing a piercing metal part for a future ax, special attention deserves the quality of the material. Parts made in accordance with GOST are what you need.
It is worth avoiding the MRTU, OST or TU markings on the nozzle, because these designations allow a change in technology in the process of pouring the part (the addition of third-party substances that affect the quality of the material is possible).
When the blade hits the other, there should be no serifs on both. Curvature of the material, the presence of any kind of dents, the curved axis of the blade are completely excluded.
The significance of the handle
The optimal length of the ax can be selected based on the growth parameters of the master and the force of the blow. The strength, in turn, directly depends on the length, so when working with a large ax, it will be easier to chop logs of firewood.
Before making a choice, it is worth deciding on the desired result:
- heavy version of the tool (total weight 1kg-1.4kg., handle length from 55 to 65 cm.);
- lightweight version (weight 0.8kg-1kg., with a length of 40 to 60 cm.).
The quality of the wood from which the hatchet will be made is of great importance. Not every type of wood is suitable for manufacturing. Often, birch is used for this purpose (parts located near the roots or stem growths).
There are also handles made of oak, acacia, maple and other hardwoods. All selected workpieces require long-term drying.
After the piece of wood has dried well, the contours of the handle are drawn on it, according to a pre-made template. In order to avoid slipping of the hand during work and to increase the indicators of the convenience of the ax, a thickening must be provided at the end of the handle.
A knife, chisel, electric jigsaw will help to cut the contour.
After trying on the ax head and not finding any signs of a loose fit of the parts, you can safely continue improving the ax. The glass will help you loop the tool, and the sandpaper will be useful for sanding.
Placement of the piercing nozzle on the handle
Correct execution of the instructions for the attachment will lead to excellent results:
The eye of the piercing part must be adjusted to the upper part of the ax handle, the excess wood can be easily removed with a knife.
Make a mark on the hatchet where the piercing part will end. To do this, you need to place the handle lying down, in order to avoid the assumption of inaccuracies. Divide the resulting segment in half and mark it accordingly.
Holding the ax while standing, it is necessary to cut to the second mark. This is done with a hacksaw for metal and used for a wedge.
Cut out a wooden wedge similar to the pre-purchased metal wedge. The width is equal to the size of the eyelet, the thickness of the product is from 5 to 10 mm, and the length is equal to the cutting depth.
Having put the board on the table, it is necessary to put the piercing part on it, located upside down. Next, you should put this part on the handle and slowly start tapping it on the board.
Periodically, you need to change the method of tapping from the stabbing part to tapping with an ax.
As soon as the piercing part enters the eyelet, it is necessary to place the ax upright and insert a wooden wedge. A hacksaw for metal will help to cut off all necessary materials, which as a result of the nozzle will be on top.
At the end, oil is applied to the handle and the product is thoroughly dried. The correctness of the execution can be compared with the photo of an ax at the dacha, posted below.
Sharpening the blade
In order to avoid the hassle arising at the time of work, it is necessary to take a responsible approach to sharpening the blade. Standard indicators of compliance with GOST:
- sharpening angle for construction works equal to 20-30 °;
- for carpentry 35 °.
Compliance with the requirements for the amount of sharpening is very important. The inconsistency of the degree leads to the fact that when chopping with an ax, the blade gets stuck in the wood.
During the initial sharpening, minor damages, cracks and dents are eliminated. After that, a secondary sharpening is carried out. The end of the process is the grinding process, carried out with a fine-grained bar.
A tool made with your own hands according to the instructions is always the most best ax, which may be in the country.
Photos of the best options for an ax for a summer residence
How to determine at first glance that you are dealing with a good, responsible and handy summer resident, whose words do not differ from their deeds? And we must look not at him, but at the state of his instruments.
Now I’ll be in a daze!
First of all, it must be borne in mind that after buying an ax in a store, it will not work right there to chop with all the desire - the tool will need to be sharpened. And it's best to do it on sharpening machine, on emery. Before you start doing this, check the emery itself to see if the rotating emery wheel is hitting it (ignorant people usually do not even know about this, they think, since there is such a unit, then everything is always tip-top).
If yes, then you need it using professional term, "Dumbfounded", i.e. eliminate the beating, otherwise, when sharpening the ax, the stone may fly apart and cause serious injury to you.
How to do it?
That's how. Take in your hands a piece of an old emery wheel (preferably stronger in structure than the one that you will "bring to life"), rest it on a stand, turn on the machine. The work will be dusty, so it is imperative to work with glasses and a gauze bandage. So, the device is turned on - gently touch the rotating circle with the cone. Touched. The emery began to grind, emery dust flew off - now, with a careful movement, pass the cone along the plane of the circle.
Ensure that the butt is flat and free of beating. Have achieved. Turn off the machine, remove the bandage, glasses, shake off the sand dust, rest, breathe deeply. You have done a great job. Now the fun is ahead.
Tricky corner
Before you start sharpening, take an ax in your hands and carefully examine its cutting edge - it is probably uneven. Here we must start with her. Remove the stop (it will only interfere with you), turn on the emery and begin to grind the edge, keeping the ax parallel to the circle, making movements from the bottom up and back.
Make sure that the edge of the blade is straight and free of nicks or dents. Only after that you can start sharpening itself (did you already think that the job is almost done?). Place the ax flat on the emery and grind the edges one by one until the white edge disappears from the end of the blade when viewed from above. Now attach the ax to the end of the emery and, with smooth movements from top to bottom, gently alternate between guiding the cutting edge. Turn off the machine, take an emery block, remove the burrs. The ax is ready to go and you can cut logs.
But there is one important nuance: you need to have several axes on the farm. What for? And then, that each of them should be designed for a certain type of work.
The shape of the sharpening depends on this. For example, for an ax designed for splitting firewood, the edge of the blade must be sharpened at an obtuse angle (Fig. 1), then it will split the wood, not chop it. Curious? And how! But this is not yet the whole science of the ax.
Good straightened blade- this, of course, is very, very important, but after all, without a correctly selected and installed hatchet, it will also be impossible to chop from the shoulder.
Do-it-yourself hatchet
I make the hatchets myself: I take a birch board of the required thickness, preferably straight-layered, and draw the outline of the future hatchet on it. But, before taking up a pencil, I take an ax in my hands and look for its center of gravity. It is located approximately at the point where the blade meets the back. Now I start to draw the hatchet, but so that the axis of the center of gravity of the ax runs close to the center of the axis of the hatchet.
This is done in order to make it easier to control the ax (if you put the ax on the handle of the shovel, then you will not be able to work). I cut the hatchet with an electric jigsaw. I clamp the workpieces in a vice, cut off the sharp edges with a chisel, followed by processing with an emery tape until the hand nicely grabs the hatchet. In fig. 2, you will probably see a ledge at the end of the ax. Do you need it? Sure! This is so that the hand does not slip during work, because the butt of the ax is flat, and such a dangerous tool as an ax must be gripped firmly.
How to put an ax on a hatchet correctly
I would like to add: you do not need to adapt to the ax, you need to fit it so that the axis of the ax blade coincides with the axis of the ax.
Happened?
In this case, you will be able to cut the log both to the left and to the right. And so that the ax does not fly off the ax handle, I make a longitudinal cut on it and wedge it. The ax has holes of different sizes. The one into which we insert the ax is smaller than the top one.
When wedging, the ax holds firmly and does not fly off. The wedge is necessarily wooden. The iron one does not stay in the tree and often flies out, followed by the ax. Did you describe everything boringly? Don't blame me. I am no longer young, I will soon go to retirement, so I want to accumulate for long years to pass on experience to the young, so that they do not stuff themselves with cones, going to the truth.
Take care of your fingers
Oh, I almost forgot: the shovel also needs to be sharpened. It is best to do this with a large flat file (on the machine, of course, it is also possible, but it is very inconvenient, and we are practical summer residents, aren't we?). So, rest the shovel on the edge of the table, as shown in fig. 3, put your foot on the handle and press it down, then take a file in your hands - and forward, sharpen to the desired sharpness. And be sure: this work will seem to you a pleasure (especially since it will not take much time).
All right, I lost my heart. No wonder he said that sharpening -interesting topic... Once I raised it, how can I not say about knives? The main thing here is to learn what parts the blade consists of (Figure 4). And by itself, it is the same butt, like an ax, provides the rigidity of the knife. Its cheeks define the shape, and the chamfers on both sides form the cutting edge. To sharpen a knife, you also need an emery machine, which also needs to be prepared, and about this - see above. So everything is in order. It's time to get down to business.
Take a knife in your hands and see what state it is in: curved - straighten, with jagged edges - grind the cutting edge until a straight line is formed. If you look at the cutting edge from above, you can see a light streak. This strip of dullness, and it must be grinded off.
To do this, take a knife in right hand, emery is on, bring it as shown in fig. 5 (item 1), and uniform movement grind a blunt edge from handle to spout. Turn it over (item 2 in Fig. 5) and sharpen the other edge in the same motion. Look at the knife blade from above: if there is no light strip, then the knife is sharpened. It remains to remove the burr with a small emery block.
Never check the quality of the sharpening by sliding your finger over the blade! In order to check if the knife is sharp, you need to take a sheet of paper (you can also use a newspaper) in left hand and try to cut its edge. A sharp knife will do this without difficulty.
Further more
So, what else do we have on the farm? cutting tools? BUT! Scissors! Sharpening them is both simple and difficult at the same time. Before you start sharpening, you need to determine the reason why they do not cut. There can be many of them.
Well, for example, scissors have too large a gap between the blades or, conversely, too small (as a result of which they "cut" each other, and the cut material pushes them apart). What can be done here? Sometimes this can be eliminated by straightening and changing the degree of tightening (or, conversely, loosening) the tightening screw. This is the easiest problem, it will take a few minutes to fix. But with blunt metal ... On the blunt blades of scissors, if you look from above, you can see the same light strip along the cutting edge. Here it is also necessary to grind it off.
Never touch the inner sides of the blades with emery, because they are sharpened at the factory and have a certain clearance angle that allows a free cut.
Stitching only top part- until the light edge disappears. It is perfectly visible at work. The sequence of actions is as follows. Open the scissors completely, bring them to the side of the rotating circle (Fig. 6) at an angle of inclination of 10-15 °, gently pressing smooth movement from the center of the scissors to the end of the blade, sharpen. You should get an even edge. Sharpened one blade - take the second.
After sharpening, remove the burrs from the trailing edges of the chamfer, which were formed during sharpening, otherwise they will greatly interfere with the work. If after sharpening the ends of the scissors do not come together, you need to grind off the growths on the rings so that the ends of the scissors come together (Fig. 7). Now, with a little experience, you can talk about sharpening the secateurs.
And he is almost the most main tool in the garden. Before sharpening it must first be disassembled (fig. 8). There is no need to be afraid of this procedure - everything is very simple (Fig. 9). It is almost impossible to break anything there (however, there would be, as they say, a desire ...).
We sharpen only one side of the secateurs. If the cutting edge has jagged edges, cut them off so that the edge is even. Then we start sharpening. To the top point of the rotating emery, we apply the blade at a greater angle than when sharpening the knife; from the center to the end of the blade, we sharpen it with a smooth movement with rotation. You should have an even chamfer. See if there is a light strip.
If it is, we repeat the movement until it disappears completely. Tuck in the burr with inside blades. Assemble the secateurs, adjust the free play. The spring should freely move the secateurs apart. There shouldn't be much backlash either. That, in fact, is all the wisdom. But it is imperative to master it. I wish all summer residents fruitful work!
An ax is one of the tools that you need to have on the farm. Of course, you can buy it in the store, but if you want to have a reliable and convenient thing, it is better to make the tool yourself. The article will talk about how to make an ax at home with your skillful hands and correctly plant a metal cloth.
How to select and prepare wood
The hatchet is the handle of the working tool. Labor productivity depends entirely on how easy it will be to work with it. Therefore, the usual straight stick will not work in this case. A real haft is a curved bar with an oval section and straight sections. The tail should be widened and bent downwards. Only with this option will the hand of the person performing the work be able to securely hold the tool, while not experiencing fatigue for a long time.
The following types of wood are best suited for making an ax:
- maple;
- Birch tree;
- acacia;
- ash.
You need to harvest wood in the fall. Birch is perfect for carpentry tools, and maple is more often used for the field version. His impact strength less than birch. Ideal option Ash is considered to be very durable and rarely changing its shape. It is better to make a hatchet from a section of a tree located near the root, and the workpiece should be 15 cm wider and longer than the future product.
Attention! Before the prepared beams are used to make the hatchet, they must dry for at least a year in a dry, dark place, for example, in the attic. This is necessary so that when finished, the handle does not dry out and does not begin to dangle in the eyelet.
It is possible to use fresh wood only in the event of a breakage of the hatchet as a temporary option to be replaced as soon as possible.
How to make an ax
In order to make an ax you will need:
- piece of wood;
- hacksaw;
- chisel;
- pencil;
- file;
- a hammer.
The manufacturing process itself takes place in the following order:
Attention! You need to make the hatchet so that the cross section is oval. In this case, it will be possible to hold it without particularly straining the hand and produce very accurate blows.
Hatchet impregnation and ax attachment
The upper part of the finished handle must be impregnated with a water-repellent compound. Two options will do:
- drying oil;
- linseed oil;
- ski resin.
The selected agent is lubricated with wood and left to dry. The processing is repeated several more times until the fat is absorbed. Ski resin is able to penetrate deeper layers of the workpiece, but it is difficult to find it in stores. Therefore, they often use the first two options.
Advice. A bright dye can be added to the impregnation agent. So the finished tool will be difficult to lose.
The attachment of the ax to the handle is made as follows:
Watching video and photographs will help you better understand the manufacturing method. Making an ax with your own hands is more difficult than buying it ready-made. However, with the desire and some skills, it is quite possible to get a high-quality tool of labor.
How to make an ax: video
The fit of the ax on the ax must be correct. This will provide the employee with continuous chopping of firewood, without being distracted by the hawk flying off from time to time. More often than not, beginners do not know many tricks that could effectively help when repairing an ax. Namely, the selection optimal types wood for the handle of the ax, additional reinforcing materials.
How to plant an ax on a hatchet - preparing a tree
- A rough wooden block is selected, from which you need to make a handle for an ax. With a simple pencil it is outlined future form... The ax cannot dangle, and must fit tightly into the ax. Therefore, the bar is cut out a little larger than necessary, so as not to overshoot the size. It is always possible to reduce it, but wedges may not help for tight shrinkage.
- By the method of attachment, with a pencil, the contours of the eyelet, as well as the places wedge.
How to attach an ax to a hatchet - attachment process
- To prevent the ax from dangling, craftsmen make wedges, metal or wooden. It is very difficult to make metal wedges; it is easier to buy them in a specialized store. Wooden wedges made both by hand and purchased.
- Further, the height of the ax is marked on the ax. About 5 mm is added to this distance, they can then be cut off, or left. The deepest place on the handle is marked, to which the ax will descend.
- Measure the depth of the wedge cutouts in turn. Such indentations will be smaller (shorter and narrower) than the wedges themselves, for reliable shrinkage. The indentations are cut with a metal saw with a minimum drank wood.
- After the markings are ready, the cuts are made, the handle itself is being finalized. Polished rounded shapes with emery of different grain size.
- When the handle sits comfortably in the palms, work continues in the cutting area. Extra millimeters are carefully removed, adhering to a tight entry into the ax.
- The nozzle process takes place with a blunt, non-sharp object. For these purposes, use a board, or a rubber, weighted mallet for tiles, which will not damage the wood and metal part.
- During the nozzle, an extra tree leaves. These scuffs can be used to determine the amount of surplus that needs to be removed.
- Shrinkage occurs gradually. Grinding excess material is done using sharp knife, skins or grinders with a petal emery nozzle.
- A tight ax head serves as a guarantee good result... When the nozzle has reached its maximum depth, the excess wood has been removed, wedges have to be driven in. For this, the entire structure is disconnected by gentle tapping.
- The ax is not removed with a metal hammer and knife. This is done by resting on a hard surface.
- To crack during wedge did not go deep into the handle, a 5 mm through hole is drilled.
- Wooden wedges are mounted on epoxy resin, and it is practically impossible to pull them out later. Metal wedges rarely sit on epoxy, but hammered in tightly. So that the ax does not burst during final stage, it must be properly tempered. The attachment is made with a mallet.
How to plant an ax on an ax - important rules
- For the manufacture of a handle for an ax, a tree with knots is rejected. When working with such an ax, there is a high chance that it will crack in the place of the knot.
- The handle of the ax should be as comfortable as possible, as during operation it will strive to slip out of the fingers. At the end of the handle, a slight bend is made to support the hands.
- If work does not wait and the ax is needed urgently, it is allowed to use fresh wood, but with caution. After a while, the handle will dry out and begin to dangle. In this case, wedges are placed, planted on the seals, but only after complete drying.
- The brightly colored handle is the best missing signal if the ax gets lost in the grass.
In order for the process to proceed according to the rules, you need to know which type of tree is best for the ax. The strongest and most reliable will be axes made of oak, acacia, pear, mulberry, ash, dogwood, birch, maple. The wood should not be fresh. Only after a year of natural drying in a dark, dry room can a selected piece of wood be considered ready for use.
Axes have been known to mankind since ancient times. This is one of the most useful inventions of mankind. An invention that is very simple and functional. However, in Russia, since ancient times, axes have been divided into several types, each for a kind of work. The size of the ax and the size of the ax handle, became the main differences between the axes.
I hope this article will help you understand what the right haft is. It examines the shape of the hatchet, gives drawings of the hatchet. After reading this article, you can make a do-it-yourself hatchet.
Currently, axes are used in everyday life for cleaning garden plots, small carpentry and chopping wood. There is an ax for every case, so it is important to know correct sizes ax.
In logging, axes are used for cutting trees before felling, chopping branches from fallen trees, debarking logs (in the absence special tools), splitting and cutting of wood. Accordingly, they are called lumberjacks, delimbing, cleavers and teska axes.
Consider the structure of the ax, it consists of the ax itself and the handle, called the ax. Drawing, correct ax shown below.
It has a blade, blade and butt. The front corner of the blade is called the toe, the back is the heel, the line running from the corner of the toe to the base of the butt is the toe line; the line from the corner of the heel is the heel line; lateral surfaces of the canvas - with cheeks.
The material for the manufacture of axes is high-quality, medium-alloyed, heat-treated steel.
Now consider the shape of the correct hatchet in the drawing. In it, as shown in the drawing above, they distinguish between the fastening, middle, gripping parts and the tail.
The tree for the ax is birch, ash, maple, hornbeam, old mountain ash, beech, apple. Poor material should not be used to make an ax handle for safety reasons.
The size of the ax depends on the type of ax. For work that requires a special impact force, you need an ax with the shape of an elongated hatchet as in the drawing. For clean, precise work that does not require a large impact force, axes are made with the shape of a short hatchet. For logging axes, you need to use the correct axes with a length of 700 - 900 mm, for knot axes 600 - 800 mm, but the ax for a cleaver has dimensions of 750 - 930 mm. The smallest length is about 500 mm - they have axes for teska.
The middle and gripping parts of the ax are given a slightly curved shape and their surface is carefully processed as shown in the drawing. The tail is made wider. The fastening part fits tightly to the butt hole. The angle of the nozzle should correspond to the type of ax: for a lumberjack 86 - 88 °, for a knotting ax 70 - 80 °, a splitting ax 80 - 90 °.
The axis of the correct haft and the blade line are located in the same plane. After setting the blade, the ax is wedged by driving in two wedges.
The force of blow applied when working with an ax also determines the shape of the ax itself. So, a lumberjack ax, used for cutting the trunk and cutting off thick branches on large trees, should penetrate as deeply into the wood as possible, not get stuck in it, give large chips, that is, it requires a special impact force. In accordance with this, its wedge-shaped forms are convex as in the drawing, the line of the blade is curved.
Below are examples of modern axes.
Gnarling ax, used mainly for delimbing and sometimes for cutting small trees when sawing. Debranching requires less impact force, but a higher frequency of operation, so the blade of the gnarling ax is long as shown in the drawing.
Nowadays, such axes produce little; everything that I was able to find is given below.
The cleaver is used for splitting - splitting wood, therefore, the shape of the blade is short, wedge-shaped, heavy, with thick cheeks, with a sharpening angle of about 35 degrees.
Axes for teska riveting and similar work have a wide blade with one-sided sharpening as in the drawing below.
