How to Make an Axe

Enlarge Image Image Gallery This broadaxe for hewing logs into beams is unique because most any independent homesteader can forge this design with just a little blacksmith experience. This design allows the maker to connect the blade to the side of the handle instead of having to forge an eye like those found on conventional axes. PHOTO: BILL COPERTHWAITE

Bill Coperthwaite writes about finding beauty, justice and pleasure in mastering the everyday tasks and skills of self-reliance. The following is an excerpt from his book, A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity.

It is hard to find a good broad hatchet — a small, broadaxe with a wide cutting edge beveled on only one side, like a chisel; this special bevel makes it easier to hew to a line. After 40 years of hunting in antique shops and flea markets, I have found only two broad hatchets that passed muster. And for friends who sought one of their own, the outlook was also discouraging: They could get one made — if they happened to have a good design, if they knew a good blacksmith and if they could afford the price.

Or they could make an axe themselves, but by the time they had learned to forge a fine one, they would have become blacksmiths. This is an elite tool.

While traveling through Japan, in the Tosa region of the island of Shikoku, I was surprised by the number of blacksmiths. Each village had its own smith, and they all could make excellent edge tools. It was delightful to see the grace and skill of those smiths. I became friends with one who made a broad hatchet to my specifications. Twenty years went by, and in the interim I studied many axes and blended what I learned into my concept of an ideal broad hatchet.

A few years ago, I carved a wooden model and sent it off to my blacksmith friend in Shikoku. Yes, he would make it for me. Two years passed, and it did not appear. I assumed the project was forgotten. While visiting Italy, I came upon an elderly smith who had made axes years ago. I carved another pattern, and he forged the axe. Now, these are far from democratic tools. To get one you first have to design it and then know a smith in Japan or Italy or wherever who is able and willing to make an axe from your design.

I doubted the axe from Japan would materialize, and the Italian smith was old and sick, and probably would not make another. Good broad hatchets for students and friends were as elusive as ever. And though this axe adventure was exciting, and I had acquired some fine ones, we badly needed to have some inexpensive ones available.

While I was studying in Switzerland, the breakthrough came. The tiny fellow who lived upstairs (and works mostly at night) shouted “Eureka!” He presented me with a full-blown design for a democratic axe.

I could hardly wait to get back to my bench. For steel, there was an ancient plow point of about the right thickness lying behind the barn. Into the bonfire it went, and when it glowed red, we heaped ashes over it and let it remain until morning, cooling slowly and releasing its hardness. The next day, I reheated and hammered it flat using a handy ledge for an anvil. When the steel cooled, I drew the pattern on it. Three hours of work at the vise was needed to cut it to shape with a hacksaw, and then another hour to dress it with files.