it's Pete from cheap homesteading and today we're gonna cut some firewood I
have neglected cutting firewood last year I was cutting it but my focus was
more on clearing land and it ended up that I just didn't get as much firewood
cut as it should've so we're gonna head back to the Sugar Shack where I have
some wood already cut down and in lengths it's been drying there for a
while so that's gonna supplement just a little
bit but first we're gonna sharpen the axe and I have found that it seems like
in the homesteading community that there's a lot of opinions how axis
should be sharpened and I think sometimes we just kind of rise above it
because I don't have enough time in the world to sharpen it like most these
people sharpen their axe I I'm from the school of get er done and honestly if
you sharpen an ax to a razor's edge when you hit a rock there's a chunk gone off
because it's so fine the metal is so fine at the end the chunk is gone and
it's not a shirt so having an axe sharp but you can actually have an axe too
sharp and and on top of it I don't have enough time to spend a whole day sharpen
my axe I I need to sharpen it and I get it there and got some firewood this is
my favorite axe it's a master cracks it's a 5-pound it is not very old but it
is probably at least 15 years maybe 20 years old so I mean it's better than
what you would purchase right now for sure and I like the taper I don't know
what it is but this taper really splits nicely you can get an axe it just
doesn't split properly and a lot of its to do with the taper here the distance
from when it starts spreading out because the farther it's in you got
leverage so that's correct you have a good splitting axe so right
here we're just going to give it a little bit of a cleanup
and I'm going to show you how I sharpen axes first thing you do is wear safety
glasses okay so we're just using a grinder a lot of people use fancy files
and emery stones and all kinds of stuff like that
but realistically the Voyageurs were a group of people french canadians that
would go up the the Saint Lawrence River and they were mainly trappers and
traders and all that kind of stuff and all they had was a file so if you want
to look at how it was done properly back then probably that was proper just to
use a file but we've made it so much more complicated so I'm not going to use
a file but I'm gonna use a grinder you don't want to make this angle too
elongated you don't want this to get too thin
I like making about half a thumbnail edge so I will try to go like this so
basically you have to envision the blade hitting this section you don't want to
go much past that you don't want to make this tape or too much because the shock
of this hitting this hitting this little bit of a raised spot it gives it a jolt
and then it comes down through if you make it too fine it doesn't get that
jolt and I find it isn't as good
so I started off by just using the grinder and I go do the air
okay so now I'm gonna get a little block and a little bit of sandpaper and we're
just gonna clean up the edge and then that's it so what I got is a little bit
of Emery cloth and I put it on a block
now make sure you don't go like this you're gonna cut your hand you kind of
go sideways okay so there you go there's a nice continuous edge if I just drag my
finger it doesn't cut it but I can tell that it is sharp
if I push even just lightly I would end up cutting my finger and I find that's
about how sharp you need it you don't need to spend a ton of time sharpening
an axe to have an effective axe to go out and split some wood so let's go out
and try I am going to split a few sticks of wood and you're gonna have a good
idea how well it splits it is not rocket science some people will try to make it
that it is but I am part of the school of get er done and you can't get her
done standing in the shop all day sharpening your ax so let's take a look
here okay let's try this one that's got a bit
of a curve in it there's one that was see I had it right next to the year not
that went pretty good I'll cut a bit more and uh round two with the axe
okay so here we go round two that's a hard one
now I'm gonna go the other direction hey let's try this one one more okay let's
try this one and then I go here there we go so let's see round three
okay so there you go I'm pretty happy with how it splits in ways I think it
was sharp or wouldn't have done as good of a job because there's definitely
stones in the ground here and I hit a few of them and I don't even see marks
on the axe so if I had that to a razor point I can imagine that it probably
would chipped the edge off and then that whole section doesn't shop as well so
you know what if you have the time you can go and you can sharpen them really
well but I don't have the luxury of that so this is I think I'm pretty happy with
I'm not gonna change the way I shared my axes so you guys have a good one