Limbing with a Gransfors Forest Axe - Safety 

That's a great idea. I often forget how many young people are watching (or should be watching). I tend to take for granted what I have learned over the years through trial and error (and lots of failure).

ditto, saw it via Skillcults website, meant to remind the importance of safety before entering the cordwood axe challenge. He's also trying to develop guidelines with the community on safe axe usage (or rather, proper axemanship overall). If you're not familiar, look up S.T.A.T.E. under the YT-channel Skillcult. It's still under development, so if you got ideas that can help, it would help many. I've uploaded an attempted demo recently, but it's as much of a how-not-to-do if I am to be honest. Still, there's no other video as of yet (this is fairly recent after all), so don't be shy to share your experience to pool our collective knowledge

Thanks Brice. Thanks for noticing the glasses. I've had my share of reminders over the years to keep them on. I'm sure you noticed how far the wood chips were flying!

Thanks buddy.

JoeRobinetBushcraft I agree.

I think they make an American Felling axe, I'm imclined to get that even though I think the more popular one is a small forest axe I think. Probably because it compliments a chainsaw well.

Thanks Mike.

Very true. I'll be building the next cabin (after this current one) on my own property and I'll have all of my tools handy. :)

Thank you Paul. I'm look forward to sharing the progress with you

Thanks!

Thanks man.

Thanks Lonnie

Thanks for watching again Brian!

Thanks man!

Thank-you. No, I don't have a Patreon account.

Thanks for the quick reply bud, might be worth a thought on the Patreon. Your content and production have gotten so good, I'd definitely give up a few bucks a month to help make sure the goods keep coming :-).

Thanks man, I appreciate that!

Great video Shawn and good advice. Looking forward to seeing the cabin in progress

Thanks. It's a Gransfors Bruk Swedish Forest Axe.

Gransfors Bruk Swedish Forest Axe, as in the description

Thanks. It's the Gransfors Bruk Forest Axe. I'm working on a cabin building tools and cabin site selection video right now - should be up in the next couple of days.

My Self Reliance nice didn't see it in the description. Perfect! I'll look into it!

tweetchris46 excellent! Three dogs live at this property, so unfortunately Cali won't be joining me during this cabin build. Soon...

Yeah of course, just wondered how she was doing..glad to hear she's doing great

Haldor that's partially true, but you're negating the mechanical advantage of a long lever or pendulum and that a heavier head is more efficient, reducing the quantity of strikes required to complete a through cut. But, I hear what you're saying and I appreciate your insight. I thought about that as I was talking about the back, shoulder and arm strength required to handle the heavier axe.

momentum (p) = mass (m) x velocity (v), so more massive head needs less velocity for the same momentum. Velocity (v) = displacement (d) / time (t), so that also means you don't have to move a more massive axe head as much distance or as fast for the same momentum. the energy spent with greater effort in moving a less massive axe head faster and higher may or may not be the same as the energy spent with less effort moving a more massive axe head slower and lower.

Now muscle power and fatigue is interesting. Do more reps, work on muscle fiber endurance. Use more weight, work on muscle fiber efficiency. After using your muscles enough, and you'll create an oxygen deficit. Oxygen drops low enough and your muscles will break down sugars into lactic acid, and you feel the burn. Burn up energy stores, and you'll hit muscle fatigue. High intensity work burns more stored carbs, low intensity work burns more stored fats. Ironically, for prolonged low intensity work outs, 30-60g of carbs per hour can prolong exercise performance. However, prolonged high intensity work outs which depend on stored muscle sugars don't benefit as much from maintaining blood sugar levels, go figure. But that has to do with using fat through a metabolic pathway called the Krebs cycle, which needs to be fueled by carb intermediates. In conclusion, work those muscle more often, eat food, and you too can move wood efficiently with heavier axes. There's a reason lumberjacks carried felling axes double the weight that a small forest axe.

Jumpgate Drifter Thanks. So basically the energy expended may or may not be equal and is dependent on other factors, like bite into the wood and the energy required to free it, etc. In a perfect world, one would have an axe such as this one to trim small branches and cut green softwood, a thicker axe for felling hardwood, a hatchet, a splitting maul, a broad axe....

Well the longer handle is more ergonomic, but for the kinetic Energy only the vertical distance is relevant. As for the heavier head, I will be looking into this a bit more (from the mechanical side to check the energy input to output ration of light vs heavy). heavier does not mean better by itself, otherwise we would be using 10kg (22pounds) axeheads, just like we do with mallets.