Double Bit Axes Wood Craft on a Budget Part 17

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Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

morning guys I'm David Candler with the path under school back in another in our series of woodcraft on a budget and I've had a lot of guys ask me about the double bit axe and I wanted to talk a little bit today about three examples of double bit axes for budget wood craft and the advantages and disadvantages of the double bed axe and why we even have the double bit axe in our repertoire of woodsman's tools today and understand that double bed axes have been around since Egyptian time but they weren't really popular in the US or used very much in the US until Civil War the double bed axe has distinct advantages over a single bed axe but let's talk about that further right so the first accent we'll talk about we're talking about advantages of the double bit as we'll talk about this plumb double bit axe and this it was just an axe head that was purchased again from a scrapyard for scrap yard price I think I paid two or three dollars for this head it's about a two-pound head somewhere in that neighborhood it's over a pound and a half I know that let's say it's between two and two and a half I put a normal double bit handle on it and cut about three inches off of it so that would be more comfortable for me to carry

so that missed the criteria it meets the criteria excuse me of an axe that's going to fit my body size now understand that axe is like this typically had a handle on them longer than a normal axe the reason for that was obviously you can get more leverage into the sling that way with forward momentum of the axe the advantage of the double bed axe really was that you had two sharp edges so if you were using this axe and you were timbering

or logging for a living and you made your money by cutting wood you didn't have to take the time with this axe a to sharpen unciekin edge you always had another one that you could just flip over and use a sharp edge a lot of guys including Nemec with this small double bit hatchet went with the theory that one edge could be beveled different than the other edge and it could be a multifunctional tool for two different purposes if I used a steeper grind on one edge and made that edge profile a little bit thinner then it would be very sharp and cut deeply into a tree that I was trying to fell on the other side I would have a more shallow grind and a beefier blade that I could use for things like roots knots burrows and things like that when I was cutting or for lemming now when they built the roads during a civil war and they were first starting to clear-cut to build these roads a lot of double bit axes were used and they were used for that purpose one side was used for anything that was close to the ground or roots knots things like that the other side was used for actually cutting and clearing trees so there's a very specific purpose for that double bit design what we have to remember about the double bit is that all of the advantages of the double bit unless we're using this thing every single day to make our living are truly offset by its disadvantages this is the Condor double bit Michigan axe comes with a really really nice leather sheath there's one thing about Condor that's a plus it's the leather on their knives and their axis they're definitely top notch the axe itself comes sharpened with the same bevel on both sides so if you are using this as an intended everyday use axe where you're going to have one side that's thinner than the other side for felling and once I just thicker for knots and living then you're going to need to change that profile after you buy the axe this actually runs about 80 bucks somewhere in that neighborhood

now again I'll say and I'm sure someone's gonna disagree with this but for me the normal everyday woodsman who's not making his living with the axe has no business carrying a double bed axe

there's too many dangers that offset the advantages if you're not cutting wood constantly with this axe one of the names of this axe was saddled with when it first came out in the 1850s was the backstop

because a lot of loggers carried down axe over their shoulder and it would be very easily a for that thing to catch you in the back and cut your back we're going over the top catch you in the back and it was also very bad when it on the back swing if you weren't really careful when you have someone else cutting wood with you because instead of having a hammer pole going backwards you now have a sharp blade going backwards so those are disadvantages of this axe right off the bat as far as carrying the axe through the woods you have the same disadvantage with a hammer pole type ax you can carry that axe so that the blade is down when you're walking with it with a double bit even carrying it sideways you still have a chance on that blade being exposed if you fall and falling into that blade now obviously we're going to put our masks on this thing if we're walking through the woods with it but it's another disadvantage of double bit axe if you're just traveling from one tree even to the next and you're not very cognizant of your safety to put your mask back on your axe in between things so let's talk about another disadvantage of this axe and that is around camp obviously we want to keep our cover on our axe whenever we're not using it but a lot of times in camp when you're cutting a lot of fire wouldn't things like that people tend to put their acts in a log to store that axe or leave that act there for the next person or for the next time that you might use it a half an hour I'll get a cup of coffee okay so this is a nest mech style pocket ax what you call the pocket ax this one is made by or is labeled timber wolf the marbles is almost exactly the same because I own both of them and the sheath is almost identical so I'd say the same company makes them the sheath is pretty much crap the axe isn't too bad for 30 bucks this isn't a horrible little double bit axe again it's got the same bevel on both sides so if you want to go with the ness McPhee ology of how this Act should be set up it should be two different bevels one for finer work and one for things like knots and boning and things of that nature so you would have to change that but for 30 bucks it's not a bad little axe it's got a nice handle in it got a nice handle shape very reminiscent to the original that Nesmith talked about in his book and wood track and camping but again for my money the distinct disadvantage is that a double bit axe has far outweigh any advantages that it has and in my opinion there aren't a lot of advantage to an accident size especially to be a double bed axe I can see the advantage if you are logging or timbering for a living but you're not going to do that with something like this so the ability to have two different bevels here one for finer work and one for more robust work like knots and things like that doesn't pan out to me enough to give up the hand or pull on one side of a single bit axe or hatchet that I can use for pounding stakes for camps tarp straps and all of those types of things because I've got a knife on my belt anyway big disadvantage to this is a lot of people have tried to pound stakes with this thing from the side with the bit turned in horizontal fashion and invariably that will snap this handle off so you never want to pound anything with this axe turn sideways because that's the thinnest part of the handle that you're putting the stress on when you go this direction and you'll see that handle offer there this way you've got this much of the handle absorbing your shock this way you've got about one third of that amount of the handle absorbing the shock and you will eventually break it off so again that's another big disadvantage especially to a double bit hand axe I would much prefer just a Hudson Bay with a nice hammer pole on it as far as a hatchet goes then any double bit but everybody is different

Nessa McCann joy has greatly and I can't knock his theories or his wisdom because it's been out there for a long period of time I can only use what works best for me one thing that you can do if you don't have a block to set something up on top up or splitting because you can lay it diagonally against a stopping block to where your axe is going to hit this block it's not going to go in the ground it's not going to go in your leg so you lay this sideways here spread your legs and split it so that when your axe comes down it's going to go in this piece of wood if it goes through this one

okay so dollars and cents woodcraft on the budget condor makes a pretty decent tool you're probably never going to destroy this thing and 80 bucks and it's brand new if you're into refurbishment and working on things that are antiques that might need some love the plum acts like this one the head was collect three dollars the handle was about less than twenty and the mask itself I bought aftermarket for like 20 bucks so for half the price of the Condor you could have a made in the USA plum good antique axe or you could just buy the Condor 480 cheap acts like this 130 bucks would get anybody by for the time being especially just want a nice little pocket ax but truly my opinion of double bits are that if you're not using them for a living you really don't have a business carrying them you're much better off carrying a single blade hammer pull design axe that you can get a lot more usefulness out of there's much more multifunctional and less dangerous for someone who doesn't use it every day then it's double bit axe I'm Dave Canterbury with the Pathfinder school I appreciate you guys joining me for this just quick video on the double bit and some of my theories of mentality about the double bit axe and a little bit of information on a couple writers like Bernard Mason and Cooke who've written really good books on the using of an axe or wood crafting as far as the axe itself in the history of the axe I appreciate your views that appreciate your support and thank you for the thing you did for me for my school for my family all my instructor sponsors affiliates of France on the back another video as I can thanks guys [Music]