Axe maintenance and use advice learned through extensive use.
I have more than a decade of Wilderness tree-work under my belt. Anyone that has done similar knows that Wilderness workers live or die by their skills around axe use and maintenance. I thought I would share some things learned and rebut some things seen. This is just for practical use, not competition, chainsaw companion, or splitting.
Axe-head things:
Don't worry about your axe pattern. I do like different patterns for different things but that is minutia. I can do anything from chopping to wedging to hewing with any all-purpose pattern.
If it doesn't have a high centerline, it had better come thick enough for me to grind one into it. Flat ground axes are fine but not better for limbing and brushing. They are marginally better for stump and rot clearing due to taking less toe damage in rocks and dirt and ease of regrinding. They are way worse for chopping. Sticky, poor chip clearing, unbalanced, and annoying. I cannot comprehend why no one is making good axes anymore. The only high centerline on the market I am aware of is Hoffman's wood bullet but I would be interested if anyone knows another maker.
Cheek profile is critical. Most axes I see sharpened online are left with untouched cheeks which makes them not worth touching as a user unless they are one of the very very few that came factory with an effective chopping grind. It seems so odd to me to put an edge on an axe without good cheeks. An axe without effectively ground cheeks for the task is not a useful axe. Part of every single sharpen should be taking down the cheeks to re-profile appropriately for now the shorter bit. They should be thinned 2-3 inches back from the edge with smoothed to invisible transitions between the primary bevel and eye. Thickest point of cheeks should be about 1/3rd down from the toe for a wide-bit (eg. jersey) or just above halfway for a narrow-bit (eg. michigan) with the toe and heel being thinnest. A hollow between the cheeks and eye can be nice in the hardest hardwoods or fire-cured wood. No hollow for resinous woods as their chips don't clear as readily and will cause sticking.
A worn down toed axe is unsafe and should not be used until reprofiled. You will miss excessively.
If you can't shave with it, time to hone that edge. Hone at the end of every day of use, if any damage is taken, or if it ever gets less than shaving sharp. I hone after 2-10 hours of use depending on how clean the wood is, a poorly profiled or one of those genuinely rare too-soft-steeled axe would need more frequent. I just bring a chunk of broken whetstone with me for this, axe pucks are great for the shop but don't go fine enough grit and are heavier than I like to carry in the field.
Axe handle things:
Runout matters more than anything else. More than half the grain should not run-out between top of grip and the axe eye. If half is good, the rest probably will be too.
Grain orientation is not worth thinking about and oddly overemphasized in axe circles. This concept I suspect is born of bad form and curved handles. You get run-out with 'bad' orientation and a curved handle. If you have follow-through in your swing or overstrike then 'bad' orientation will be prone to breaking at the shoulder. 'Good' is more prone to breaking with glances. In my experience it has negligible influence on handle strength. It does influence how the handle warps though. 'Good' orientation warps sideways, 'bad' warps forward and back. Warp is easily fixed by just flexing it straight again at the specific point of warp. If you break a handle in the field and have to fit a green stave, fit it with bad orientation so the drying warp doesn't matter. Otherwise it's all correctable and doesn't matter at all so long as run-out is accounted for.
Shagbark hickory is overrated. Not to say it isn't great, I use it on my splitting axes due to outstanding abrasion resistance. But I have found white ash to be the fasted swinging and yellow birch the nicest overall with a great balance of lightweight, strong, flexible, and smooth in hand. Other outstanding handle woods I've tried are pignut hickory, white oak, elm (not sure what sub variety), pacific yew, honey and black locust, and osage orange. I had a douglas fir handle that I fitted green which lasted me for probably a thousand cuts though and only broke from misuse.
Handle shaping is key. You want your handle just a small smidge wider than they eye at the shoulder, same thickness and rough shape as eye profile immediately below the shoulder and very gradually thinner as you move towards the grip. The grip can be a little thicker but just thick enough for comfort. Good palm-swell too for those wet days. Careful not the get the front too sharp an angle or it will be uncomfortable to swing poll-first. Thick handles are weak and they break due to focusing the flex to the eye.
Fiberglass or composite handles are great for loaner axes, people that don't know how to use an axe, or folks that use them only infrequently. I can't imagine the pain my body would be in if I used those with any regularity though, it would be truly awful.
I have more to learn about heartwood. I have found it strong enough but prone to checking. I feel it might be shockier but don't have enough of a sample size for confidence.
Ring width is another thing I am curious about. It seems like wide-ringed handles are less prone to random unpredictable failure or repeated shock failure like hard wedging in big wood can cause. But more to learn here for sure.
Length depends on head-weight, intended use, and user. I'll speak only to chopping and all-purpose as intended use. Short (28") gives faster cadence but less power. Short is good for tight spaces. New users are more accurate with short. Choppers should rarely be longer than 32", only go longer if you are getting into wood bigger than 30" in diameter so you don't bust knuckles. Your inseam but not longer than 32" is a good measurement for choppers. 28" is a good length for short people, dedicated limbing axes, or dedicated wedging axes. Shorter than 28" is only useful for specific use cases such as woodworking. Longer handles are also only for specific uses (splitting, grubbing, ice). 2-3.25 pounds feels good on 28", 2-4 pounds on 30", 3-4.5 pounds on 32". Bigger than 4 pounds tends to get into the special uses range again. My preferred all-purpose setup is a 3.75 on 32" as an unusually tall person on the stronger end of the spectrum. I enjoy a 3 on 30" for when I need to minimize carrying weight. Most users would do best with 2.25-3 on 29"-30". 2.25-2.75 on 30"-32" is an underutilized setup.
Straight vs curved handles is more simple than people make it seem. Both chop nice but curved chops nicer. Both wedge nicely but straight wedges nicer. Dudley Cook was cooking up some nonsense with all that weird math, they are equally accurate and so far as I can tell equal enough not to matter for strength.
Do not over-oil or under-oil your handle. Soaking in Boiled Linseed Oil will make it too heavy. I have tried numerous options from raw linseed oil to walnut to danish and tung. I have come to prefer actually boiled with no additives, not what they now call boiled linseed oil. Raw LO is good too; long cure time and I don't like the color. I have a mix of 1:1 turpentine/boiled linseed oil that I soak my newly hung axes in for 2-4 hours depending on the temp in my garage, 2 for hot weather, 4 for cold (turpentine is unsafe to breath, I would advise using mineral spirits and even then only have the handles curing in a well ventilated space. I just like turpentine better for trivial reasons.). Once dry to the touch, I apply uncut BLO once and as needed after. Rarely I will have to re-soak if the handle went through 20+ soaked through-dry cycles in the field.
Technique:
Do not neglect your off-hand. Training to be anything less than fully ambidextrous will make you a far less safe and less effective axer. I regret that I didn't start wedging with my off-hand until a few years back, it was a harder and more hazardous learning curve after developing the habits that I developed.
Learn over-shoulder chopping well. Over-head is great when it's great, but is only the better technique for 1 in 8 scenarios as a practical application. Unless you're on flat terrain, then maybe as much as a third of the time.
Never ever ever ever take a swing where a miss or a glance could even potentially bite you. You will make mistakes at every experience level, wood will cut unpredictably, will break unbelievably prematurely at times, ect. Every single injury I have seen was due to bad habits around footing. And those injuries ranged from luckily just ruined boots to one guy that could no longer walk without a cane. When learning, take it slow and think before literally every single new angle if there is even the smallest potential for that axe to glance or follow-through into you. If yes, do not do it. Ever. Ever ever. I have seen such negligence on the internet it's unbelievable. It is a terrible place to learn this lost art. Also clear your dang swinging zone from overhead and behind and sides of every single thing that could touch the axe and then fair bit further.
Easy fluid swing is the way, my life would have been much easier with far fewer broken handles if I hadn't learned from competition choppers when I was beginning.
To learn maintenance and chopping techniques/patterns, refer to the free online FS PDF 'One Moving Part'. To learn swinging form, refer only to 'The Axman' "https://youtu.be/Ju6I1gyGwcc?si=UU2zmLzkUvOBjfbw". He is the only person I've ever seen in life or on video that would out-chop me over a 10 hour workday and be able to do it without pain for decades. That video improved my life so much when I learned to imitate his lower undercut chop. Everything else online is unreliable.
Thank you for your time and please discuss below, I don't mean to ruffle any feathers but am curious which ones I might have.
*And of course, this is all my subjective experience which will grow and change as I do. Other perspectives should not be dismissed out of hand.