Timber Hewing Tools Compared: Broad Axe, Hewing Hatchet, Adze and Froe
A broad axe is single-bevelled with a flat back that rides against the timber, which makes it handed — a right-hand grind is useless to a left-handed hewer and cannot be converted. A hewing hatchet does the same work one-handed at small scale. An adze cuts across the log axis to level and dress, and a froe rives billets along the grain rather than cutting at all.
By the The Tool Wise Editorial Team
The critical difference between a broad axe and every other axe you own is the bevel. A felling axe is ground on both cheeks and cuts a wedge-shaped chip. A broad axe is ground on one side only, with the other side left flat, and that flat side rides against the face of the timber like a fence.
Which makes it handed. A right-hand broad axe has the bevel on the right as you sight down the bit with the poll toward you, and its haft is canted away from the flat side so your knuckles clear the log. Give that axe to a left-handed hewer and it is not merely awkward, it is unusable — the flat face ends up on the waste side and the tool digs instead of tracking.
Nothing in a typical auction listing states this. Photographs are usually taken from the bevel side, which looks like any other axe. The tests below let you determine the hand from a photograph, and the table sets out what each tool in the hewing kit actually does.
Determining the hand from a photograph
Three checks, in order of reliability.
First, find the flat side. One cheek will be dead flat from bit to eye, with no bevel and often visible file or grinding marks running parallel to the edge. The other will have a broad, shallow bevel a couple of inches wide. If both sides carry a bevel you have a double-bevel hewing axe, which is a different tool with different rules — see below.
Second, look at the haft, if it's still hung. Broad axe hafts are short and swept, curving away from the flat side. Stand the head on a bench with the flat cheek down and the bit pointing away from you: on a right-hand axe the haft rises to the right. That's the whole test and it works from a decent side-on photograph.
Third, check the eye. Many broad axe eyes are themselves canted, drilled at an angle through the head rather than square to it, so the offset is built into the steel and not just the wood. A canted eye is unambiguous and it also tells you the axe cannot be converted by rehanging.
One correction to a common misunderstanding: a single-bevel axe cannot be swapped to the other hand by any amount of rehafting. The grind is in the steel. Regrinding the flat side to make a mirror image throws away a quarter inch of the bit and produces a tool with a hollow back that never tracks properly. Buy the correct hand.
The hewing kit, compared
Throughput figures assume an experienced hewer working green softwood or fresh hardwood, squaring a round log to a finished 8 by 8 beam, and they cover all four faces including scoring. Seasoned hardwood roughly halves them. A first-timer should expect a third of these numbers and a great deal of back pain.
Tool Bit width Bevel Haft offset and hand Swing plane Head weight Haft length Surface it leaves 8x8 throughput American broad axe, Pennsylvania pattern 10-14 in Single, flat back Swept haft, canted eye on many; strictly handed Vertical, sliding down the log face 5-8 lb 18-28 in Long shallow facets, slightly rippled, historically correct 6-12 linear ft per hour Goosewing broad axe, European 10-16 in Single, flat back Short offset haft, strictly handed; most surviving examples are right Vertical, close to the timber 4-7 lb 16-22 in Very smooth; the long curved bit slices rather than chops 8-14 linear ft per hour Single-bevel side axe 6-9 in Single, flat back Straight or lightly swept; handed Vertical, one or two hands 3-5 lb 20-26 in Facets close to a broad axe, at smaller scale 4-8 linear ft per hour Broad hatchet / hewing hatchet 4-6 in Single on most, double on some patterns Short straight haft; handed if single-bevelled Vertical, one hand 1.5-3 lb 12-16 in Fine facets, good for joinery cheeks and small stock 2-4 linear ft per hour; not the tool for full beams Double-bevel hewing axe 6-10 in Double, symmetrical Offset comes only from the haft, so it can be hung for either hand Vertical 4-6 lb 20-28 in Coarser than a true broad axe; leaves a scalloped face 5-10 linear ft per hour Foot adze, carpenter's 4-5 in Single, bevel inside the curve Not handed; symmetrical head, straight or lightly curved haft Across the log axis, cutting toward your feet 4-6 lb 30-36 in Shallow scallops across the grain; the classic dressed-beam look 10-20 linear ft per hour, levelling only Lipped adze, shipwright's 3.5-4.5 in Single, with raised lips at both corners Not handed Across the axis; the lips let it cut notches and trenches 4-6 lb 28-34 in Scalloped, with clean shoulders where the lips define the cut Not a squaring tool; used for notching and hollowing Froe Blade 8-18 in long, 2-3 in deep Blunt wedge section, roughly 30-40 degrees included Not handed; haft at 90 degrees to the blade No swing. Struck with a club, then levered 2-4 lb 15-20 in handle Rives along the grain; leaves a naturally split, water-shedding face Not applicable; measured in pieces rather than feet Match your intended work to the swing-plane column first — vertical tools square a log, cross-axis tools dress it, and a froe does neither. Then check the hand column before you buy anything single-bevelled. The double-bevel row is the useful escape hatch. If you're left-handed and the market is full of right-hand broad axes, a double-bevel hewing axe hung on a haft swept to suit you will do the job. It leaves a coarser face and it tracks less precisely, because there's no flat back registering against the timber, but it works and it's available.
The Hang Rating on a hewing tool is judged differently from a felling axe. Balance point sits much closer to the head, the haft is short enough that swing arc barely matters, and knuckle clearance over the timber becomes a scored criterion in its own right.
Scoring, juggling, hewing
Squaring a log by hand is three operations and each one uses a different tool. People who buy a broad axe first and nothing else discover this on day one.
Snap a chalk line down the log to mark the finished face, at both ends and along the length. Then score: standing on the log, chop a series of vertical cuts down through the waste to the line, spaced roughly every four to six inches, using an ordinary felling axe. Do not use the broad axe for this — scoring is deep, wasteful chopping and it's what a double-bevel axe is for.
Juggling comes next. Knock the chunks out between the score cuts, again with the felling axe, taking the waste down to within an inch or so of the line. The log now has a rough stepped face.
Only then does the broad axe come out. Standing alongside the log with the flat cheek riding the face, you take long sliding cuts downward, the flat back registering against the wood you're keeping, removing that last inch as broad shallow chips. This is where the finished surface comes from and it's the only pass that needs a handed tool.
The adze enters afterwards, if at all — for levelling a floor joist run, dressing a face flat where the broad axe left ripples, or hollowing. Plenty of traditional frames were finished off the broad axe with no adze work at all, and the ripples are the mark of that.
Riving with a froe
A froe isn't a cutting tool in any real sense. Drive it into the end grain of a billet with a wooden club, then lever the handle side to side, and the split runs ahead of the blade along the natural grain plane. You're steering a crack, not cutting a line.
Which means the wood decides. Straight-grained, knot-free stock rives into shakes, lath, chair parts and basket splints with almost no effort. Twisted or knotty stock runs the split out through the side of the billet and wastes it. Selecting the bolt matters more than any skill with the tool.
Never strike a froe with a steel hammer. The blade back is soft mild steel and a wooden club — usually a section of hardwood limb, 2 to 4 lb, replaced whenever it splits — is the correct striker.
Species Workable round diameter Grain run-out limit Typical yield per round Club weight What it's riving for White oak 12-24 in 1 in per 20 in of length; fussier than most 40-80 shakes from a 24 in round 3-4 lb Shakes, barrel staves, chair parts, gate rails Red oak 12-24 in 1 in per 15 in 40-70 shakes 3-4 lb Lath, fence rails, rough splits; too porous for liquid-tight staves Eastern white cedar 8-18 in 1 in per 12 in; forgiving 60-120 shingles 2-3 lb Shingles and shakes; the traditional roofing stock Western red cedar 16-36 in 1 in per 12 in 100-200 shakes from a large bolt 2-3 lb Shakes; the straightest-riving common softwood there is White ash 10-20 in 1 in per 15 in Long splints rather than counted pieces 3 lb Basket splints, tool hafts, ladder rungs, chair rounds Hickory 10-18 in 1 in per 15 in Haft blanks, 6-12 per round 3-4 lb Axe and hammer haft blanks; rived blanks beat sawn ones for grain Black locust 10-20 in 1 in per 12 in, often spiralled Fence stock, 8-20 rails 4 lb Fence rails and posts; rot resistance is the reason to bother Chestnut, where you can find it 12-30 in 1 in per 20 in; rives beautifully 60-120 shakes 3 lb Shakes, rails, panelling; the historic first choice Check the run-out limit against your bolt before you strike anything. A billet outside that limit will run the split out the side and become firewood, and no technique rescues it. Riving haft blanks is the reason a lot of restorers own a froe. A rived hickory blank follows the grain by definition, which is exactly what a sawn blank cannot promise — a sawn haft can look perfect and still have grain running out across the face because the saw ignored what the tree was doing. If you rehang enough axes, riving your own blanks removes the biggest single variable in haft failure.
Offset, cant and knuckle clearance
The haft on a broad axe is short and bent for a specific mechanical reason: the flat face of the head has to sit against the timber, and if the haft ran straight out of the eye your hand would be in the same place as the log.
Makers solved that two ways. Some cant the eye itself, punching it through the head at an angle so a straight haft leaves the head already offset. Others punch the eye square and rely on a swept haft, steamed and bent away from the flat side. Canted eyes are more common on American broad axes; swept hafts on European goosewings.
Get the offset wrong and you'll know within three strokes, because your knuckles will be finding the log. Get it right and the head hangs naturally against the timber with your grip a comfortable two to three inches clear.
One practical consequence for anyone rehanging: a broad axe haft is not a felling haft cut short. It needs the sweep, it needs to be oriented so the sweep goes away from the flat cheek, and it usually wants to be removable — which argues for a wooden wedge and no epoxy, because a broad axe bit gets regrinding attention over its life and doing that with the haft off is far easier.
Keeping a flat back flat
Sharpening a single-bevel tool has one governing rule: the flat side stays flat. All the metal comes off the bevel side.
Work the bevel with a file, held so it follows the existing grind rather than establishing a new angle, and take the burr right through to the flat side. Then lay the flat side down on a stone or a hard flat surface with the abrasive, and remove the burr with a few dead-flat passes — not by rolling the head up onto an edge.
The failure everybody makes is putting a small back-bevel on the flat side to chase a burr faster. Do that and the axe stops tracking; instead of riding the timber it starts steering into it, and the face you hew goes wavy. Once a back-bevel is there, getting it out means lapping the entire flat cheek back down, which is hours of work.
Adzes follow the same rule with the bevel on the inside of the curve. Froes need almost nothing — a blunt wedge section is what makes a froe work, and a froe sharpened like a knife will bury itself in the billet and stop steering the split.
What the hours really look like
Squaring timber by hand is slow and there's no honest way to make the numbers look better than they are. A fit, experienced hewer with a well-hung broad axe squares roughly 6 to 12 linear feet of 8 by 8 in an hour in green softwood, all four faces, including the scoring and juggling. That's a 16 foot beam in something like two hours on a good day.
Seasoned oak roughly halves it. A first season of practice roughly thirds it again, and the first beam anyone hews takes most of a day and comes out wavy.
What that buys you is a surface no machine produces: long shallow facets that catch light, shed water off the end grain and read as hand-worked from across a room. If the beam will be hidden in a wall, this is a poor use of a weekend. If it will be seen, it's the entire point, and the tools in the table above have not been improved on in three hundred years.