HillBilly Science in 5 min. It’s Not the AXE WEIGHT, But MOMENTUM That Chops Wood!
It is not axe weight that does the chopping wood, it is MOMENTUM, which is the product of MASS and VELOCITY. With any given axe, you can change velocity only, to increase momentum cutting power. Accompanying blog post http://skillcult.com/blog/2017/8/29/c...
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It is often said that you should "let the weight of the axe do the work", or "let the axe do the work". While those sayings are meant to teach important lessons, they are innaccurate and foster no understanding of the problem of momentum when using an axe. Momentum is what chops wood. The momentum of an axe head is a product of it's combined Mass and velocity, so it can only be changed be changing one of those two variables.
We can choose a heavier axe, or we can swing the axe we have faster. When chopping down trees or working with an axe in the woods, the weight of the axe in our hands is fixed, but we can change the velocity at which the axe is swung to increase or decrease it's momentum.
Momentum can be thought of as potential to do work. A still axe head, heavy or otherwise, can do no work. A moving axe head embodies a certain amount of energy that varies with it's speed. Another way to look at the problem is through the property of inertia. Interia means that a still body wants to stay still and a moving body wants to stay moving. When using an axe, we first break it's still inertia, which requires energy, then we swing the axe more or less hard to create what you might call forward inertia. This moving body has momentum, again as a product of it's combined mass and velocity. The tree or log we are chopping has the property of inertia in that it does not want to move. When the two collide, hopefully work is done, depending on strategy, aim, the condition of the axe etc.
If you look at axes as a spectrum from very light to very heavy, the two extreme ends are going to be somewhere between unuseable and unsatisfactory. In between there is a happy zone where you can get work done efficiently by swinging light axes faster and heavy axes faster.
This understanding of how some of the basic physics of an axe works, could help develop or refine technique in limbing, felling and bucking trees. But novice users should be very cautious about pushing the develpment of velocity too fast. There could hardly be any better way to get oneself in trouble with an axe than to chop ahead of our skill level and try to apply too much power. Concentrate on accuracy and strategy. It doesn't matter if you hit the wood hard if you hit it at the wrong angle or way off target.
Don't chop like a meat head. Get the axe moving, then let it do it's work. Don't try to push or force the axe through the wood, that doesn't work very well. Create momentum by increasing velocity, with the least movement and energy you can, then let the momentum of the head do it's work.
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