“He who sits in the shade won’t take an axe to the tree”
I watched a clip of Ed Stafford in the Discovery show ‘Naked and marooned’ where he finally managed to get a fire going after nearly two weeks on the island. Why did it take him this long? Well, a large part of the problem was that he had no knife and was forced to use shells to carve out the notches on the hearth boards – a single notch would take him something like 4 hours to carve!
In the seemingly endless debate over which cutting tool is best; carbon steel vs stainless; convex vs Scandi grind; axe vs parang vs saw etc it is easy to forget how lucky we are to have any sort of metal cutting tool in the first place (as Ed Stafford discovered). In the same fashion there is a lot of debate over choice of axe and it is easy to get befuddled by the range of opinions out there and forget that an axe is simply a sharpened metal wedge on the end of a stick….the skill with which it is wielded is more important than the brand name.
As with any cutting tool the best choice is going to depend upon what sort of tasks you are going to use it for and, as such, the axe is not a good choice for the average jungle trekker: 1) it is too heavy and cumbersome, 2) it is rare that you have to cut down whole trees and 3) an axe is not suited to trail clearing of vines/rattans and the like.
So why, you might ask, did I go out and buy one? Well, the answer to that I had been curious about the Jungle Axe since Baha mentioned the concept to me years ago – he remembered his grandfather making the handle from the exposed roots of the Simpoh tree and it had the unusual property of being flexible. It took me a while to get my head around this….an axe with a bendy handle!? It just sounded all sorts of wrong. Baha’s explanation was that such a handle allowed people in the jungle to keep on working even when they were tired and hot.
This year I went to Bera with my friend Keong to meet up with an Orang Asli from the semelai tribe called Stem and there I saw (and purchased) just such a handle and Stem was kind enough to demonstrate it in action. I found it fascinating that the Orang Asli had come up with a different approach both to axe design and use.
So in this video you can see the axe in action and I’ve also looked at some axe/saw techniques that can be applied to parang use.
One thing I have discovered when it comes to splitting wood is that being able to call on a range of techniques is a big advantage. Some wood is beautifully straight grained and knot free and is almost effortless to split….but in the hardwood forests the available fire wood is often more tricky and requires more encouragement. With just a parang difficult wood can be hard work to split but with a a couple of wedges (gluts) to help the parang you should be able to split just about any wood (check out this earlier article/video to see how).
For anyone interested in buying a jungle axe, please contact Keong at Sepuh Crafts and he should be able to arrange it.
Good video, it looks like the jungle axe requires a different type of swing than a western axe, I remember seeing a show where a westerner used one to chop down a tree and broke the axe handle. I think it is not tolerant of any side torque to the head in the swing, only straight line force. The over the head technique reminds me of driving railroad spikes with a spike maul. The twirling of the axe head may be better where clearance is an issue, so that you’re not hitting an obstruction or your neighbor. I don’t think you are using your back as much with the overhead swing, only the upper body/arms, so it may be less tiring.
Thanks
Hi Losmandy,
Many thanks for the comment and observations….good points and I think you are right about the axe not being as robust. Also the issue of clearance when swinging an axe is a very common one in the jungle and that’s a good reason for the different style used….thanks for pointing it out as I hadn’t thought of it.
Cheers!
Paul
When my older brother was young, he was splitting wood with a double bit ax. He stuck it in a stick of wood and was standing on another stick of wood rocking on it while he was peeing. The stick of wood slipped out from under him and he sat down on the ax bit sticking up. It went deep into his butt check. What a scar it left! It has no relevance. I just like telling the story.
Ouch!
Your story really made me laugh although I feel sorry for your brother! That’s not one of the axe scenarios that is normally covered in the safety demos!
Thanks for the story…
Cheers!
Paul
Very good info Paul. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Freelander,
Thanks for the support and glad you liked the video.
Cheers!
Paul
Great video as usual, and very educational. Loved the part where your dog decided to compete against the camera for your attention!
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
Many thanks for the comment and sorry for slow reply (I was away in the UK visiting my parents)….more dog footage in the latest video!
Cheers!
Paul
No worries about the late reply. I thought you were having problems with the site as Google was reporting this site as an ‘attack site’ for the first one or two weeks of May. Initially, I could ignore the warning and continue to the site, but then after a few days the server was no longer responding. So yeah, it was a treat to come back and find the site up, and updated with two new articles 🙂 Hope you had good time with the folks!
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the understanding – things have got very hectic here and I got a little behind with the site….the puppies don’t help either as they need quite a lot of sorting out (i.e. cleaning up!).
Sorry again that the site had problems …Google have pretty vigorous tests that, for some reason, the site (or my server) failed and I had to resubmit it for approval to get the warning taken down. It was a bit of a pain.
Anyway, thanks again.
Cheers!
Paul
Thanks again for your efforts and sharing your experience.
Hi Bill,
Many thanks for the comment and support, much appreciated.
Cheers!
Paul