How to make a simple and effective Finnish cleaver from a spring
In Finland, in addition to a regular cleaver, a lever cleaver with a shifted center of gravity is also used for chopping firewood. Due to its design, when immersed in a log, it moves to the side, due to which it splits with less effort. This reduces fatigue when chopping wood, and in addition, the shift in the center of gravity prevents the blade from getting stuck in the log. In the factory version, such a cleaver is not cheap, but it can be welded using an old cargo spring.
The design of the Finnish cleaver has a lever; to make it, you need to bend the spring at a right angle. To do this, you will need a gas cutter to heat the metal at the bend. Otherwise, the cold spring will simply break.
To bend, the workpiece is heated red-hot, clamped in a vice and bent along a mark 40 mm from the edge.
After cooling, the spring is cut 140-160 mm from the bend.
The edges of the resulting workpiece are sharpened.At the end of the bend and the main part, it is necessary to make descents along the outside.
Considering the thickness of the spring, for this it is better to first cut off the corner with a grinder with a cutting disc, and then finish sharpening it on a belt grinder or sharpener. The descent on the chopping part should be concave, as in the original design. Concavity can be obtained if you apply the sharpening disc with an edge when sharpening.
To install the ax handle, you need to attach an eye to the workpiece. To do this, a piece with a length equal to the width of the spring is cut from a 50 mm thick-walled pipe. It needs to be flattened. This can be done with a couple of hammer blows when cold without warming up.
Next, you need to weld the eye to the cleaver blade. It should be located on the side of the lever. It is important to rotate the pipe so that the tip of the cleaver and its most distant points can be positioned in one line. The eyelet is welded in exactly this position.
Then the ax handle is placed on the cleaver so that the hook is on the left. Since the eye is non-standard, a purchased ax handle will not work; you will have to plan it yourself. The handle is secured, as in a regular ax, by wedging from the end.
When using a cleaver with a shifted center of gravity during an impact, in addition to moving forward, it also moves to the left. Due to this, the log splits, and the cleaver clings with a lever to the remaining part of the log on the left, so it does not fall. This allows you to immediately deliver the next blow, crushing it into firewood of the required size.
Materials:
- thick spring from a truck;
- thick-walled pipe 50 mm;
- wooden blank for the handle.
Ax making process
The design of the Finnish cleaver has a lever; to make it, you need to bend the spring at a right angle. To do this, you will need a gas cutter to heat the metal at the bend. Otherwise, the cold spring will simply break.
To bend, the workpiece is heated red-hot, clamped in a vice and bent along a mark 40 mm from the edge.
After cooling, the spring is cut 140-160 mm from the bend.
The edges of the resulting workpiece are sharpened.At the end of the bend and the main part, it is necessary to make descents along the outside.
Considering the thickness of the spring, for this it is better to first cut off the corner with a grinder with a cutting disc, and then finish sharpening it on a belt grinder or sharpener. The descent on the chopping part should be concave, as in the original design. Concavity can be obtained if you apply the sharpening disc with an edge when sharpening.
To install the ax handle, you need to attach an eye to the workpiece. To do this, a piece with a length equal to the width of the spring is cut from a 50 mm thick-walled pipe. It needs to be flattened. This can be done with a couple of hammer blows when cold without warming up.
Next, you need to weld the eye to the cleaver blade. It should be located on the side of the lever. It is important to rotate the pipe so that the tip of the cleaver and its most distant points can be positioned in one line. The eyelet is welded in exactly this position.
Then the ax handle is placed on the cleaver so that the hook is on the left. Since the eye is non-standard, a purchased ax handle will not work; you will have to plan it yourself. The handle is secured, as in a regular ax, by wedging from the end.
When using a cleaver with a shifted center of gravity during an impact, in addition to moving forward, it also moves to the left. Due to this, the log splits, and the cleaver clings with a lever to the remaining part of the log on the left, so it does not fall. This allows you to immediately deliver the next blow, crushing it into firewood of the required size.
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