Hatchet vs Axe: Which One for the Job, the Sizes That Matter, and the Ones I Own

Size and how many hands. A hatchet has a 10 to 16 inch handle and a 1 to 1.5 lb head and is swung with one hand for kindling, limbing, stakes and camp work. An axe has a 24 to 36 inch handle and a 2 to 4 lb head and is swung with two hands for felling, bucking and splitting. The heads look alike; the axe head is heavier and, on a felling axe, thinner in profile. Same parts, same names, different scale.

Anything thicker than your wrist gets the axe: dropping a tree, bucking a log, splitting rounds, hewing a beam. Anything you can hold in your other hand gets the hatchet: splitting a stick into kindling, limbing a downed tree, cutting saplings and stakes, driving stakes with the poll, camp chores. A 24 to 28 inch boy's axe covers most of both lists for a homestead, which is why it is the one to buy first.

Kindling and small rounds, yes, and the safe way is not the way most people do it. Stand the round on a block, set the hatchet bit on it, and strike the poll with a baton of wood; or hold the stick and the hatchet together and bring both down on the block so the hatchet never swings free toward your hand. Full-size rounds are axe and maul work. Swinging a hatchet one-handed at a round on the ground is how people open their shin.

The head has a bit (the sharpened edge), a toe (top corner of the bit), a heel (bottom corner), cheeks (the sides), an eye (the hole the handle passes through), and a poll or butt (the flat back). The handle is the haft, with a shoulder where it meets the head, a belly along the front curve, a throat where it narrows near the grip, and a knob or swell at the end that keeps your hand from sliding off. A hatchet has all the same parts.

Squaring a round log into a beam with an axe, the way barns and cabins were framed before sawmills. You snap chalk lines on the log, score the side with a felling axe every few inches down to the line, then knock the scored wood off with a broad axe, a wide, single-bevel axe made for the job. It is slow, satisfying, and the reason old beams have that faceted surface.

First axe: a 24 to 28 inch boy's or forest axe with a 2 to 2.5 lb head. It limbs, bucks small logs, splits medium rounds and fits in a truck. Add a hatchet for camp and kindling, then a 6 to 8 lb maul or a splitting axe when you are putting up cords of firewood, and a 36 inch felling axe only if you drop trees with it instead of a saw. Handle length should let the head rest on the ground with your hand on the knob while you stand relaxed.

The head profile. A felling axe has a thin, sharp bit that slices across wood fibers; used to split, it buries itself and sticks. A splitting axe or maul has a fat, wedge-shaped head that pops fibers apart along the grain and does not need to be very sharp; used to fell, it bounces. Same handle lengths, opposite jobs. A maul is a splitting axe with a sledge face on the poll for driving wedges.

A mill file to set the edge and take out chips, always pushing away from the edge, then a puck stone in small circles on each side to finish, and a strop if you care. A felling axe and a hatchet want a shaving edge with a convex bevel; a splitting axe wants only a clean, blunt-ish edge. Oil the head, oil or wax the handle, keep a sheath on it, and never leave it in the block or the weather. A dull axe bounces, and a bouncing axe is the dangerous one.