Thats a really nice little page on Silvers axe play, thanks for listing that link. I didn't even know Silver coverd the use of the axe.
I do have an axe which I use a lot., I made it with a Sch 80 pvc core, tubular foam pipe insulation for the haft (cut out a bit right where I tend to grip it) and a blade made of that camping pad foam. (I think it is important to pad the haft as you will be striking with it. I also pad the butt especialy thoroughly)
It held up well for two years and then finally broke this spring when I was sparring with an escrima fighter who was using unpadded rataan sticks. After that I reinforced it with some strips of that thin orthopedic foam I use for my sword flats, and since then it has held up very well
I don't have my digital camera handy right now so I can't take a picture, but you can just barely make it out in my hands in this clip:
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/e/deodand23/Clips/JR-skip.mpg
This can give you an idea of the durability, you can see me hit the shield rim hard. (For those who might be tempted to criticize my form, we were just playing around!)
My axe is 40", so longer than the cold steel axe but shorter than the axe-waster on that Silver page, and at about 2 pounds 4 ounces, it's a little light though roughly in the ball park for an historical axe from the early medieval perod which is what I was trying to emulate (Specificaly a norse bearded axe). As you probably know, battle axes tended to have much slimmer and lighter heads than the equivelent farmers tools (wood hewing axes). For the record I also think that Cold Steel, while making very nice sharp functional blades, tends to make all of their historical based weapons too heavy. Their Gross Messer is over 4lbs, for example.
Despite it's relatively short length I have had pretty good luck using this thing as a two handed weapon, though I like it with a shield or more rarely, with another shorter weapon, a hatchet or a short sword as in the clip.
I used to also have a really nice kern axe I liked to use a lot but I gave it to my neighborhood Irish pub "Finn MacCools" when the owner evinced an interest in it.
I also have a 7' Bill which a lot of y'all saw at Southern Knights which is made the same way.
Overall, after being careful reinforcing with the tape (doing a lot of cross-reinforcement) I think this technique works quite well. I have put both my axe and bill through some pretty heavy abuse including many blade parries and hooking shields and even pepoles legs, and just about everything else you can think of.
One other word of caution, even on the lighter end of the scale these things can have quite an impact, especially if you make it five feet long as they were suggesting. One other thing you might want to also do is to make open cell foam striking edges, I did this on the axe. It's basically the same technique as the 'thrusting tips' you put on swords or spears, except along the edge.
Anyway, after seeing that page I now want a bigger axe. Maybe I'll make a sparth axe or another kern axe. Thanks for inspiring...
DB
