Note: You can send Instagram messages through a mobile device, not a desktop machine.įull disclosure: I paid full price for my adze. The best way to contact Matty about making an adze for you is by sending him a message through his Instagram account, mattysearsworks. It is a thing of beauty and is also (as a bonus) a direct link to John Brown, one of my woodworking heroes. The bottom line is that, like all my favorite tools, I look forward to using it. Like all handmade things, it costs more than mass-manufactured tools. One of Matty’s earlier adzes after making the blade curved. It is, like the best axes I’ve used, an incredibly elegant tool, even though its job is coarse work. The edge geometry works well, and is easy to maintain. Its primary bevel is on the inside, but there is a shallow bevel on the outside as well. Separating the head from the handle is easy, and that indeed makes sharpening safer and easier.
Jason lonon adze plus#
All you have to do is maintain that edge, which I do with fine sandpaper wrapped around a dowel, plus a strop. The tool came beautifully sharpened, and the hand-forged head keeps a wicked edge. I’ve now made four chairs with Matty’s adze, and I’m a convert. So, instead of swinging the adze with my arms, I merely lift it up and use my thumbs to steer the edge right where I want it, letting the tool’s weight do most of the work (you do have to put some umph behind it). Plus, the weight of the head removes a sizable chip of oak without a lot of upper body strength. And after saddling only a couple chair seats, I found it incredibly easy to place my strikes right where I wanted them. It’s about the balance of the tool, which can make it easy to control or make it unwieldy.
Jason lonon adze upgrade#
Photo courtesy of Matty Sears.Ĭhris had one, and after using his I decided it was a significant upgrade from my Dictum adze.Īs with any striking tool (a hammer or a hatchet, for example), it’s not just about the quality of the steel or the comfort of the handle. Matty borrowed it, made this one and then with encouragement and input from JB, worked it into the tool it is today. It belonged to a sculptor friend of JB (John Cleal) who had lived in Southern Africa. Matty had made the adze for his father, who used it on chairs he built after the publication of “Welsh Stick Chairs.” A copy of the first adze Matty saw using this design. But you could easily pop the handle off to make sharpening the interior bevel easier. The more you used the adze, the tighter the handle became. The handle was hafted to the head in an ingenious manner. It was based on an interesting African tool. Then Chris told me about an adze made by one of John Brown’s sons, blacksmith and woodworker Matty Sears. After getting it razor sharp, I could hack out a seat fairly well, just like John Brown showed in “ Welsh Stick Chairs.” The first success I had was with a Dictum adze. And instead of standing on the chair seat, JB propped it up in front of him at the workbench. Chris learned to saddle seats from John Brown using a small adze. I never developed a knack for the gutter adze, unlike the scorp (sometimes called an inshave), which has always felt at home in my hands.Īfter working with Chris Williams, however, I was determined to give the adze another chance. I stood on the chair seat and swung the tool between my legs.
Check under the “adze” category to the right.When I first learned to saddle seats in 2003, it was with a gutter adze.
Although one adze is versatile enough to many different things, there is no one perfect adze head shape, inner/outer bevel relationship, or set of angles.Here are some references that might also help if you’re looking to adjust or tune your adze: With that in mind, I sketched some ideas above based on the first adze I bought over fifteen years ago, made by Pfeil, that I’ve reworked. I’ve written about adzes in several posts, but I thought it would be helpful to pull some ideas together here in this post. I’ve been getting a lot of good questions from people that, unable to find a good bowl adze, wish to make the most out of a less-than-ideal adze or refurbish an antique adze head.
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