How Fast Did A Native American Stone Axe Cut?

[00:00:00]Today we're going to find out just how much trouble Native Americans went through to cut a tree using a stone axe.

[00:00:11]I cut this log. It's about uh 7 in diameter. We're going to take the stone axe and we're going to chop into the log and we're going to see how long it takes to get through a certain distance, if not the whole log. Then we're going to use the modern steel axe, razor sharp, to get to that same distance and just see how much faster it is. Now, I made this stone silt axe as closely to the authentic ones that I find as I possibly could and polished it to a sharp edge. I guess, you know, as sharp as you're going to get a stone really. Let's get started.

[00:01:03]It's doing surprisingly well.

[00:01:35]It's staying surprisingly sharp.

[00:01:39]We might be almost a quarter way through.

[00:01:59]Stop the timer. I'm noticing something.

[00:02:03]When you hit with one of these stone axes, you have to hit kind of straight down, almost barely at an angle. If you try to hit it too much of an angle, like a steel axe, it just wants to glance off like this because of that uh real sharp angle out there, that steep bit.

[00:02:30]You have to keep the cut really wide.

[00:02:32]Once it starts narrowing, it starts just glancing off. That would have made twice the work having to cut a groove this wide in the thing as well.

[00:03:22]Okay, that's about halfway through the log there. You can see what kind of chips this takes out. you know, small 16th inch or 8 inch chips. And you have to keep going wider and wider as you go deeper because that selt axe is so wide.

[00:03:45]Once it gets to this angle here, you can't chop this stuff here. You have to keep working back and make another platform in there to get through.

[00:03:53]So, not only do they have a slower cutting bit, they have to do twice the work. Now we are going to sink the modern-day steel blade into the log halfway through the same distance and just see how much faster it is.

[00:04:27]There you have it.

[00:04:30]about 20 seconds or so. And you can see how deep you can go with a narrow cut, unlike this wide cut here. Total cutting time for this with a stone axe, about six or seven minutes to cut and about 5 minutes of resharpening time halfway through. So, did the natives have a hard time cutting trees down with stone silts? these axes. They sure did. And I'm sure they only cut the ones that were a necessity. You come back now.