building this from railroad that a customer at work gave me. Milled the top about about 1 1/4 so far and I’ll add some steel behined it in c channel form so the wood will come out of the back a inch also. Making my own handle aswell out of some tuff elm that didn’t wanna split. Handle is 19” total length and axe head is about 3 lbs now or so. It was 3.8 before I cut off the bottom and milled the groove. I’ve got a question, right now the groove is straight. Does it need to be tapered 2-3 degree?thanks a lot