The axe thread - Best Made Co.

Originally Posted by montyharding

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Perhaps if the blade boomeranged around and hit you on the head

A lot of people hurt themselves with axes. Like any tool you need someone to teach you how to handle it. And how to fell a tree. Screw up on the hinge for example and a kickback can take your head off. Try not to be too stupid when bringing trees down:
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TIP: to embed Youtube clips, put only the encoded part of the Youtube URL, e.g. eBGIQ7ZuuiU between the tags. I like tradition and tools that feel as if they have a soul running through them. I use a chainsaw for ease, control and speed, but a chainsaw has no soul. And if I run out of gas I can't swing it and knock a tree down. That's what I like about the Best Made axes . . . they have soul. And they come with cool patches. lefty

Awesome thread, lefty. Thanks.
I'll send the "cheap axes suck ass" sentiment. I felled, cut and split firewood to heat my home for five years. A quality axe is essential.

Originally Posted by lefty

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Ever chop anything with a fibreglass handle? After 2 hours your hands will be trembling from the shock. And once it breaks in the woods, you're **** out of luck.

If I break a hardwood handle I can use the head as a hand tool to cut a serviceable handle, jam it on and use a rock to drive some wood wedges into the eye. That means I make it out alive. You die there, but with an extra $150 in your pocket that you saved from buying a cheap axe.

lefty

I never chopped anything for two hours, but I played 4+hours tennis matches with fiberglass rackets and I lived to tell the story.

At one time there were hundreds of axe manufacturers in North America. Now, maybe a handful. Check out their axes - a little expensive, but nice in the hand and solid in the tree.

lefty

Originally Posted by Pezzaturra

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I never chopped anything for two hours, but I played 4+hours tennis matches with fiberglass rackets and I lived to tell the story.

Bit of a difference between hitting a 2 1/2" 2 oz. tennis ball and a splitting a bush cord of hardwood.

By all means, buy the fiskar and at the end of it all leave it to your son. I'm sure he'll be thrilled.

lefty

Originally Posted by lefty

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As it turns out, their base camp (where one of them built a log cabin by hand with an axe) is a few kms from my log cabin in ON.

That sounds great. How was it?

We were having this conversation at their workshop in NYC. Their camp, and my cabin, are in Ontario. The water that runs by my place also runs by theirs. Crazy coincidence.

lefty

Originally Posted by lefty

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Ever chop anything with a fibreglass handle? After 2 hours your hands will be trembling from the shock. And once it breaks in the woods, you're **** out of luck. lefty
This is true. I spent a lot of time with two-handed sledges and the glass handles don't dampen anything at all like hickory does.

Originally Posted by Pezzaturra

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I never chopped anything for two hours, but I played 4+hours tennis matches with fiberglass rackets and I lived to tell the story.
Well, that's not really at all similar, as a matter of fact it's a really poor analogy -- the collision of the ball and the webbing is designed to be a highly elastic collision, i.e, energy goes into the ball and the ball returns. The collision of an axe head with a log is meant to be completely INelastic, so that all the energy of the head goes into the thing you are striking -- and this is where the glass handles do not shine. The shock from the impact goes up and down the handle, echoing like mad and the main mechanism for damping it out is your arms absorbing it. ~ H

Pretty sweet and well worth the money (especially if made in USA). I once broke apart cement with my fiberglass handle sledge. Huge mistake!

Other axes to check out are Gränsfors. A little more rustic but well regarded. The Swedes know wood cutting.



lefty

Here's a cabin building clip from Alone in the Wilderness - the story of Dick Proenneke, a man who spent 30 years in the wilds of Alaska and filmed it all.

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lefty

Originally Posted by CunningSmeagol

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No firewood maybe? Bear Grylls defense? I had the same question.
Fixed that for you.

Originally Posted by lefty

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Here's a cabin building clip from Alone in the Wilderness - the story of Dick Proenneke, a man who spent 30 years in the wilds of Alaska and filmed it all.

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lefty

Cool vid. I wonder what it would really be like to live out there all alone? What do you do with your time? I'm guessing most of it is spent hunting and worrying about what you're going to eat. It's definitely a different sort of existence.

will it help me get better fadez for my denim?

Speaking of "tools with a soul" Lefty, you seem like the type to appreciate this type of stuff:
http://www.hidatool.com/shop/shop.html
If you're ever in the East Bay they're worth a visit. A small but very well curated tool shop.