Monday, April 30, 2012

My Axes

My refurbished axes 2 My refurbished axes 4 My refurbished axes

Here is the last post for tools and such that I have refurbished in the last year. For those of you who come here to see my art. Worry naught, I will be posting some new stuff shortly.

About a year ago I decide I needed an axe.

I have a fire pit in my back yard but nothing to process wood with. So I put it out to the universe. I says "Hey universe, I need and axe." Well ask and you shall receive. My father-in-law just happens to have a couple of of old axes he can spare me.

As anyone who cares to spend the time researching knows some of the best hand tools in the world are made in Sweden. You can get affordable yet well made stuff like Mora's, or you can get boutique stuff like the Gransfors Bruks axes. Now I can not justify paying the price it costs to get one of these axes. They are hand forged and of great quality. Maybe when I'm fifty and a bit more financially stable I can get myself one. But the truth is I don't imagine I will need to. As it turns out the axes that my father-in-law provided are both of Swedish make. HB of Sweden (Hults Bruk) has been making axes for about 300 years. If I take decent enough care of these axes I should be able to pass them along to my children when they are old enough.

That is the great thing about refurbishing old tools. They just don't make them like that anymore. It sounds cliche, but it is true. In an era of forced obsolescence companies won't produce something for under 80 dollars that will last. So the best option is to find tools that were expensive 40-50 years ago, buy'em cheap clean the rust off sharpen them up and blammo you have a quality tool that will last another lifetime.

The axes you see pictures of here are my felling axe (large), my Scandinavian style forest axe (medium), and my hatchet (small).

This ends the bulk of a lot of personal projects I've had doing, so it may be some time before I post any more craft stuff. In the mean time I will be posting more artwork and that sort of thing.

Stay golden Pony Boys and Girls.

3 comments:

D. Gillespie said...

I love the idea of having a Forest Axe. I am going to have to keep my eyes out for one and then I'll have to start venturing into a forest and put it to good use.

Don't stop these posts! You haven't gotten to your spoons yet.

James said...

Good point! However I have a little more work to do on my spoons before I unveil them. So until then some artwork will have to do.

D. Gillespie said...

ARtwork schmartwork. We want carved tools! We want carved tools!