There are a handful of companies making American axes right now that we would stake our reputation on carrying. Brant and Cochran out of South Portland, Maine is one of them. Their axes are hand-forged, one at a time, by skilled blacksmiths working a propane forge in a workshop that looks a lot like what Maine axe shops looked like a hundred years ago. The results are exactly what you would expect from that description: tools that are genuinely beautiful, historically grounded, and built to last long enough to embarrass the people who made cheap decisions.
Here is who they are, how they got here, and what makes their axes worth knowing about.
How Brant and Cochran Got Started
Maine was once the center of American axe making. At the peak of production in the late 1800s, more than 300 axe manufacturers were operating in the state. That industry followed the chainsaw into history by the 1960s and for decades nobody brought it back.
Steve Ferguson went looking for a Maine-made axe in 2016 to give his godson, who was heading off to forestry school at Paul Smith's College. He could not find one. Not a single company in Maine was making a Maine-pattern axe anymore. Steve, his brother Mark, and their longtime friend Barry Worthing decided that was wrong and decided to fix it.
They started by restoring vintage axes, which taught them what good geometry and good steel looked like in the hand. Then they started making new axes from scratch. They found a young blacksmith named Gabriel McNeill at a craft fair, put him to work, and built out a proper forge in an 1,800-square-foot workshop in South Portland's Breakwater Annex. They brought in interns from Maine College of Art and the local vocational high school to build a pipeline of young blacksmiths who could carry the craft forward.
The name Brant and Cochran comes from an automotive tool company that Mark and Steve's grandfather once owned. The spirit of it is right: old American craft, new hands, same standards.
The Maine Wedge Pattern
Brant and Cochran make Maine wedge pattern axes. Understanding what that means is part of understanding why these tools are worth what they cost.
American axe patterns developed regionally through the 1800s, shaped by the timber, the terrain, and the preferences of the loggers working in each area. The Jersey, the Kentucky, the Hudson Bay, the Dayton, the Connecticut — each of these is a regional variation with different geometry suited to different work. Maine had its own answer, which came to be called the Maine wedge.
The Maine wedge is characterized by a thick, heavy poll that tapers down smoothly to a narrow, keen bit. The cross-section of the head has a distinctive geometry with a high centerline that gives the bit its cutting profile. It is a logging pattern built for chopping clean wood, for camp use, and for the sustained all-day work that characterized northeastern timber harvesting before chainsaws changed everything.
Brant and Cochran modeled their Allagash Cruiser from a 100-year-old original Maine wedge axe they borrowed off the wall at the Patten Lumbermen's Museum in Maine. They did not design a Maine-inspired axe. They copied an original, refined the pattern through making hundreds of them, and put it back into production using the same materials and methods the original makers would have recognized.
How Each Axe Is Made
The process is worth understanding because it explains the price and the quality in the same breath.
Each Allagash Cruiser head starts as a 3.5-pound billet of American 1050 carbon steel. That billet goes into a gas forge and gets heated to 1,700 degrees. The eye is punched using dies set into a hydraulic press. Fullering dies spread the hot steel away from the eye to form the bit. The head is then ground to dimension by hand, stamped, heat-treated, and tempered to a Rockwell hardness of 56 to 58. The finished head weighs 2.5 pounds.
That head gets hung on an Amish-turned 28-inch American hickory handle. The year of manufacture and the temperer's initials are stamped into every single head. Every axe that leaves that shop is traceable to the person who made it and the year it was made.
Field and Stream named Brant and Cochran among the four best axe makers in the world. That is not a minor distinction. It reflects what happens when skilled people make things carefully, one at a time, with good materials.
The Allagash Cruiser
The Allagash Cruiser is the axe that put Brant and Cochran on the map and it is still the center of the lineup.
The 2.5-pound head on a 28-inch handle puts it in a sweet spot that covers a wide range of use. Light enough that almost anyone can swing it accurately all day. Heavy enough to do real work around camp, at the woodpile, or in the woods. Short enough to transport and store easily. Long enough to get two hands on when the job calls for it.
The cutting edge runs about 4 inches. The geometry of the Maine wedge bites into wood cleanly and releases well, which is what you want from a camp axe doing a variety of chopping tasks. It is not a splitting tool. The geometry is wrong for driving through grain. Used for what it was designed for, which is chopping and general camp work, it performs at a level that is hard to find at any price.
It is also genuinely beautiful. The fit and finish on a Brant and Cochran axe is what you get when a skilled person cares about the outcome of their work. These hang on walls between trips not because they are fragile but because they deserve to.
Who Brant and Cochran Is For
The Allagash Cruiser is a premium tool at a premium price. You are buying hand-forged American steel, one-at-a-time production, historical accuracy, and the work of skilled blacksmiths who know exactly what they are making and why. That combination has a price and the price is honest.
For the buyer who wants an heirloom axe, something made by hand in Maine with the history of the pattern behind it, Brant and Cochran is the right answer. There is nothing else quite like it in American production right now.
If you want a working American axe built for daily use at a price that does not require deliberation, our Council Tool lineup is the other half of that conversation. Drop-forged in North Carolina since 1886, priced for someone who swings axes rather than curates them, and built to be re-handled and kept for a long time. Both are right. They are right for different buyers.
We carry both because we believe in both.
FAQ: Brant and Cochran Axes
Where are Brant and Cochran axes made? Brant and Cochran axes are made entirely by hand in their workshop in South Portland, Maine. Every head is forged one at a time by skilled blacksmiths using American 1050 carbon steel, hung on Amish-turned American hickory handles. The company was founded in 2016 by Mark and Steve Ferguson and Barry Worthing specifically to bring Maine axe making back to Maine.
What steel do Brant and Cochran use? Brant and Cochran use American 1050 carbon steel for all of their axe heads. 1050 steel is a proven tool steel with good hardness and toughness characteristics for an axe application. Their heads are heat-treated and tempered to a Rockwell hardness of 56 to 58, which is the right range for holding an edge under hard use without becoming brittle.
What is the Maine wedge axe pattern? The Maine wedge is a traditional logging axe pattern that was widely used in the northeastern timber industry during the 1800s and early 1900s. It is characterized by a thick, heavy poll tapering to a narrow, keen bit, with a head geometry that performs well for chopping and camp use. Brant and Cochran's Allagash Cruiser was modeled directly from a 100-year-old Maine wedge axe from the Patten Lumbermen's Museum in Maine.
How heavy is the Allagash Cruiser? The Allagash Cruiser has a 2.5-pound head on a 28-inch Amish-turned hickory handle. The head starts as a 3.5-pound billet of steel and is forged down to the finished weight through the shaping process. The 2.5-pound head on that handle length gives good balance for a wide range of camp and woods tasks without being heavy enough to wear you out over a long session.
Is the Allagash Cruiser good for splitting firewood? The Allagash Cruiser is a chopping axe, not a splitting axe. The Maine wedge geometry is optimized for cutting across wood grain, not driving through it. It will split cooperative rounds of small-diameter, straight-grained wood without much trouble. For sustained firewood splitting, a dedicated splitting axe or maul with the right wedge geometry does the job more efficiently and with less effort.
Get One
We carry the full Brant and Cochran lineup at Whiskey River because we have held these axes, used them, and believe they are among the finest American-made tools available at any price. Browse our Brant and Cochran collection or go straight to the Allagash Cruiser if you already know what you want.
Made in Maine. One at a time. By hand. That still means something.