axe handle RSS

Most people think about the axe head. The steel, the grind, the brand, the weight. The handle is an afterthought, something that comes with the head or something you grab off a peg hook when the old one gives out. That thinking is why so many guys end up with handles that wobble loose in a season, crack on a cold morning, or feel wrong in the hand from the first swing. The handle is not a secondary component. It is half the tool. Get it wrong and it does not matter how good the head is. Here is everything...

Most guys come across a double bit axe one of two ways. Either they find one in a barn or an estate sale and wonder what the heck they are looking at, or they see one hanging on somebody's wall and start asking questions. Either way, they want to know the same thing: what is this tool actually for, and is it worth keeping? The answer is yes. And if the handle is shot, here is how to fix that. A Brief History Worth Knowing The double bit axe is one of the more distinctly American tools ever made. It...

The double bit axe is one of the purest tools ever made. Two bits, one head, perfectly balanced, no wasted steel. The loggers who built this country's timber industry swore by it. A lot of guys still do. When the handle breaks or rots out, though, people run into the same problems. The hardware store doesn't have one. The ones online are confusing to size. And nobody seems to agree on whether the handle should be straight or curved. Here's the answer to all of that. Why the Handle Has to Be Straight This is the question that trips people...

Somewhere in a barn, a shed, or the back corner of an estate sale, there's a quality old axe head sitting in a coffee can full of rust. The handle rotted off twenty years ago. Nobody's touched it since. The guy selling it doesn't know what it is and doesn't much care, so it goes for two dollars and you go home feeling like you just found a twenty on the sidewalk. That's a good day. Here's what you do next. Why Vintage Axe Heads Are Worth the Trouble Old American axes -- Collins, Kelly, Plumb, Mann Edge, Warren, and...

You can put a bad handle on a great axe head. People do it all the time. They walk into a big box store, grab whatever's in the bin, drive home feeling pretty good about themselves, and six months later they're picking splinters out of their palm wondering what happened. Here's what happened: they bought a handle. Just not the right one. If you're replacing a handle, or building up an axe from a vintage head you scored at an estate sale or the back of someone's barn, the wood species and the quality of that wood are the two...