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If you have ever spent a few hours moving split firewood by hand, bending down to pick up round after round, loading a truck or filling a woodshed one piece at a time, you already understand the problem a pickaroon solves. You just might not have known the tool existed. A pickaroon is one of those things that sounds almost too simple to be worth talking about until you use one. Then it becomes a tool you wonder how you got along without. What a Pickaroon Actually Is A pickaroon is a long-handled tool with a sharpened metal spike set...

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...

Nobody argues about what to call a hammer handle. Axe edge protection is another story. Depending on who you ask, the thing that goes over the bit of your axe is called a mask, a sheath, a scabbard, a blade cover, a guard, or an edge protector. They are all describing the same basic idea, and the idea is a good one: put something between your axe edge and everything else when the axe is not actively cutting wood. Here is what the different terms actually mean, why edge protection matters more than most people think, and what to reach...

A sharpening puck is the tool that lives in your pack, your truck, your woodshed, or your back pocket on a long day of splitting. It is not the first tool in the sharpening sequence, and it is not the last, but for regular maintenance of a working axe it is the one you reach for more than anything else. Most people use one wrong. Most people also buy the wrong one. This covers both. Where the Puck Fits in the Sharpening Sequence Before anything else, it helps to understand what a sharpening puck is designed to do, because using...

Everyone has an opinion about the best bushcraft axe, and most of those opinions are wrong for your situation. Forums are full of guys recommending axes they own rather than axes that fit what you actually do in the woods. YouTube reviewers are swinging premium Scandinavian hatchets at pine stumps and calling it a test. Here is the straight version, without any of that. Start With What You Are Actually Going to Do The term "bushcraft axe" covers a lot of ground, and the right tool changes significantly depending on what you are using it for. Before you look at...