Old Bridgeport hatchet

[David LaPell]

I bought this old Bridgeport hatchet back in October and before my surgery I decided to redo the handle so I could see it when I was working in the woods. I also gave the metal a coat of flat black to give it some resistance to everything else. I can tell you this thing is heavy and very sharp and is better quality than anything I have found for the money. Has a nice leather sheath too.

 

[Texas Star]

Sorta reminds me of those True-Temper (?) hatchets with steel and leather handles. I'm always concerned that a traditional wood handle like on those expensive Swedish hatchets (Gransfors Bruks?) will let the head fly off if the handle shrinks.

I use Buck and Gerber hatchets with synthetic handles. You can get the Gerbers cheaper under the Fiskars brand, I think, and they're the same thing, from the same company. Fiskars owns Gerber, the last I read. The difference is that Fiskars are sold in garden tool shops and Gerbers in sporting goods stores.

I think you are well ahead of those autralopithecines who relied on crude flint handaxes!


P.S. I continue to pray for your full recovery from that work injury. I hope the thug who hurt you gets shingles or something when he's old enough!

 

[kennyb]

very nice!

 

[charlie sherrill]

I just bought myself an Estwing axe and my SIL an Estwing hatchet after wanting to bust up some firewood on Lookout Mountain during the Thanksgiving holiday and not taking anything to do it with. He gets his for Christmas and I'm already using mine on some stuff around here. Looks like real good quality for the money. My axe now lives in the tool box on my pickup. I've got a bunch of old stuff here and there but my SIL and I saw these and I didn't want to pay what they were asking for them so I got them a lot cheaper by ordering them on line. They make good hammers and other stuff also.

 

[jkc]

The Gransfors Bruks Small Forest Axe that's been in the back of my truck, and occasionally carried to lakeside campsites, shows no sign of such shrinkage, after a year or more, here in one of the driest environments in North America...

 

[Marshwheeling]

I just bought myself an Estwing axe and my SIL an Estwing hatchet after wanting to bust up some firewood on Lookout Mountain during the Thanksgiving holiday and not taking anything to do it with. He gets his for Christmas and I'm already using mine on some stuff around here. Looks like real good quality for the money. My axe now lives in the tool box on my pickup. I've got a bunch of old stuff here and there but my SIL and I saw these and I didn't want to pay what they were asking for them so I got them a lot cheaper by ordering them on line. They make good hammers and other stuff also.

+1 on the hammers. I don't have that much occasion any more to be pounding a lot of nails, but when I do, I want my leather-handled 16 oz. Estwing. Something about the ergos lets me work a lot longer than with other hammers. On the strength of that, I'd look for an Estwing axe first.

 

[Cooter Brown]

I love old axes and hammers. I've got half dozen axes or so and at last count around 30 hammers.

That looks like a tough using tool and a handy thing to carry in a truck.

I'm a big fan of wooden handles. While I was in school I worked for a summer framing houses. One day of swinging an Estwing framing hammer and my elbow felt like it was about to explode from the vibrations transmitted thru the metal handle. And just try choking up on a metal handle. The next day I had a Vaughn framing hammer with good old hickory--problem solved. I do like my little Estwing trim hammer with the leather handle. I kept the Estwing framer for rough work.

A properly hung ax or hammer will not fly off the handle. It's not that hard to do. Anybody who wants to learn how let me know and I'll send a link to a Forest Service publication and video with a great tutorial. Up until nearly the mid 20th century much of the continent was cleared by men with wooden handled axes.

Some time back I sharpened my grandfather's old ax, stamped "R. King", a Collins stamp used between 1830 and 1925. I don't think it had ever really been sharpened and was very thick behind the edge, like a lot of American axes were when new. Prob used as a splitter on the farm because it sure weren't no chopper. So I used the Forest Service gauge to set the edge geometry and filed it back and used a round stone to hone it. You can see the fan shaped area I filed. When I got done I went out and felled limbed and bucked up (mostly) a seven inch oak. When I got done I gave the ax half a dozen swipes on each side with the stone to touch it up and decided to check the edge. It did this to a piece of paper:

That was after cutting the tree and a very light touch up. I'd say the steel in this old tool is pretty good. You do want to exercise some care with an ax that sharp--it's a four pounder and if you bump into it it sure don't give--it just cuts the snot out of you.

In my truck I carry an old Craftsman boy's ax I gave the same treatment to. It's come in handy a couple of times on FS roads while I've been hunting.