Which hatchet?
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You are currently reading a thread in /out/ - Outdoors
Hello /out/
I want to buy a hatchet.
Light splitting work, Carving, 380-400 mm handle, hard cutting edge, long story short a hatchet which is a better cutter than splitter.
At first I wanted to get a GB wildlife hatchet.
I have read a lot about the products and watched some videos. Everyone is overly satisfied with them to the point where I start to call meme shit.
2 years ago the wildlife hatchet cost 65€ here now it's 85€
That can't be because of inflation or missing consumer interest.
GB sell most of their products to other countries, which reinforces the meme claim because of Ray Mears and the bushcraft circle jerk. GB seems to be of high quality, but I wonder if they jacked up the price because of their good reputation and popularity.
The most common brand used in Scandinavia is Hultafors. Their (pic related) product is one of their modern models and I wonder if it is just as good useful as a GB hatchet.
The modern approach is also something that came to my mind. The Fiskars X models are really popular here in Germany but the internet says that they are shit for fine work and continuous use.
My last option is hand forged in Germany by a master and the price is reasonable.
http://www.damastklinge.de/damastklinge_texte/de_beile_bilder05.htm
Which hatchet do you use? Any underground brands and manifacturers you can recommend?
>>715266
As long as you don't pick the Fiskar's you won't lose. I've not heard of Hultafors but I've seen anons give praise to Gransfors.
>>715266
I'd recommend the cold steel rifleman's hawk. its a tomahawk, so you can remove the head for further splitting work. it is also much lighter than any of these axes. for the price it really cant be beaten. there are many varieties of this same hawk from cold steel, if you would like different handle lengths or other features.
>>715266
>ith them to the point where I start to call meme shit.
>2 years ago the wildlife hatchet cost 65€ here now it's 85€
>That can't be because of inflation or missing consumer interest.
For every bushcrafter everstyle there is wooden handle.... for really good axe that takes 2-3 times less effort to chop down a tree take the fiskars x7 for lightweight or x10 for serious need of firewood... now they have "new" model called x7xs same axe with rubberish lines on handle and higher price.... im manager in garden tech and tools shop where we sell them... ive compared a lot of european axes like husqvarna jonsered bahco fiskars and lots of cheap ones... fiskars have the best chopping blade but the plastic handle seems unatractive to most "natural" bushcraft style points earning mora-laplander users. btw that plastic handle will last you lifetime if you dont just fuck it up yourself
you can get it for even less than 30euro here in Latvia
>>715266
>>715276
pic related
>>715277
it's not plastic it's a fiberglass epoxy compound covered in plastic.
>>715277
You have to be a fucking moron to waste your money on shit tier products like fiskars.
>>715308
Moron? waste money? shit? dude i got it for 15 euros as a dealer... have never let me down... you must be one of those fucking retards who hits axe with a fucking sledgehammer to split wood (have seen some fuckers like that blaming wedges that they broke when they fucking hammer them with a sledgehammer)
>>715308
dude drove metal wedges into tree with that anon
guess what it held up long enough
>>715277
i have the x7 it's damn fine for light work like bushcraft.
cuts like a dream.
it's cheap and it works same as a mora companion in knives. not a heirloom item that's for sure.
if you want to go expensive be my guest but you won't get more out of a $300 axe performance wise.
>>715335
>Well, I broke one. In all honesty, I think it went above and beyond the call of duty though. It got caught in the return stroke on my log splitter last year and put a small crimp in the handle. This year when pounding in a felling wedge, it just snapped (right where the crimp was of course). Sent these pics to Fiskars and they are sending me a new one. All done online.
OP check out the husqvarna hatchet. I think it meets all your needs. Looks bushcrafty too
Marbles per our king
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM_EoTTcdJE
Just snag a GFB small forest axe, whenever you can find one.
You'll probably get more use out of it then the wildlife hatchet.
If you MUST have a hatchet, rather than the small forest axe, I'd recommend the wildlife hatchet over all of them.
I will say that the beard on the wildlife hatchet, and the overall geometry, is sexy as fuck.
I've heard good things about those Husqvarna hatchets being quite serviceable. The old ones were made by Wetterlings FFS
>>715266
Also liver in germany and work in forestry
i can just say i only use fiskars and they hold an edge forever and are comfy to use
I looked though all the hatchets and just didn't want to spend the money.
I had a cheap old 8€ hatchet and turned it from Left pic to right. The steel needs constant resharpening but yeah I have my knife for the really fine tasks.
Just ordered a Husqvarna hatchet for £19, not too bad
>>715835
Good choice.
>>715397
you mean your sugar daddy right fag?
>>715811
stain the handle and mirror polish the head, it would look great.
>>715967
I am so glad I am not the only person on /out/ who hates him
>>716046
>hurrdurr if they aren't Christfags, they must be from reddit
>>715277
>talks about how great fiskars are
>posts pic of axe with visibly damaged blade
also you're comparing buying an axe for /out/ purposes and buying a cheap axe you can throw somewhere and not have to worry about damaging. b8 harder
foldin saw, youu doun goffd.
>>715308
>You have to be a fucking moron to waste your money on shit tier products like fiskars.
You axe hipsters are like the Glock-hating 1911 fanboys on /k/.
>>715277
>btw that plastic handle will last you lifetime if you dont just fuck it up yourself
The plastic handle is not the problem, it's the blade. Once a Fiskars axe is sharpened, it will never cut like a new one. The edge gets thicker after every sharpening and sharpening gets more difficult as you need to remove more and more steel. Eventually you need a machine grinder to fix it and the said grinder heats up the blade and you're off to buy a nex Fiskars axe.
>so cheap
>will last you a lifetime
It's sad to see shit products recommended here on /out/. Fiskars is just like a smart phone vendor that drops support for older phones and makes people to buy new ones.
>>716763
itt the photoshop guy did not take his job very seriously he probably had to white-background 10000 pics a day so....
>>717227
Gee sure sucks you don't know how to hollow grind a blade, that'd fix your thickness gripe.
>>717342
don't mind him he is a retard.
if you properly sharpen your fiskars it will not get thicker much. using the fiskars knife sharpener is like... i don't know it just ruins everything knives too.
the blade geometry will change somewhat over time i think after a thousand sharpening you might get a tenth millimeter wider grind if you keep the same angle.
it will split the same but it might not cut as deep as easily i don't know.
>>717111
since when are hatchets for hipsters?
Humans used hatchets for more than 300000 years.
I guess you are still using clubs right?
>>717428
itt he was ranting about the fiskers haters
>>715308
and now you have a wedge to baton with
>>715308
>Blade still usable.
>New handle easily made.
Fuck off.
>>717111
Glocks are the honda civics of the fucking gun world. why wont you glock fanboys get that shit. they do what they where suppose to do. and sure you can get a bunch of cheap ebay 'mods' for them. and you can paint them bright colors and add fancy wood parts. but holy shit they are still civics.
>>718862
You're right about Glocks and Civics, they do what they were engineered for. You can't say that about Fiskars axes, a blunt instrument comes to mind.
No need to pay the premium for a GB hatchet. Husqvarna sells axes and hatchets that are very good for their price. IIRC the large axe is produced by Hultafors under contract and the hatchet is a Wetterling.
Pick the one with the hard plastic handle, what could go wrong.
Seriously, I have several tools with synthetic hands, and they are a basically the same with a fiberglass epoxy center and a medium hard plastic on the outside, and they have never let me down through years of hard work, why did fiskars go full retard?
>>715266
Estwing or gtfo
>>718862
>he mad a K series puts more power down than his ls1
>>715397
Yeah, he got a good one. The handles are not always straight-grain like that.
>>715266
After picking up a Hultafors at REI, I can say I fully intend to buy one when I get the funds.
Perfectly balanced, beautiful craftmanship, surprisingly light handle, and looks like itll last a lifetime
Picking up cheap "modern" looking ones felt much worse and I'd bet they wont last in the longrun
>>722093
Oops, I meant Hults Bruk
Op here. Finally decided to get the Hultafors Agdor or h 008 sv. a few days ago.
>Same steel as GB
>Came razor sharp
>Dem hammer marks
>Hickory handle with nice grain pattern
>Handle also perfectly fitted
>Cuts, carves and splits like a champ
>32€
>>722214
looks great
is it wet or something? color changes near the base of the handle
>>715266
>Light splitting work, Carving
Pick one, senpai. Unless your "splitting" is making kindling, a carving axe is going to be mediocre at splitting wood or chopping and anything with a wider bevel is going to be a piss-poor carving axe.
Go buy some old axes and restore them; it's an order of magnitude cheaper than buying new, the axes are usually of excellent quality and both collecting and restoring axes are great hobbies.
>>722372
retard here:
So you need to bring two different kinds of axes /out/ just do to log splitting and carving? Would OP's axe not do well enough splitting 5-6 inch diameter logs?
What do you mean by carving exactly?
Like cutting down a large tree? Who needs to do this if not making an entire cabin?
>>715308
when life gives you lemons, make lemonade
>>722385
>So you need to bring two different kinds of axes /out/ just do to log splitting and carving?
>Need
No, you just won't be as efficient at either task and depending on the task that can be quite significant. Carving spoons with a boy's axe gets old in a hurry and so does limbing trees with a carpenter's hatchet.
>Would OP's axe not do well enough splitting 5-6 inch diameter logs?
Any of those would probably do "well enough", the issue is specialization.
>What do you mean by carving exactly?
>Like cutting down a large tree? Who needs to do this if not making an entire cabin?
The tl;dr is that the flatter an axe is the better it is at cutting along the grain and biting into the wood and the fatter it is (to an extent, of course) the better it is at cutting perpendicular to the grain and destroying the wood; for actually felling trees or bucking up timber you want an axe that's large, heavy and operates by breaking the wood apart by force (ie. the latter kind of axe) whereas for actually working with smaller pieces of wood you need to make precise and relatively delicate cuts along the grain and much of the time your aim is to split the fibers, not cut them, so smaller, lighter and/or thinner axes are used for greater control. The exception to this (kind of) is the splitting axe, which uses a wedge shape in line with the grain to provide the mechanical advantage to break apart large rounds of wood.
>>722262
The handle is dark on one side.
>>715308
This won't happen with regular use
>>725053
Or a coarse/fine DMT diamond file, personally I've got a Lanskey sharpening puck and a bevel gauge (http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Kell-625-3000-Brass-Bevel/dp/B000CER0MK/) in a little leather pouch I made.
Maintaining the bevel on a axe is fairly easy to do by hand since it's rounded, just follow the existing grind, make sure you do a equal amount on each side and clean up the burr afterwards. (and if you're worried about messing up, just get a crappy Collins hardware store axe to practice on)
You really only need to be precise with sharpening knives, IMO the Spyderco Sharpmaker or a set of high-quality whetstones is the best choice for those.
>>720023
>Estwing
Agreed. Why not this, OP?
>>720023
>>725066
don't forget vaughans, anons. vaughan makes some of the best murrican striking tools, many of which are various hatchets and axes.
i have a vaughan and an estwing and i love them both the same
>>725066
This. Fucking this. I've had mine for quite a while. I use the shit out of it. It's well made, relatively light, keeps an edge well, and feels balanced. It's an instrument that I swing at fucking wood. It's made of metal. It works.
>>725065
Seems simple enough, I've actually got a Puck Sharpener on the list already.
>>725066
Have one and will vouch that they are fucking great
>>715266
Fiskars is all you need
>>722214
That sums up my experience with Hultafors. Mine looks better than yours, but then again it doesn't have the same character.
>>728469
>Fiskars is all you need
if you want to hit yourself to a knee and bleed to death. For everything else you need a real axe.
If you want something indestructable, buy Estwing or Vaughan, not some toy made of plastic and some unknown scrap metal.
>>728476
You axe fags are worse than /mu/
Fiskars aren't pretty but they work. I've been splitting logs with my grandpa all my life and he bought a fiskars axe "temporally" until he could buy a replacement for his old choppin axe.
Still hasn't bought a replacement. If its good enough for an 86 year old man from norway its good enough for internet elitist weebs on a image board.
Shit I don't even use a fiskars because I don't like how they look, not because its gonna mystically hit me in the knee cause of some sort of defect made mystery metal.
>>728476
>if you want to hit yourself to a knee and bleed to death.
wat? this is beyond stupid
>For everything else you need a real axe.
it's a real axe and a cheap one at that
>not some toy made of plastic and some unknown scrap metal.
is this what retards actually believe? fiskars axes are perfectly fine they are not more dangerous than traditional axes not premium items and are pretty light. just perfect in many ways.
i heard bad things about the steel but personal experience says it's fine.
>>715266
Thank me later
When do you guys even use hatchets? I want one, but I have never been camping and needed
one. I found all the lumber I ever needed just sitting on the ground.
For what purpose do you guys use yours?
>>729381
i use it for general bushcraft mostly (building shelters, removing limbs or fallen trees that are innaway of my site, cutting saplings down to whittle NB sticks around the fire just for fun)
sometimes i use it for processing firewood, usually if i want to get some big chunky punky logs in the fire so i don;t have to keep feeding it i'll use my hatchet to help break it up. otherwise 95% of what i burn doesn't need any tools
>>729384
yeah thats what I figured. Shelter building and making neat logs for burning. Thanks, I'll invest less money into this then.
Probably but a juicy Osprey pack instead
>>729584
yep, probably a much better investment. i think it's important for hobbies, especially things like /out/ where everything is done manually, to pick and choose what you should buy very carefully. if one item is underused or unused, you'll never take it with you and it'll never be worth it and it'll just be a waste of money and clutter. unless you're just a collector for the sake of colelcting, gearfaggotry is a sinking ship. get nice things that you need as opposed to getting a little of everything.
>>729594
yeh, shelter buiding is cool and all but not something I'm really interested in. Especially here in SoCal where I'd only be able to possibly do that on top of some really high mountain, and even then its not worth it
>>729381
I use one for splitting kindling
Honestly don't take it with me unless I'm doing some car camping
>>729215
Fuck off shill.
That's shit.
>>715266
Between those three Gransfors all the way.
Dont overhype them like everyone does, but they do have superior fit, finish and designs.
They're also prettier.
>>715397
How about a real Marbles Safety Axe?
>>732135
you should send me that so i can spruce it up real nice with my buffer. i'll send it right back all shiny and polished.
>>732138
That's a good one.
>>725078
The midle one looks like a german army klauenbeil
>>732167
lil bit yeah. it's their "briad hatchet". it's like the carpenter's hatchet in that it's designed for carving and woodworking but it's much heavier and packs a good punch. also, it has a chisel bevel so it's flat on the right hand side, which is essential to its purpose.
Kershaw camp axe any good?
Estwing Camper's Axe or Husqvarna Traditional Axe? Both are 26" but the Husqvarna definitely has a large lead on aesthetics albeit $25 more.
>>732185
Why did Husqvarna go from motorcycles to fucking axes?
>>732209
guess they couldn't cut it as a motorcycle company
Oh hai, superior /out/ing axe here.
>>732788
they also made bicycles for the swedish military, to complete the circle
>>732788
ohhh wiki tells me guns first. guns, bikes, chainsaws, axes. most of the good shit eh.
THE ONLY AXE WORTH USING
ENTIRE THING IS METAL.
HEAD OF AXE WELDED ONTO A HOLLOW METAL PIPE
>>733230
Wow you gotta be extremely confident about your weld to do that
>>715266
fiskars is all you'll ever need
all the competition has to offer is pride of ownership (aka, nothing)
>>733230
Estwing has you beaten: sells a hatchet which is made out of a single piece of steel, no welding needed.
>>717227
The problem is definitely how the heads on Fiskar axes are shaped. Axes also shouldn't be sharpened like a knife. There's a whole process of shaping the "cheek" correctly.
For everyone who hasn't seen it, check out this link for the Forest Service manual An Axe to Grind. If you don't know how to sharpen a normal axe, sharpening starts on page 27.
http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/pdfpubs/pdf99232823/pdf99232823Pdpi300.pdf
>go to antique junk shop filled with people
>go directly to farm tools and find a rusty old axe
>tfw taking an axe to the cashier as a scary looking guy, everyone gives you frightened looks and a few people leave shop
>tfw living in England.
On the bright side, I looked up the axe's markings and it's from 1940's. Cool! I'm gonna refurbish it, replace the handle and make it real purdy and decorate my room with it for cool guy points... Its too heavy to regularly use on camping trips anyway.
>>734290
Restoring old tools, axes, knives, and other shit is a great hobby.
