The Best Camp Axe?

[Lucky Eddie]

Not sure if any of you take an axe out with you on trips into the woods when prospecting?

I did some online research about 6 months back with a view to buying a new axe for my eldest lad (Who likes to prospect a bit).

He also cuts and sells firewood commercially thru winter, so chopping wood for him is a big thing - because he does a fair bit of it each year - somewhere around 40 or more metric tonnes/annum - that he hand chops it all. Yes you can buy hydraulic log splitter's and the like but basically they are just too slow.

I ended up deciding to try a hand forged work axe off a NZ company Tuatahi Axes, who hand forge a lot of the custom racing axes for log chopping competition axe men down under Oz & in NZ.

They make a similar axe head for work / training that has a steeper 22 degree cutting edge bevel - compared to their competition axes that have 15 degree edge grinds.

The Lad tends to split rings for firewood more than chop trees by hand cross grain as you do in log hopping / tree felling, so the Work axe with the steeper grind is more towards your splitting maul that chopping axe.

Well these axes are expensive as all get out (around $425NZ) AND you have to wait about 4 MONTHS for them to hand make one for you.

I thought you guys who appreciate the finer things in outdoors gear might appreciate a look at it thru the forging process and a short video of it actually being used on the job.

This is how it looked straight out of the forge.

This is after some grinding and heat treating

This is with the wings ground out and the Hickory Handle fitted and roll pinned.

This is a 3 tonne load split & loaded in the trailer (with another 2 tonnes in the back of the F 250 towing it). Not a bad mornings effort single handed.

And this is the work axe being used.



For anyone so inclined, this is West Aussie hardwood "Jarrah" (Eucalyptus maginata) which is 8.5 on the Janka Hardness scale (1,910 lbf (8,500 N) and weighs around 980 kilos / meter cubed - so it's a pretty hard / dense wood which is getting up there with Hickory Pecan and Tallow wood as a rough guide.

I have my doubts there's a better axe anywhere in the world & I am aware of axes the likes of Gransfors Bruks etc.

Happy as a dog with 2 tails... the lad is with his Tuatah Axe.

Anyone interested in one can find details on the company web site.

tuatahi-axes

Disclaimer. I am not associated with the Tuatahi company in any way at all (including fiscally), other than I am a happy / satisfied customer who wants to share his experience online with other serious outdoors folks.

 

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[kcm]

I used to love going out and hand-splitting firewood. But that seems like 4 lifetimes ago now.

Beautiful axe!!

 

[Oddjob]

Eddie that is a nice axe, I looked all over the website and could not find anything about how many grams the head is. My house in Germany is only wood and solar heated, solar just on the water heater, wood for the rest. I chew through about 11 cubic meters a winter just to keep it at around a nice 15 degrees. We just had lots of work done to the house (from 1827), our basement had a pipe bust while we where at our house in Italy, we figured it busted about 3 days before we came home. Ruined many things, but that is what insurance is for.

While that was going on we figured we would switch out our wood burning stoves, we had some very old Sohn models in our house. My wife came up with the idea to switch them out, she knows what styles I like, not really a modern guy. She called the firm Hark and had someone come out. We ended up getting the Hark Winston models with the thermostat, fine filter, ask reburner, and for the one in the basement we got the water tank attachment to run run radiator heaters in the five rooms in the basement.

Our house is old sandstone, but isolated and skinned with dry wall. We have only been back in our house for about a month now after the construction and so far have only chewed through about a half cubic meter of wood. Before ashes where dumped daily, and now about every dive days. The basement we are currently keeping it at around 22 degrees, the pipe busted, in the end they needed to take out the entire foundation and dig down, our basement is now 60 cm deeper, thicker foundation as well, and all new drywall. But it still needs to dry, we where told that if we could run it that hot for about 3 months that it should be dry and that summer would do the rest pretty much.

The Hark rep told us that we would lower the carbon foot print a great deal, which is true as this was already controlled by the government per regulations when installing new ovens. But he also said we would use about a third less wood in the year.

11 cubic meters a year for a 290 square meter sandstone house from 1827 is not as bad as it sounds, normally a great deal more would be used but we have done lots in energy saving. We even had a year where we chewed up 17 cubic meters. Now the wood we use is all fallen wood, mixed between pine for starter wood, and then birch, oak and beech. I do not pay for wood when I can go get it for free in the bush. I am not a fan of hydraulic splitters, big waste of time and money if you ask me. Hand splitting is more fun and faster. Every Spring I buy me a new axe looking for the best axe, splitting axes are not my thing, I do not like that you can not finely split.

For my starter wood I use a very old Keene Kutter hatchet, would not trade that for anything else, its like chopping carrots finely. But for splitting wood I have tried many axes, after I harvest in Spring time with my new axe that thing goes in the basement and is not used again.

I like using a felling axe to split with, but it seems that the head is never wide enough or the thickness is to skinny. Also I split one handed as well, no point in using two when you do it properly. On your link the racing axes look like high speed fellers if you ask me. The other one does not look like it would be all that great but the one you have seems like a good single handed axe.

For now it would appear that I have about 2 years in wood with our new wood burning stoves, but this looks like something worth getting. I was considering an English made firm for this spring, but this spring I will not need one. When you think about it though, what the heck would the English know about making axes anyway, I never heard of an English Logging Industry. LOL

For camping, prospecting and mining we just take a little stihl and my keene kutter. Never needed much more than that.

That wood you fellas are using down there I bet I would only need about 5 Cubic meters of that a year.

Are you splitting that wood wet or dry? Have you split any pine with it yet?

I saw the accessories they sell, shocked to see they did not have any handle proctors, nice head covers, so if they can do that then surely they can make protectors.

You split anything during the winter months yet with that, likely not right, most of us who heat plan well enough to have enough unless something crazy comes along and winter turns out to be a real winter. What length are you using, our old ovens used 33 cm long, our new ones can take up to 45 cm I think, 30 something.

Anyway, thanks for the link. You may have saved me some extra time in the bush. I like splitting in the bush and not at home, already going to save lots of time by not needing as much.

 

[Lucky Eddie]

I think the head and handle weighs about 5.5 pounds is my best guess. It's a real one hit wonder - it hit's like Muhammad Ali.


Closeup look at a Tuatahi work axe.


This is a guy of average skill using a Tuatahi cross grain on pine.


This is a video of a competition axe guy who knows what he is doing, and is fit and skilled at it, doing the same thing on pine.

Most of the old Plumb and Kelly fallers Axes were around 4 pounds heads - the tuatahis a lot bigger and yet only a little heavier at around 5 pounds when you have the cheeks/wings ground out!

The people at Tuatahi are great to deal with -Stuart in the office is a wealth of info and helpful as they come. He was sending me photos of it as it was manufactured etc, you couldn't ask for better service.

Just shoot him an email... with any questions you might have.

 

[kcm]

I know what you mean about design being everything though, especially what Oddjob said about his Keene Kutter hatchet. I recently ran across an old Stanley Steelmaster that is about the finest design I've ever seen in a hatchet. Apparently the head styles changed over the ages, as many that I see pics of online just don't match up with the style/shape of this one. For starter wood, I would have dearly LOVED to have had this hatchet while up in Finland!! There's no room to pack a chainsaw on a dog sled, so often the hatchet had to pull double duty. This one is a lightweight only, but still better than any of the crap out there in stores today!! ...And it only cost me $4!!

Sure wish I was in better health, as even now I'm itching to try out one of those Tuatahi axes!! Gee, thanx Eddie!