Backpacking "survival" axe

Square_peg said:
I'm using a claw hatchet for camping and it is an all-around great performer.

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SP, I like the look, the length and most everything about it. Can you provide some specifics (for us copycats). Head dimensions with weight, handle length and is there anything unusual about the eye size? Did you make the straight handle or is it a touched up off the shelf?

Thanks...my mind is getting ideas.

Dutch S.
 
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I use the GB Small forest axe. Fits right in the middle of a small hatchet and large axe. Great for most of my needs around camp or the deer lease. The old Plumb carpenters axe is somewhat of a Frankenstein Monster I built. My son wanted a Small Forest axe size chopper to help with the camp and lease chores. I took the handle off an old double bit axe that belonged to my father and saved it when I rehung the axe. The Plumb head belonged to my grandfather and I used the leftover axe handle to make it into a version of small axe. Works really well and the poll is great for driving stakes, etc. Plus, we also take a few nails from time to time and the nail puller is right there also.
 
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Not the prettiest handle work I've done, but it was a brutally efficient camp axe/hammer. Even had enough power to split wood.
 
Square_peg said:
I'm using a claw hatchet for camping and it is an all-around great performer.

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Love that claw hatchet. Mind if I ask where the handle came from? I have a small 1-1/2 lb. Collins head on the way and I would love to put a nice straight handle like that one on it.
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mako20ft said:
SP, I like the look, the length and most everything about it. Can you provide some specifics (for us copycats). Head dimensions with weight, handle length and is there anything unusual about the eye size? Did you make the straight handle or is it a touched up off the shelf?

Thanks...my mind is getting ideas.

Dutch S.
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Dutch, I'm with you. I'm like a little kid at Christmas waiting to get the info on that handle so I can get one. I've got a nice Collins 1-1/2 lb. on the way and it will need a handle.
 
mako20ft said:
SP, I like the look, the length and most everything about it. Can you provide some specifics (for us copycats). Head dimensions with weight, handle length and is there anything unusual about the eye size? Did you make the straight handle or is it a touched up off the shelf?

Thanks...my mind is getting ideas.

Dutch S.
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Double post
 
Thanks, guys. That's a riggers hatchet handle. 18" OAL handle. With a head weight of 1-3/4 pounds it's a surprisingly good little splitter. It's double beveled. It makes a fine stump axe (used on a stump) for carving. hardened poll and claw come in handy. I always do bring a few duplex nails to camp.

I originally restored this on its original 14" handle and found it under hung and clunky. It's sweet at 18". This is an old True Temper with ridges in the eye. I like it much better than my Tommy axe.

Here it is on the old handle.

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Just ordered one from House Handles. $3.80. Wow.

Head and handle will arrive about the same time.
 
Do NOT bring a folding saw. In my experience you will burn more calories and use much more energy sawing at timber than you would spend with a few swings of a hatchet or batoning a decent knife.
 
Your experience differs from mine.

For saving energy the best move has always been throwing long wood on the fire and letting the fire burn it in half. But some campgrounds require you to keep the fire contained in the pit. Then you need to buck it. Bucking is almost always faster with a good saw than with an axe especially in dry wood (and why would you burn green wood?). The exception is small one-strike wood.

Have you used Silky and/or Tajima folding saws?

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Did you say "small"? :rolleyes:

I'm not sure how heavy you need, but I usually don't process wood much over 3" thick and for that I freakin' love my GB mini:

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It's about 11,5oz and fits in the back pocket of my jeans (handle sticking out of course). It isn't cheap though, but still well worth it imo.

It chops way above it's weight and saves me about half the energy compared to my regular size Husqvarna hatchet doing similar work. If I ever lost it I would replace it immediately. I still carry a folding saw too though, it's just more efficient for certain jobs. Other then that I just carry a small knife (or two) and a little PS4 and I'm good to go.
 
plue said:
Careful with those Fiskars, they're cheap for a reason.
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Teaching out in Alaska Native villages, an axe was considered a requirement with a flashing red light. Travelling one village to another was usually a 2-3 hour boat ride (or more) or a similar trip on a snowmobile. About the only Fiskars axes you'd see out there would be the ones the newbie gussuks (white people, interestingly used to describe Blacks and Hispanics as well) would bring with them when they moved out. A short time of hard bush use and they'd be broken, discarded, sworn at, thrown in the river. You wouldn't see Gransfors or Wetterlings often (except on the back of my Yamaha) but what you did see had a wooden handle. A lot of Collins, but also a lot of no name axes. If they didn't have the right edge, we all knew how to re-profile an edge. I left my GB up there when I retired, I'm thinking about trying one of the Council Tool Velvicut Hudson Bay axes or maybe the Condor Woodworker axe. If you have the money for it, just about nothing will beat a Gransfors Bruk, though.
 
Listen dude, just buy a 35 dollar stihl hatchet. They are german made and they work pretty good. It does not need to be expensive.
 
Thomas Linton said:
Splitting wood with a saw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9iFoyEOWrQ
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Cute little snippet high-lighting ideal circumstances (straight piece of wood (and not elm or ironwood!) and with no knots). Leaning a half-cut log against a rock/stump and then jumping on it feet first is much faster! The fellow does exemplify that forgetting to bring an axe/large knife along on an outdoor excursion is much less of an imposition for gathering wood than is failure to bring a saw.
 
Square_peg said:
Your experience differs from mine.

For saving energy the best move has always been throwing long wood on the fire and letting the fire burn it in half. But some campgrounds require you to keep the fire contained in the pit. Then you need to buck it. Bucking is almost always faster with a good saw than with an axe especially in dry wood (and why would you burn green wood?). The exception is small one-strike wood.

Have you used Silky and/or Tajima folding saws?

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I used to do a bit of backpacking. I was kind of hard core, really. Travelled light and fast. It never entered my mind to pack a hatchet, axe or saw to process fire wood. Burn a lot of calories making pretty fire wood. Like you I would burn wood in half or just keep feeding it in as the end burned down. Never learned from the survival experts that I needed one. Its a very new concept that I don't participate in. Even camping out of my truck I will probably have an axe or hatchet, but I will never make cord wood to burn in camp.
I am probably just lazy.
 
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