Experience with some very cheap Chinese hatchets

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Nov 29, 2000
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First, I have to admit that my interest in hatchets was sparked mostly by the excellent pieces written by Old Jimbo.:thumbup::thumbup:
These are reviews, stories, bits of wisdom, written with a nice informal style and humor.
One of his writings/reports is about a cheap, $4.95 hatchet:

http://www.oldjimbo.com/survival/hatchet.html

Intrigued, I have been looking for similar, cheap, wooden handled, American style hatchets.

After extensive internet search, I have found two, both priced around $5.
Since the shipping charges were almost twice of the hatchet's cost, I decided to order two of each. This would also allow to assess variability, especially regarding the handle grain orientation.

The Great Neck HA50 hatchet was listed for $4.85 at this site (and available for more at other sites):

http://www.hardwareworld.com/Hatchet-pYB7KZF.aspx

According to the descriptions gathered from several sites, it is 11" long, has a 3" edge, and the pictures, identical in all of those sites promised for a cute, little hatchet with a 1 or maximum 1 1/4 lb head.

The company shipped promptly the order, but what I have received was quite different from what I have been led to believe it would be.

It turned out, that the Great Neck HA50 hatchets are actually heavy hatchets with 1 1/2 lb head, differently shaped handles 15 1/2 - 15 3/4" long and the edges are 3 1/2 - 3 5/8" long.
Not exactly the cute little tool I have been expecting.:confused:

I did a new search, now going to the original distributor's site:

http://greatnecktools.com/product_info.php/pName/hatchet?osCsid=tgv3tt6jrodf0jfmq56ob6aod6

Now, this still lists 3" edge and 11" length in one line, but below that it declares a 2.0 lb weight, 16 " length and clearly shows a different picture, which pretty well corresponds to the actual hatchets I have received.

Now, the 11" length might be not the OAL, but the portion of the handle below the head. After a quick measurement, it turned out, that this isn't the case: these portions of the handles were more than 13"!:rolleyes:

The handles are definitely glued to the head, the end of the handles are almost an inch below the surface of the eye hole. The difference is filled with a yellowish transparent resin (?). It is clearly visible that there is no wooden wedge used, but there is a single conical steel(?) wedge with a ring cross section.

The red paint is cracked and peeling around the poll on one of the axes.
A small, extremely stinky rubber edge protector came with the hatchets.
The bits were slightly skewed, especially in one of the axes. The profile is more suited for splitting than chopping, but still, not so extremely thick as in many Mexican or other Chinese hardware hatchets twice or three times the list price.
The "edges" were crudely ground blunt secondary bevels, not symmetrical.

Both hatchet handles had very poor (near horizontal) grain orientation, but for a small axe this is not a major issue. The wood is some mystery wood. It is a ring porous, but is definitely not oak or hickory. It resembles a little bit ash, but has much tighter growth rings than any ash I have seen yet. Also, the color is light yellowish-greenish, which is shining through the light varnish, quite unevenly applied.

The wood is hard, I couldn't dent it with a fingernail.

The balance is not bad, the handle must have a substantial weight on its own to allow that.

Overall, this does not appear to be a bad tool. IMHO it is suitable for a garden shed hatchet, for cutting sod, roots or other abusive work in the garden, but is definitely not your outdoors chopping hatchet. I would be hesitant to use it for extensive splitting too: I think the handle-head attachment is not secure enough for this.

The other hatchets I have ordered were the so called "20 OZ. HEAVY DUTY CAMPER'S WOOD AXE" from Harbor Freight Tools:

http://www.harborfreight.com/

I tried to insert the URL, but it turned out, that the item was removed from their website since I have ordered it (about 3 weeks ago).

I have ordered it for the list price of $5.99 each.

I have found now the same hatchet advertised on ebay with exactly the same picture and description HF used too:

http://cgi.ebay.com/20-OZ-HEAVY-DUT...126QQihZ007QQcategoryZ303QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

According to the description, it has:
Heavy duty forged and hardened carbon steel head with contoured hickory wood handle.
3'' cutting edge
Overall length: 14''

After almost 3 weeks of waiting, the hatchets arrived. Harbor Freight Tools has a policy of shipping in 10-12 working days, and they seem to adhere adamantly to these periods.:(
I have done some search regarding HF's shipping, and found sites with long lists of people complaining about the extremely long times it takes the HF internet orders to arrive. My order arrived within the specified time (:thumbup: ) and I got immediate responses to my e-mails ( :thumbup: ), but the waiting time is definitely long :thumbdn:.

On the positive side, the hatchets were more or less as advertised, except for the hickory handle.

The handles are maple (or maybe some kind of birch?). I could dent one of them with pressing hard with my fingernail. On the positive side, the wood does not seem to be varnished or coated, and it has a wonderful smooth surface so characteristic for maple. The handle shape is similar to the golden painted, European style 1 1/4 lb hatchets sold at the local Harbor Freight store. The handle grain was horizontal on both hatchets.

The two hatchets arrived very well packed, but they lacked any kind of more permanent edge protector, even the rubber thingy.

They varied a bit in shape, and size: one has a 3 1/4" edge and the other 3 3/8".
The OAL is about 15" and the heads are definitely around the 1 1/4 lb (or 20 oz), as advertised.

The best feature: the bits are thin, symmetrically ground and have definitely a chopping profile.:thumbup:
One had a slightly thicker bit (between 1/16" and 1/8").

The head attachment is impossible to assess, since the resin covered eye hole is painted over with the black paint. There are no visible gaps between the wood of the handle and the bottom rim of the eye. There is a little bit of glue or epoxy appearing in one single spot.

Overall the fit and finish is much better than on most other Chinese, Mexican, Brazilian or even American made hardware hatchets I have encountered so far.
Also, they have the thinnest bits I have ever seen on a hardware hatchet: the thinner one is slightly over 1/8" thick at 1" from the edge and a little bit over 1/4" thick at 2" from the edge. The head is 5 1/4" long total from edge to the poll, 25/32" at its thickest part, at the rear of the eye section, and has a 3/4" thick poll.

For the price, it seems to be a well made (or at least, a well shaped) chopping hatchet for hiking purposes.

Of course, the heat treatment is unknown, but I don't expect it would be on par with that of a Wetterlings or a GB.:D

In summary, these experiences clearly demonstrate, that going cheap is not going to get you even a dependable outdoors hatchet.
Also, what you actually receive is frequently not what is advertised.

So if you want an outdoors hatchet, skip the hardware store types right away and buy a Wetterlings or a GB.
 
I bought a couple Harbor freight hatchets a while back that were on sale. One was identical to the one you posted, the other was a heavier, fiberglass handled model.

The fiberglass model is a pretty heavy, durable chopper. A real workhorse. The wood handled one seems much better suited to throwing, in comparison. Both needed a lot of work to get the edge sharp. The steel is soft, which is OK for basic chopping and splitting, but may be a hindrance for someone needing a serious bushcrafting tool. The wooden handle has since developed a split, due to throwing, but is still intact. While there are definitely much better hatchets on the market, either would be OK for what they are. Someone with good skills could certainly make due. Considering the dirt cheap price, I can't really say they are a bad value.
 
Shecky, thanks for the additional info.:thumbup:

I would have never considered to throw these hatchets. I am surprised it is still in one piece.
 
I'm thinking of getting one of the HF fireman's hatchets. I've seen them in person, and the seem alright. The haft fills the head and seems to be wedged securely.
 
They are made by Helko, a reputable German Company.
I have seen those too. They are nice pieces of gear.:thumbup:
They are solid, but too heavy for my outdoors uses. At this weight (2 lb head, if I remember correctly), I am taking a Forest axe or a boy's axe rather, both with longer handles.
 
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