Fiskers hatchet - I'm a believer

kgd

kgd

Joined
Feb 28, 2007
Messages
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Okay, I resisted this recommendation for a long time. I kept holding up the fisker's axes and hatchets in the shop and just got turned off by the handles. I was even more turned off by that stupid plastic thing they call a sheath.

But you guys wore me down. The prospect of saving for that GB is still looming, but it probably ain't going to happen for a while. I've been at my no-name carbon hatchet with a bastard file - well like a bastard. I'm getting some progress but it is still slow.

So I was hanging around Canadian Tire, the canuk hardware store, and re-thinking the $20 fiskers hatchet. They had 12 of them in stock and I started to carefully examine them. I did note that they varied quite substantially. A couple of them had rather good size chips in the blade at the shop. A few of them had very lopsided grinds. However, I came across one that wasn't perfect but pretty darn good and took it home.

At home, a few little strokes on the sharpmaker at 40 degrees and WOW. I had a hatchet that shaves hair and slices paper. This is the first time I ever had an axe so sharp and am really impressed. The no-name carbon hatchet lost its leather sheath to the fiskers. I can't wait to test this baby out on some wood!!

Here is my new trio all sheathed up

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Without sheath

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A close up of the bevel. Sorry a bit out of focus. This was after about 10 strokes on the sharpmaker grey rods at 40o.

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Here is a couple of shots of the edge to look at the grinds. As you can see they aren't perfectly balanced, but pretty close. NOTE some at the shop were really screwy. Make sure when you buy one of these guys you inspect this. You really can't see it unless you look at it from the top and bottom view as per below.

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Finally, here is the fiskers cutting its way through a sheet of paper. Still hard to believe a hatchet, bought at a rather mediocre hardware store, can slice paper with just a light touch-up!!! Most knives can't make this claim.

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I'm a fisker believer now........I guess I really should have to listened to you guys sooner. I really need to start buying some moras. I wish you could buy them here without having to go on-line.
 
Haha, well I'm not the sort of guy to say I told you so.... but... well, we told you so!

Those things rock, one of the better bargains around for $20. I've beaten the snot out of mine and it's the standard by which I judge any of my other choppers. Good on ya for picking it up!
 
nice!
i really need to get one too and I saw one at the mall (I know right??) and really liked the look of it.
I'll probably get one too.
:D

how long is the handle on yours?
and that one is the splitting axe right???
 
I got the 14" garden axe and it's really sweet. The factory "grind" was worthless though. I tried *hard* to cut myself with it using a sawing motion and was not successful. I put some more effort into sharpening mine than you did, I sharpened it free hand scandi grind style. The teflon coating really bogs everything down. It's hard to see with the naked eye, but the edges are very slightly hollow ground. I gave the whole bevel the deluxe treatment with my DMT Duofold Coarse/Fine (which is a very convenient form factor for this task BTW), then I polished the edge freehand with one of the stones from my (old old old style) sharpmaker and finished up with my leather strop loaded with green CrO2 compound.

The first time I took it out in the bush, I ended up cutting myself with it trying to sheath it. I cut myself quite deeply on the side of my finger, but it was such a clean cut that it didn't bleed until I spread the wound to inspect it (I'm a first aid attendant). At that point it bled profusely until I released it, at which point it closed back up again on its own and stopped bleeding. :D That is a SHARP edge. As you might imagine, it performed really well with this edge. The only thing it had trouble with was some extremely well seasoned mystery wood (it was grey) I found near my campsite. The main issue there was simply the mass of the head though. I doubt a GB hatchet would have fared much better.

I hated the factory "sheath" too, so I made my own out of 8oz vegtan leather. I'll post some pics if I can find my damned camera.

Has anyone tried putting a personal survival kit in the hollow handle? It looks like you could store a lot of useful stuff in there. I'm still wondering about how to cap it off though. The best idea I've come up with so far is an oval plug of leather secured through the lanyard hole.
 
I bought the 14" hatchet, and then the Fiskars 28" chopping Ax at Sears for under $30. They've both come in handy, but the ax will get more use. I'd never carry either--at least not around here.
 
I already have a GB sfa but I'll probably pick one of these up.
Never know when you need to equip your buddies, I'd rather let them beat up the cheap stuff then my "babies".:D
 
I really like this hatchets too. I tried to get one of them as sharp as possible, and it worked really well. It got hairpoppin'sharp. Sharper then a lot of my knives get.

Of course the edge suffers severe when start chopping with it, when it is that sharpen, but well that's something you could have expected.:cool:

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Fjell said:
I really like this hatchets too. I tried to get one of them as sharp as possible, and it worked really well. It got hairpoppin'sharp. Sharper then a lot of my knives get.

Of course the edge suffers severe when start chopping with it, when it is that sharpen, but well that's something you could have expected.:cool:

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Click to expand...

Damn, what were you chopping with that?
 
I'm told that sometimes the tip of the factory edge on these things loses a bit of its temper due to the manner in which the edge is ground at the factory.

I recall a post indicating that the edge chipped like above at first, but once the edge was moved back up the blade a bit to work out the chips than it stopped chipping.
 
sketchbag said:
Damn, what were you chopping with that?
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Just good ol' larch-wood (quite a lot).

kgd said:
I'm told that sometimes the tip of the factory edge on these things loses a bit of its temper due to the manner in which the edge is ground at the factory.

I recall a post indicating that the edge chipped like above at first, but once the edge was moved back up the blade a bit to work out the chips than it stopped chipping.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. :thumbup:
 
I have a Gerber gator back paxe. The axe itsef is great and feels indestructable, but for some reason I couldn't get the factory ground scandi edge as sharp as I wanted. It could slice paper, but just barely. I decided to convex it on 180 grit sandaper, and finished it using the sharpmaker stones as a file. Now it can shave hair along the grain but I'm still not satisfied. I'm guessing it could be the temper like kgd said
 
Just a bit of a user update. I did a little yard clearing today. Just limbing the excess spring growth and finally got around to taking out some of the small trees that established themselves a little too close to the fence line in the backyard.

So, I've been clearly missing out on the advantages of a sharp hatchet. On the spring wood, which is wet and flexible, my old dull no-name carbon would just bounce off and I'd have to use my knife to cut through the fibres. The fiskers tackled these with ease. Then I had a small sampling that I was cutting to remove an oddly poking branch. It cut through well, but left a strip of bark that wanted to peel down the tree. I was able to slice through the bark horizontally with the sharp edge of the fiskers to terminate the peel. Again, this is something I would have had to use my knife in the past for.

I did have a couple of quartered pieces of wood that I decided to split. No problem. So far I'm liking this new toy!
 
So know you've come to the realization that you need to sharpen that old no name axe.
Right????

It would probably perform just as well if it had a nice edge like your Fiskars.
 
I'll keep at old no-name with the bastard file. But golly it is taking a lot of time.
 
Fjell said:
I really like this hatchets too. I tried to get one of them as sharp as possible, and it worked really well. It got hairpoppin'sharp. Sharper then a lot of my knives get.

Of course the edge suffers severe when start chopping with it, when it is that sharpen, but well that's something you could have expected.:cool:

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Click to expand...

Yikes!! Thats unacceptable IMO. My GB's are hair poppin sharp, and don't look like this after chopping wood.:thumbdn:
 
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