Repairing/Restoring an Axe ??????'s

[thecrow]

I found this puppy in the basement of an old house (my Grandmothers to be exact). I was wondering how I could restore it?

It is an Iltis Ox-Head with no handle and is very rusty. Is this a pretty common axe, is it a good axe?

I started to sand the rust off and underneath I found the Iltis stampings. The sad part is the back of the axe has been used as a hammer and the edge folded over onto the stamping. I don't think I can do much about that. What I want to do is give it a nice clean sanded looking finish. Mirror would be nice, but I don't think very practical. I want a nice chopper, not a wall hanger. But I also like to personalize my tools so I might experiment on this one ( I just cord wrapped one of my ball pien hammers). Any suggestions?

Will the hardware store have a standard handle for it? Is it worth spending money on a handle for this type of axe?

It will be my first project ax, until I can track down a nice hawk here up North (Canada).

Thanks,
thecrow

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Check the eye, often with heavy pounding on the poll, the hole for the handle will become deformed. If this is the case you are better off junking it. If not then that is a decent brand, and in fact the older ones maybe better than the current ones. See past posts by Jimbo for some comment on that brand.

The head can easily be polished with a metal sandpaper. Mirror is great if you have the time, but just a decent satin finish would be ok. Personally considering how easily they tend to get scratched, I wouldn't go to far with the finish. The edge may need some heavy filing depending on how much damage there is to it.

-Cliff

 

[thecrow]

Thanks for the reply. SO basically if the hole is visibly deformed then it will make a nice rusty paper weight.

I will clean it up anyway, as I need the practice. Plus I want to put and edge on it (I need practice at that too).

If there are chips/nicks in the blade where the metal is completely gone, not folded over, what should be the course of action. Do you file it down to a complete and uniform edge, or just put and edge on it with the nick still visible. I hope that makes sense. Do I file the nicks out or leave them alone and sharpen the rest of the blade?

 

[Cliff Stamp]

thecrow :

SO basically if the hole is visibly deformed then it will make a nice rusty paper weight.

Yes, you can fix it by hammering it back into shape, but then it is highly stressed, and I would not trust it in use unless you were going to get the head stress relieved, and even then safety concerns would cause me to junk it except in emergency cases. It is simply not worth the risk to use an axe with an eye that can crack.

Do I file the nicks out or leave them alone and sharpen the rest of the blade?

For optimal performance all the nicks would be ground out. This will allow the blade to cut the smoothest and deepest into the wood. However you don't always tend to do this completely because of metal wear. If I have one nick in an otherwise perfect blade I would just let it get removed with regular sharpenings. It is simply a matter of how much of the edge you are willing to throw away.

For example, after using my Gransfors Bruks Wildlife hatchet frequentlyon knotty frozen wood, the edge had about a dozen places of minor damage (0.5 mm deep), and one large nick (one mm deep). I filed all the minor nicks out, but left the large one still there, but obviously reduced as I didn't want to throw away a further half mm of steel to remove one small chip.

It also depends where it is. A large nick right in the center of the edge is horrible and will decrease performance significantly. One which is towards the sides will not be as readily noticed. If you leave them there keep an eye on them to make sure they don't grow. if the cracking starts to increase they should be ground out immediately. You can then either grind the whole edge back, or just scallop the nick out and turn it into a small serration.


-Cliff

 

[Jimbo]

Have a look here for old axe repair:
axe repair