The Collins "Hipster Edition"

It may be an original handle, but it also looks like an old customization and paint job, and it bears all the signs of actual use by a non-nerd axe user. People often forget that deep knowledge of the best way to care for and use hand tools was always rare in the total pool of tool users, even among those who depended on those tools for their livelihood in some shape or form. If anything, thanks to the internet, it's possible that more people (as a percentage of the tool-using population) might know today how to care for an axe than did in the 1800's-1900's because that information is so easily researched. It's always been us tool nerds that have actively sought out more information on how to use and care for our tools, and were typically also the driving force in innovations in the industry, but we're the minority. Most folks just have a job to do that involves an axe, and they use the axe, and then the job is done, and they don't put much more thought into it than that. :)
 
Agent_H said:
I occasionally find double bits with that done to the handle - coming out of places where hipsters didn't exist. Loggers did though.
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I have to confess, because of lack of a well defined knob, I have been thinking about filing shallow waffle pattern on straight double bit handle.
 
crbnSteeladdict said:
I have to confess, because of lack of a well defined knob, I have been thinking about filing shallow waffle pattern on straight double bit handle.
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Other options are defining the knob with a wood rasp, adding a single wrap of friction tape on the very end of the haft or simply wearing those new thin super-grippy gloves. The main thing is just to make it easy or effortless to keep the thing in your hand. Spend that energy on other work.

The axe swings more freely when you don't have to keep a death grip on it.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
It may be an original handle, but it also looks like an old customization and paint job, and it bears all the signs of actual use by a non-nerd axe user. People often forget that deep knowledge of the best way to care for and use hand tools was always rare in the total pool of tool users, even among those who depended on those tools for their livelihood in some shape or form. If anything, thanks to the internet, it's possible that more people (as a percentage of the tool-using population) might know today how to care for an axe than did in the 1800's-1900's because that information is so easily researched. It's always been us tool nerds that have actively sought out more information on how to use and care for our tools, and were typically also the driving force in innovations in the industry, but we're the minority. Most folks just have a job to do that involves an axe, and they use the axe, and then the job is done, and they don't put much more thought into it than that. :)
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I agree with this wholeheartedly, as evidenced by the countless mushroomed old heads (and the jammed in broken keys/coins/nails/washers) that were mostly used by the "old timers" that many people assume knew better. The truth is, they didn't.
 
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