The Quest for an Affordable American/Canadian/European hatchet?

[jblyttle]

On a budget the best I would guess are Vaughan and Council.

 

[EngrSorenson]

Just wanted to follow up- I finally got around to making a simple leather sheath for my flying fox. I love this thing!

 

[EngrSorenson]

Folks… looks like there’s a 22 inch version of the Flying Fox out there on the Baryonyx site! I just bought two more from FTB before I noticed he had them, but no matter… everything gets rehafted anyway.

Still the best hatchet going!

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

The 22" handles are a bit thick in stock form but it's apparently deliberate so that throwers can cut them to a length they like and still have wood left to shape into a bit of a knob. Folks buying them for tool use will probably be spending a little time rasping their handles anyhow.

 

[EngrSorenson]

The 22" handles are a bit thick in stock form but it's apparently deliberate so that throwers can cut them to a length they like and still have wood left to shape into a bit of a knob. Folks buying them for tool use will probably be spending a little time rasping their handles anyhow.

Honestly I prefer this over the typical FF hafts; I’m finding I prefer thicker hatchet handles for one handed work. Either way, these things are awesome.

Interestingly enough, I did get a Snow and Nealley hatchet a month or so ago. It’s a harder steel, but my goodness it takes time to reprofile and I’m still not thrilled with it. It’s a great splitter, but it seems the thicker bit and higher centerline really requires small branches to be chopped against something firm. The feature that makes a 3.5 lbs full size axe effective at cutting large trees seems to make small hatchet work more challenging.

Entirely possible it’s just not reprofiled just right yet, but so far that’s the experience.

 

[HeavyHanded]

If you're willing to do some work to it, the Husqvarna 13" is a pretty good deal for what you get. Was NOT happy with the bit geometry out of the box, but than I pretty much never am. Took about 30 minutes with a bucket of water and a belt grinder, need to hone it properly now but the basics are sound. Is tough to find a budget hatchet that's hung straight, and once you rehang it and get a real mask for it you might as well have gone up a step in price since you're going to have to do a bunch of work anyway. Might as well save a couple steps.

Planning my move - this is to guide the opposite side location on the belt.

One side down, this thing would have bounced off of seasoned beech the way it came

ready for the benchstones, next stop shaving sharp

 

[AeroNautiCal]

There's a guy in the UK name of Robin Wood (yes, really!) that makes very good hatchets that are affordable.

wood-tools.co.uk is his website name.