Recommendation? TIM-BR MART TOOL?

[Curt Hal]

Found an axe at a garage sale for $5 so took a chance. The owner, at some time, painted the head and the handle. I was able to carefully scrape a layer of paint off of the handle enough to reveal lettering. My 60 year old eyes say TIM BR MART? TOOL. There is a Timber or Tim-br Mart on the net, and it was started in 1975. By the look of the internet info, it may be a Canadian company. No axes or handles in their current catalogues. Other than the paint (oh why???!!!) both head and haft look to be in good shape. There was a duct tape over strike guard on it. The original wedge is about 1/8 wide. The grain looks good. May be a junker, but I thought I'd thrown it out here. Lots of people with tons of knowledge.

 

[Square_peg]

Looks to have the flatter cheeks of an axe made in the 70's or later. Could easily have been rehung on a Tim Br Mart handle. Looks like it had some mushrooming filed off in the past - likely re-hung at that time. The mauve paint on the head may once have been red.

 

[Curt Hal]

There were two coats of paint over the original blue. I wondered if it was a Collins, but no stamp.

 

[Square_peg]

If you're in Canada the blue paint is more likely to be something Swedish than a Collins. At least that's been my experience.

 

[Canadian Mojo]

If you're in Canada the blue paint is more likely to be something Swedish than a Collins. At least that's been my experience.

I've got a couple of True Tempers that have blue heads, but I think that's pretty uncommon.

 

[300Six]

Thin wedge like that is not factory (and unlikely so too is the handle), neither is the 'body work' done to the poll to clean up the mushrooming. Get out the cup brush on the angle grinder to remove the paint and grudge from the head. Hopefully there's a stamp there somewhere. I can't see the blade very well in your picture but a flat profile is probably going to tell you it's Euro, or modern.

 

[Curt Hal]

Thin wedge like that is not factory (and unlikely so too is the handle), neither is the 'body work' done to the poll to clean up the mushrooming. Get out the cup brush on the angle grinder to remove the paint and grudge from the head. Hopefully there's a stamp there somewhere. I can't see the blade very well in your picture but a flat profile is probably going to tell you it's Euro, or modern.

So, I strip off the 3 layers of paint (why???) to discover the head was made in China. Wire brushing the edge with an angle grinder created a burr. I'm no steel expert but that spells cheap, soft steel to me. Also, the wedge was no more than 1/8" thick, which allowed me to easily tap the handle out of the head. The handle is at least in nice shape, so I'll use that. Should make the $5 purchase worth it. Anyone know from the photo what kind of wood that is? It looks like hickory, but I'm not a wood expert.

 

[300Six]

The handle looks to me to be hickory. Certainly not Ash/Maple/Beech/Oak/Birch. It amazes me that cost-cutting expedience hasn't yielded a multitude of "whatever's handy" woods yet. But there's always next year!