i got some $ in a few early christmas cards, so i decided to treat myself to a new axe. i walked down to the hardware store and picked through the Snow and Nealley selection (they have a couple of almost every model). i found a 3.5 pound one with a 30" handle that i liked. the head was symetrical, evently ground and the eye appeared to be straight. the handle grain was decent, and everything generally looked right.
i looked up on their website to see what all of their models are, and found this:
"Ground on our own stone wheels, we provide you with a factory edge like no other axe on the market today." - i have mentioned before, based on handling these axes in the store, that it appears as though the edges are ground on a bench grinder. the bevels are thick and rough, and generally there are large burrs or parts of the edge that don't meet.
this doesn't really matter, however, because the average joe going to buy an axe for knocking around the woodshed won't care about the edge, and it is better for it to be robust since it is probably going to be used primarily for splitting, and likely to hit rocks and things. for the blade enthusiast, it is better because it allows you to grind exactly the kind of edge you want on it, by leaving plenty of meat there for you to work with.
you can see about how big it is here. i'm around 73-74" tall.
closeup of the original edge:
some wood chopping with the stock edge. i gave up at this point because it was taking more effort than with my thinned out fiskars 14":
i looked up on their website to see what all of their models are, and found this:
"Ground on our own stone wheels, we provide you with a factory edge like no other axe on the market today." - i have mentioned before, based on handling these axes in the store, that it appears as though the edges are ground on a bench grinder. the bevels are thick and rough, and generally there are large burrs or parts of the edge that don't meet.
this doesn't really matter, however, because the average joe going to buy an axe for knocking around the woodshed won't care about the edge, and it is better for it to be robust since it is probably going to be used primarily for splitting, and likely to hit rocks and things. for the blade enthusiast, it is better because it allows you to grind exactly the kind of edge you want on it, by leaving plenty of meat there for you to work with.
you can see about how big it is here. i'm around 73-74" tall.
closeup of the original edge:
some wood chopping with the stock edge. i gave up at this point because it was taking more effort than with my thinned out fiskars 14":
