Christmas Break Project: Hultafors Axe Sheath

As promised - part two of my Christmas project!

This would be my first attempt at a sheath for an axe still in production - so hopefully it will allow me to work on future projects with this model.

The process I used was similar to the axes that I have done in the past. The leather used is 7-8oz vegetable tanned leather, saddle stitched, and reinforced with double capped rivets at high stress points on the corners of the welt.  The only difference between this sheath and the ones the previously is that I used line 20 size rivets as opposed to 24 for the horizontal flap to be in line with the size of the sheath.

Transferring my CAD template to leather

Adding my makers mark

All dyed and ready to punch and glue.

Saddle stitching

And now for the finished product: 

Hopefully Chris the sheath is to your liking, it will be making its way back to you soon!

On a side note I have also made a pair of stainless steel firesteels that will be available on my website - a bit of an experiment between a larger handle and very compact handle.  Get em while they're hot!

Christmas Break Project: Hultafors leather handle guard

Happy holidays everyone!

Just thought I'd document some work that I'm doing for a customer I've been in contact with over the holiday break. The request was to make a leather sheath and leather handle guard for a Hultafors classic axe. I've made a number of axe sheaths in the past, but a leather handle guard would be a first for me and a fun challenge. 

There are a number of different ways a leather guard can be attached, using either paracord and eyelets to fasten it temporarily or with skein to permanently attach it to the handle, and a number of stitching methods such as cross stitch and whip stitch. I opted to go the permanent route and chose to use a baseball stitch to minimize the amount of exposed thread for durability. 

Normally when leather working I would attempt to make a template to minimize the amount of leather wasted  , but in this case it was more trouble than it was worth to try to wrap a piece of paper around the handle to get an idea of how much leather was needed. I dyed the leather with gel antique and clamped the leather down around the handle in a vise to get an idea of how much excess there would be, followed by alot checking and trimming to get the final shape.  

The final form was then dipped in wax to give it rigidity and waterproofing, then punched out for lacing with artificial sinew. One important learned while working with artificial sinew on oddly shaped pieces - get appropriately shaped needles and ones with an appropriate sized eye or you're going to need to buy more needles haha. 

The process of executing a baseball stitch is well documented in tutorials for upholstery - but below are a few pics of how I went about it. Nothing too fancy, it's like doing two whip stitches that cross one another - just make sure you tighten everything up as you go along. 

Something I probably should have documented was how to finish the stitch, but I'll the best I can to explain it and that it shows in the final picture. After reaching the last holes, double back to the second last holes, then tighten up the final loops at the end of your piece and tie the two threads together ( I used the beginning of a snake knot) as close as you can to the leather. Use a curved needle to pull the loose ends under your existing stitches to pull both the knot and the loose ends underneath ( about 4-5 stitches should be good), then carefully trim the excess. The result should be a clean final stitch where the loose ends are essentially invisible, and more importantly - protected from fraying or loosening. 

At the end of the day, the final product should be snugly to the handle with the stitches and if tightened sufficiently, slightly sunken into the leather. For extra measure I added a coating of my home made leather finish covered in my other posts, and gave the stitches a pass with a lighter to remove any frays or stray strands. All in all I think this was a successful attempt, although personally I think the stitching can be more even with practice. All that said , I'm confident that it'll serve the customer well and give the axe a classy appearance to match with the leather sheath that I will be covering shortly. Stay tuned! 

Axe Refurbishing WIP: Round Two

Hi all,

Haven't had as much time to work on projects as I'd like - but I did find a few breaks to get another axe restoration done! This time around it's a Walter Black Diamond. Doing a little homework I found out that these were among some of the finest axes made in  their time, and made in Canada! In it's original condition it looked like the owner knew what they were doing as far as taking care of tools went - edge geometry was well maintained , pitting was not too deep and the head didn't have a trillion nails for wedges stuck in it.

The handle also seemed ot be in fairly decent condition - I'll have to admit I felt bad for destroying something that was likely over twice my age, but I didn't want to take any chances with cracks of any decay which may have been occurring inside.

Great grain orientation - I can't imagine how long it took for all that linseed oil to build up that deep into the wood

 After some light filing on the poll to remove some minor mushrooming. I used electrolysis to remove the bulk of the rust.

Clean up and sharpening were more or less the same as the previous axe restoration on the True Temper, and it was onto the fitting. I fitted the head with a shorter house axe handle (~19") so that I would be able to take it on long hikes and have it be too bulky. For the size of the head, the handle was a bit short, but I figured it would do. The only thing different I did this time from the previous axe was in the finishing, leaving it at 220 grit and applying a 50/50 mix of  paraffin melted into paraffin for waterproofing. I find this method is certainly faster than applying X number of layers of linseed oil, since it takes very little time to polymerize and is fairly robust.

The axe sheath was also done similar to the previous, with the exception being that I used double cap rivets instead of chicago bolts on the areas subject to the most stress and saturated the welt with acrylic resolene to increase its cut resistance. The final finishing was also tweaked from the previous, which only used paraffin.

My original plan in finishing of the areas subject to movement was to use something called Obenauf's Leather preservative, but  being a Canuck in Canada, specialty items are tougher to get unfortunately.  After doing some research on the product, it appeared to be a mix of beeswax, propolis (bee derived resin), and some mix of oils.  To make the next best thing, I improvised and melted up some mink oil, wax, and cleaned spruce resin collected from the front yard to make a balm like concoction. The mink oil was to act as  lubrication for the leather fibers, resin as a preservative and waterproofing agent (hopefully), and the wax was for waterproofing and to tie it all together. So far results have been promising, providing decent waterproofing and buffing to a high shine, but only time will tell. Gotta love the forest-y smell though!

about 3 oz of cleaned spruce resin - the original volume in raw form was about four to five times as much due to a large proportion of air in the sap - do not melt this stuff indoors!! 

final leather finish product after mixing resin with wax and mink oil- it looks solid but is still very soft at room temperature, think lip balm in terms of consistency

Cottage Trip + Recent work

After one and a half years of no vacation, I finally had the chance to get some downtime and spent a week at a cottage with the family up in Haliburton on Kennisis Lake. A little buggy for the time of year, but the weather held out for the most part to give ample time for exploring by kayak and some hiking, BBQ, and of course campfires!

The axe I refurbished a finally got a good workout from some impromptu woodcarving. This was after finding out that the only spatula in the cottage was a horrible worn out plastic one that was leaving plastic bits in whatever we made. Luckily there were plenty of decent sized seasoned maple logs to choose from and I selected a log with what I thought had fairly straight grain. I split off a 3/8" board from it, and roughed out the profile using light chops with the axe, then final carving and scraping with a knife to dial in the tapers and give it a smooth finish. Overall not too bad for a first effort I think, but in hindsight I think this would have been easier with a hatchet or smaller axe, maybe that'll be my next project.

Spatula after initial shaping with the axe.

Finer shaping using a knife (made by me a few years ago). 

The finished product.

Cottaging aside, I just finished my most recent request for a fire kit, and came up with a new design for a bottle opener/ striker/ pocket chisel (if anyone has any ideas for a better name please let me know haha).  The design evolved from an earlier bottle opener design I made from an off cut, but with the addition of a chisel to allow for cutting, scraping, or light prying.  The tool is 1/8" O1 tool steel and the firesteel is black canvas micarta with a bright red double stripe.  The sheath itself is vegetable tanned leather and patterned similar to an earlier piece, but with the addition of a brass dee ring to allow for more carry options.

On another note, I am almost finished tuning and setting up my 2x72" TDM belt grinder that I got from Canadian Knife Maker.  After getting some belts, making a stand, and modifying the platen I'll be putting up pictures of the finished product.

Cheers!