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!

Short Thanksgiving Weekend Project (2/2): Minimalist city knife attempt #2

Just a short post on the sheath making process and some pics of the finished product. The sheath like the previous iteration is made from vegetable tanned leather, and was also made to accommodate the blade in more than one orientation to avoid accidental sheath damage.  I also attempted to make the welt for the knife somewhat thinner than the other city knife, since the overbuilt welt made the sheath somewhat bulky for the size of the knife. Since the welt was thinner however, I felt that it wouldn't hold up to use as long, I applied some full concentration acrylic resolene to try to toughen up the inner surface.  Thus far that treatment held up well for the axe sheath I made a few months ago, so hopefully it'll be more than enough for a simple light duty knife!

Punching the holes with a stitching chisel to set spacing for drilling with the drill press. 

Adding my makers mark to the back of the sheath. 

All the  components drilled and prepared for gluing and stitching! 

The welt was left oversize to minimize was from final edge finishing and getting all the layers flush with one another - easier to cut away than to add!

Saddle stitching - 1 out of 135 to go 

All stitched up and ready for final surface finishing - I applied both paraffin/ beeswax along with the neatsfoot oil/ resin/ wax mixture from my previous post on axe refurbishing. The saddle tan gel antique dye in the leather seems  to darken significantly after all the finishing and should be taken into account if you want something lighter! 

Burnished edge - the edges of the sheath were lightly chamfered using an edge beveller, after which chocolate brown leather dye was applied and run over with my home made dogwood burnishing tool. Nothing too special with the process there - wax it lightly or just dampen with water and rub it back and forth until it's the desired shape and the layers are well blended, then seal with the wax finishes. 

And now the glamour shots:

(probably the thinnest edge that I've put on a knife, no idea how thick it is but the width of the secondary bevel is barely visible) 

All in all I think this project was a success - and it'll serve many years peeling apples and opening letters. Overall, the slight changes to both the knife itself and the sheath are significant improvements over my last city knife in terms of both ergonomics and overall appearance, and I look forward to making more of these , maybe out of AEBL if time permits for a batch of them - hopefully not too far away in the future!  

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!