Cheap Mods For A Cheap Axe

hey everybody coming at you from my backyard with a semi exciting video now uh last time that I was at Smoky Mountain knife works I was looking around all the axes on the wall and I gotta say I was kind of disappointed because I went up there to look at the Condor axes and they only had two axes and they had a few counsel total axes and just over the wall was kind of bare and they didn't have minion boxes I was very very surprised so the axe I went to look for they didn't have they had a few grains fours a few wetterling's that had the council toes well then off to the side I saw these cool-looking little uh little bitty backpacking style axes and I thought what is that it's weird and I hid stickers on them said El Salvador and I thought they'll Salvador is that Condor and it wasn't Condor was marbles anyway they had two marbles up there and I didn't know that these things even existed I thought marbles just had those a weird orange handle looking things well anyway they had a row of these up here that the marbles said mo for and 7:03 now the difference between the 704 and 703 is the 703 had an 18-inch handle and a 704 had a 20-inch handle and I thought well this that's something else I said that's that's pretty neat and I tried researching what the head weighs and I don't know what the head was but it is a Hudson Bay pattern and I love Hudson Bay pattern for backpacking axes because there's so much smaller here but the bit part that where the bevel is is so much bigger and just a little terminology this is the toe this is the heel as it comes down this is called the beard this is the Belleville or the bit the back of it is the pole the hole is too high of the axe the handle is actually called the highest and down on the bottom of the handle I think that's called the knob somewhere I had heard that if you have a bulge up here that's called the bowl box where you can hold on to it for carving but anyway enough the term terminology anyway yes it's a date and pattern and it's a funny thing whenever I buy axe I don't never order one I get one in person because I want the grain to be in line with the head you don't want it going this alloys because if the grain is 90 degrees to the head as you're cutting if you hit something with it it tends to break a lot quicker so you'll want the grain going this way it's a lot harder to break so I had I had the employee there pulling off the wall and I was looking at it and I said I looked at this the 7:03 first and then I I said what's the difference in 703 in the 704 and they didn't have a close and I said well hand me one of them so I held the two I held the two up against each other and it turns out that's when I found out later on that said mode 3 is an 18 inch 1/2 and the 704 is a 20 inch 1/2 now the 18 inch was 20 bucks yeah 20 99 which is pretty cheap and the one that was just 2 inches longer the 20 inch was $23.99 I thought that's ridiculously reasonable for a ax with a American hickory handle made in El Salvador and as soon as it said El Salvador I thought it was made I thought it was the same factory that made the Condors and I heard a rumor that it's the same factory that the Mikasa blades are amazing in not real sure I can't verify that well anyway they got to pulling them out of the boxes and I was looking at the grain of the handles and some handles were aunt Shura some 2 inches longer some of the 704 s were 18-inch some of the 703 s were like 16 inch I mean the handles were just all over the place so I just this is actually 20 inch so I actually grabbed this one because the grain is going in the proper direction but anyway I think this is a real neat little handle because sometimes sometimes the heads are too big sometimes they're too small sometimes the hats are too long sometimes the the head is not in line with the handle but I like this little axe I bought it and incidentally I was shocked you're most of the time you're not going to get a real good deal Smoky Mountain knife works but the ax is the 18 inch that was 20 bucks is actually 39 dollars on Amazon I couldn't believe it and then the 20 inch was 36 on Amazon but 23 Smoky Mountain knife works so I'm glad I bought it in person I haven't done much with it but a lot of times I'll be doing things on video or I'm going to do things in and I'm like think later yeah I should have made a video out of that so what I'm gonna do this is I'm gonna treat the handle and I'm gonna I'm gonna repro file the head or sharpen it a little bit better it's very very convex and with a convex grind like that that's good for a real heavy head but when you've got a real small head on a real light X I like to give it more of a flat bevel so I'm gonna profile that I'm gonna try to get rid of a little bit of that curve right there and I'm also gonna make the cheap little sheath fork because it didn't come with a sheet okay so I have rambled on for five minutes and what I'm gonna do first off I'm gonna start on and we'll try to make a a real cheat sheet for it and then we'll move on from layer all right now we're in the house were sitting in the basement and the floor on the dirty carpet right near the sewing machine now first step up is I want to try to make a sheath for this thing now a lot of times I try to make one have a cord area but I just happen to remember that I had a bunch of these pieces of leather that a friend of mine gave me years ago and they had snaps installed in them and they snaps what these were intended for is so that you could roll them over and snap them and you can use them for pop holders for your pans you just slide them on you can you know hold a hot pan over the fire with the leather like that okay now I got a couple of more mixed in with my camping stuff and so what I'm thinking these ones with the double snaps I'm gonna I'm gonna leave them alone what I'm thinking is in fact I can use this one right here and what I'm thinking is that I'm going to make a strip out of this one and what I'm thinking about doing is figuring out a way of cutting this to where it folds over like this and I'm gonna trim it up I'm going to sell it across so it across the top here and cut it and sew it across the bottom here and then I'm going to cut this other side off and use this as a snap and sew it to go completely around here all right so that's that's the game plan that's what I think I'm going to try to do now normally now I did mention in another video about using sale made a sale needles are the ones that are a real real heavy three sided needle that's made for someone sales at a heavy canvas they've got a large eye in them and to me that's pretty good for sewing that's pretty good for sewing leather with artificial seen you okay does a good job on it but ah this leather is not real real thick leather it's a it's kind of a soft leather so I've got some very extremely heavy polyester thread and I'm just gonna try to do it on the sewing machine so I'm gonna cut this real quick let's see if we can just cut this right well cut it like just kind of eyeball it right here just a quick sloppy job because you know it's a cheap axe and I just I want something to keep it from getting cut in the pack okay so I've got this button on one side right here so what I'm gonna do with this is I'm gonna put this over here and I want it pretty much in the center line of this some will pull it over like that and I'm gonna hope I got enough now I don't have enough to come around so I'm going to sew it twice I'm going to cut some this off the bottom and I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go ahead and cut it up here Emel cut it right right here kind of hard to do everything on the camera I'm gonna cut the top of it all I say I'm cutting two through two layers with normal scissors so that kind of leads me to believe that I can sew this stuff pretty good so what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna I'm gonna lengthen this strip I'm just kind of working with what I have around here I'm gonna I'm gonna lengthen this and this would be a good test to see if my sewing machine will sew it and then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna come around on the backside here and sew it on and then this is gonna come all the way around well there still ain't gonna be long enough I may have to cut off even more I tell you one of the first thing I'll do is I'm gonna sew right across the top here and we'll see if that works okay oh there for those of you that might picture me is neat and organized I just want you to know that it's okay to be a slob because this is my sewing table this is exactly how how I store all of my sewing supplies or reason I'm showing you this because I'm just gonna show you here I'm the navel size I'm using is a 100 - 16 it's a pretty thick navel you're supposed to use a leather needle but I I can't find one here alright well let's see if this stuff will so I'm using my new singer heavy-duty machine so let's see what it does and I hope it works it's not pushing it through yeah I think it's gonna work seems the big doing pretty dude yes thank you so it pretty good cut this off yeah I think it's gonna work pretty good grab the old axe hey it don't work like I always say I ain't trying to win a beauty contest now I just got to cut this off somewheres down at the bottom about right about right though all right I think it's gonna work cut this off so what I have now here is a little pouch and I'm probably gonna put a plastic lining in if there's something I'll show you in a minute and there you go that fits and what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna take all them scrap pieces and I'm gonna throw them together see this will be the snap and then I'm gonna sew this to this other piece that goes around to the backside that I'm going I'm gonna put a extra piece in the back for strength to keep it from wearing out on these corners and there'll also be how I tie these two together all right now I have these two pieces here something together so I have a nice long strap here okay just making do with what I have so what I'm going to do now is I'm gonna take extra piece of leather and sew it right in the middle here so that not only will it give it extra strength but it'll give it kind of a padding so that when traps are running on when it wraps around the back of the axe it won't wire out as quick on the corners so that all right hi at that fart done this also answers the question I was asked before about my sewing machine if it would sew leather or not evidently it will come on it won't so that real Havey Havey Havey Havey leather but it'll it'll definitely so this I'm not trying to win a beauty contest now like I said I'm not trying to win a beauty contest or anything I'm just making a she for a $23 axe and it's gonna get dirty it's gonna get muddy it's gonna get screwed up so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna test this out by sliding this on here and putting this on come around here and that happens to land just perfectly on the pole of the axe if I come around to here all right that thing is gonna overhang just a little bit so what I'm wanting it to do is stretch a little so I'm gonna bring this thing over to about right there and then I'm gonna sew this part on as far as I'm concerned this will be done well that's it for the little liner that I'm gonna put in all right I think it is done I have successfully signed it onto the back so see how it fits all right let's see how it works camera I'll slide it down pull this around there goes neat cheap little a little leather sheath just made pretty cool maybe in the cheapskate that I am I always keep this all these heavy plastic containers that things come in like this a BB gun came in this one this one a axe puck hangman you know I have a whole box that I keep full of this stuff up here I keep it in a sleeping bag box and so what I'm going to do with this stuff is I picked out a piece that's pretty thick and see this stuff it just winds up in the dump anyway so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna cut out a piece and fold it over and I'm gonna slide it inside the yes and I think I can get it out of this one right here and it's just gonna have added protection to keep this from getting cut okay so and it also the oil from the axe if I want to keep it old it'll absorb into this pouch and possibly get on something but the OL can be inside this plastic part and it won't it won't get in there all right cut it takes a plastic and I bent it okay so what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna cut it right here measure cut it about right here and then we'll see if it fit saying down like entrapment you can always put a little bit of glue on here let's see if I can way just pace up inside here yeah I think it'll hey I'll stay in there yeah we've got a nice plastic lining in there let's grab behind slide the axe up in there stretch it around and there you go say knife it cuts through the plastic on the inside the liver will be there to protect it okay it's not beautiful but it'll it'll work I could probably trim them corners just a little bit to make it look better let's do that barely trim that one tree Man 1 let's trim this one still on camera trim that one it kind of makes it look a little bit neater there you go I kind of like the look of that better see that lure there's no problem alright and that's how you might go quick junky little sheet a sheath part done now the leather sheath covering so the next step what I'm gonna do is uh thankfully this has no kind of clear finish on it I don't like them clear finishes because they make it to where you have to grip it even harder because it'll slip out of your hands but the wood does need some kind of treatment now luckily what this is here is it's just pure American Hickory so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take a little sandpaper I'm just gonna kind of scuff it up a little bit I like out here on the end where it's real rough almost try to sand it just a little bit smoother now some people use a mixture of tung oil and citrus oil which is good but I'm not because I don't have any but the second best thing is a bald linseed oil okay I don't know about raw linseed oil I've never used it but I've always used the boiled linseed oil that's some good stuff right there and you can ply it with a rag or you can apply it with one of these el cheapo versus Hoover so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to kind of stuff around on this a little bit more and then I'm gonna put a coating of that on and then I'm gonna let it sit for like 24 hours or longer you know you're in the summer it'll dry pretty good in like 24 hours wintertime takes like three days let's say I got my boiled linseed oil here and I've just got a little cat just a little paint Cup it really doesn't take much so what I'm gonna do is just pour a little bit in this cap right in the center and I'm gonna take some here and I'm gonna dab a little bit right here on the eye like a city really doesn't take much cuz it's just your so this isn't all that you're soaking in nice and shiny protectant and that's all you do is you just rub it down as you can see it doesn't take much I'm just rubbing I'm doing the whole side right here and see when I come back out here in 24 hours if it's not completely dry then all I got to do is all I have to do is rub it down with a towel paper towel or something or a rag and get the excessive off of it but this should keep it this should protect it and it'll make it easier to use so I wind up with just the right amount and what I'll do is I let this sit then we'll get back onto our project and about a day think I got it all covered as long as I don't have bubbles in it it'll it'll be good that's all you're gonna do so here we are three days lighter and I've got the axe it's been sitting up here upright just like this okay it's mostly dry and if it ever doesn't completely dry you'll want to wipe the stickiness off with a towel or rag or paper towel or something and I haven't got much off of this now had been if this had just been one day I think I would have gotten a lot of the stickiness off of this thing but it's it's it's it's soaked in pretty good right there now a couple of words on the board linseed oil if you use if you sand the wood and it's bearable it and you use bold linseed oil it should dry in about a day or two okay what you want to do is you want to you want to put it on in light coats now if you have something like say any of your wood handled now and axes and things can be coated but let's say for example that you have a knife that you're going to coat okay some people think that they're tempted to take this and dip it into the boiled linseed oil and leave it and let it soak don't ever do that never because it'll take about a year for it to dry because it'll soak through the lens seed oil soak soak soak soak through the wood and then when you pull it out the outer later layer will dry but the inner layers will never dry and it'll always be seeping out okay so you don't want to do that what you want to do is put on a thin layer wait two days thin layer wait two days okay one layer of this is enough for me because it's enough to protect it and it's enough good enough for my hands now raw linseed oil contains no drying agents so if you ever use raw linseed oil you need to add like some acetone or some kind of a drying agent I think there's some stuff called Japan dryer I think but you have to add that boiled linseed oil you wipe it on thin coat that's it it dries you're done all right so now the final step what I'm gonna do to this axe is I'm gonna we're gonna work on the edge of just a little bit reprofiling the edge most axes will come with a convex edge where its ground kind of over like this all right now my thoughts my opinions is if you have an axe head that is over like two pounds I think this is like three and a half pounds yeah this is a three and a half pound Sager if you have a big heavy axe head it's it's good to have that convex edge on it and I think it's weird some hatchets even huge heads on this is a 2-pound if you have something that's two-pound or or or over a convex ages okay with me but this is about a pound and a half or a pound in for a quarter you can see the difference and then the handles there's a huge difference in the handles okay but with really small heads I like a flat bevel because you don't have the white behind it and you it's got a little bit of length to it button but not full-length but I'm gonna repro file this and kind of put a flat bevel because like I said I don't know what y'all think but to me it's just a personal opinion the smaller lightweight heads to me they just do better so we're going to clamp it to the bench and I'm gonna I'm gonna put some flats on it what I'm gonna do is I'm going to clamp this thing down with a seat clamp to my bench chair now some people may be tempted to take an axe to a bench grinder but that's not a good idea because you can get out of control quick with the bench grinder okay and another thing is you're gonna put way too much heat into this and you're gonna mess up the template so your best bet is to use a file okay I'm gonna start out with a coarse one then maybe finish with a fine one but what you want to do is how this has got that that that that rounded off part what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna kind of work my way through here and then we'll thin it out especially up here at the top now I'm putting pressure on the file as I'm pushing and I'm kind of lightly dragging it back I'm not putting a bunch of pressure on it on the way back and then gonna take much I'm gonna pull you in close and show you something right here now the idea behind thinning this thing out is I'm gonna take a magic marker right here and I've already done some but there's the factory edge okay so let's just color this whole thing in okay with a black sharpie so you can get an idea of what I'm doing okay you say what I'm doing now I've got this whole thing black and I said what I'm doing now is I'm gonna take this and as I'm falling what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna leave what's called a land now what I land is is a lion this is just a tiny tiny time any spot on the end I'm not gonna file all the way down to it all I'm wanting to do is just remove that hump and kind of flatten this out a little bit and as you can see that right there is already pretty much the bottom half is doing okay so what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna switch over to this fine file five files also newer and used like this I'm coming all the way around the right here and if you ever feel it getting warm stop and I'm not failing to getting one a little bit hey in this part I offer let's go ahead and put the magic marker on here so you can't see what I'm doing the top part is extremely thick maybe this will help you out in the future so I can tell I can feel this taking on air goes I was putting a lot more pressure up on the top part and then from time to time you want to take a wire brush and clean your file and that's that that's it I'll flip over and do the other side off-camera and then I'll take a stone to it and that is basically how you thin out and a lightweight axe and put a bevel on it alright so I'm just finishing up the other side there you go that clamp didn't seem tight enough that's better so what I got now is I got a UH I got a stone that I keep in hold a good container is this is a container that gutter nails came ahem don't ever throw anything water no wait let's use this out when I don't want to use that listen has a thinner old now sometimes I also keep one of those cheap brushes in here because it's neat that you can slather some Omega and it's also neat for that whenever you pull the styling out of here you can wipe some of the s excessive off and then I just like that there then all I'm gonna do is this right here I go in one direction and then in another direction that's how you keep it nice and fly it all right let's see what we got here now let me wipe it off and it honestly doesn't take that much effort on the small acts like this to make it sharp now this is a Norton medium India stone sometimes that's what's a really good finish element it's a real hard stone what's right now for the final passes I'm gonna drag away from the edge with an India stone that wafers any burrs [Applause] feels good to me all right let's go out and chop something now don't want to get a bunch of stuff all over my handle all right we're outside and I got me a little piece of red okra here put on some Oh safety glasses here let's say how well this little light white chopper chops not bad at all that's old I think it's red oak chops like a winter to me now I'm motivated I'm doing this one-handed so I think under the right circumstances if I had to there's enough length there that I could use two handles I mean two handles two hands all right get out of here cat one chop see how this does that's awesome and that's some pretty hard oak flip it over hit the other side good clean cuts let's see now let's look at the a hmm that still looks good and there's no burrs and there's no chips so I guess I got me a good one we had fallen hope you learned a little bit of something hope you learned something that you can use you don't have to pay fortune for us well I mean there's a difference in a cheap cheap axe and a cheap good axe this one I make they make really bad cheap ones but this one right here is made in El Salvador I'm pretty sure it's a good one so with just a few simple modifications it can become a really really handy tool that thing is ready to attach to the back of my pack now hope you had fun hope you learned something and I shall see you in the next one

Channel: ReallyBigMonkey1

Views: 152,615

Keywords: axe, cutting, filing, grinding, sharpening, making a sheath, axe sheath, boiled linseed oil, handle treatment, chopping wood, outdoors, camp, camp axe, camping, backpack axe, pack axe, hiking axe, bushcraft, survival, wilderness living, fire wood

Id: 2YWcrH_KAis

Length: 33min 57sec (2037 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2017