SECRETS! Axe Companies WON'T Tell You! MIND BLOWING!

[Music] so everybody welcome back so today before we get into our video i just want to say thanks to all the new subs a lot of you just bounced over here from buck and billy ray's channel and i really appreciate it it means a lot for you guys to click on that subscribe button and watch my content so i hope you'll stick around and see what we got going on around here so in today's video we're gonna do some axe maintenance and i'm gonna show you guys how to prepare a brand new axe for service so we pretty much have four brand new axes here i have used three of them um i didn't do my normal routine when i got them i just kind of used them out of the box more for testing i kind of wanted to test them straight from the factory and see how they worked whenever you buy a brand new axe you have to keep in mind that the company is selling this axe to the masses it may not be set up the way you want it but they set it up so that it fits for many people let me elaborate so most brand new axes are going to come to you with some sort of coating on the handle from the factory and a generic edge on the bit now they do this for a couple reasons the coating is to help protect the wood as well as keep it clean people are going to be picking these things up in the store they don't want fingerprints in the wood dirty hands whatever so they put either wax or varnish on the handles and this helps to keep that axe handle looking new throughout its shelf life once you get it it's it's your job to either use it as is or remove the factory finish and put your own finish on it i believe this has been this way for a very long time the other thing is the edge is going to be generic it's not necessarily going to be razor sharp like this none of these axes are razor sharp and it might not have the angle on it that you wanted it just depends on the intended use of the axe on where they'll set the edge geometry from the factory generally they will set the edge in a safe geometry for longevity and within the tolerances of what the intended use are meaning a thinner bit is going to be for chopping a much more pronounced bit is going to be for splitting again it's your job to set the edge of that axe now i also believe that that practice has been going on since the beginning i think they always shipped axes out with a general edge on them and it was up to the end user to sharpen that axe and i say that because i've collected many many axes that have never seen a file or a sharpening stone in their entire lives and i'm talking axes 40 50 60 80 years old they just escaped the grinder so i believe it's always been our job as a user to set this tool up to perform the way we want it to perform you have to excuse the background there's some people practicing their second amendment none of this is a deal breaker for me i don't mind setting these tools up or playing with them to get them the way i want them to work price really doesn't matter a company is going to charge whatever they have to charge for that axe in order to stay in business it gets a little sticky there because there are some quality control issues that could be avoided with many manufacturers at the price points that they're at but that's for a different video let's go ahead and do some maintenance to these axes and i'll show you a few things that you can do to these to really dial them in and get them to perform very well all right so first thing i'm gonna do is just clean these things off you'll have to excuse me because i've been using these in some pretty uh wet conditions so they got put away a little dirty so i'm just gonna take a stiff brush here and knock off the heavy dirt on this alder adler super splitter i have a video on this thing being used i absolutely love it it's my go-to maul for splitting wood so [Music] all right now i'm just gonna wipe these guys down got all the heavy mud and grime off of them these are just uh double towels i i like these things they work really good for a lot of things i think this adler's got a coating on the steel which is fine with me i'll i don't care helps keep it from rusting i guess ideally you want to do this right after you use them so don't do like me let them sit but if you can try to maintain your maintain your equipment as you go just peel that sticker off right now it's coming off anyway oh [Music] okay so we got all our uh axes that we've used cleaned up they're ready to prepare so we'll just pretend from this step forward that these were brand new axes like i said i i did take these out and use them as they came from the factory the adler it really needs nothing i'm just doing maintenance to it we're not going to change the edge geometry the the edge is uh perfect i i'm not one to put a uh a real sharp edge on my uh mauls i might hit that with the stone a little bit i don't know just to get just the edge of it some bite but we really don't need to change the geometry of the edge and the handle does not have any coating on it i believe they use bold linseed oil from the factory so all we're going to do with the adler maybe touch that edge with a stone hit it with a strap and put a coat of snake juice on it now the other three axes we have to do a little bit of work to to get them where i want them to perform we're we're going to strip the handles we might uh change the geometry of the edges a little i don't know we'll see but we're certainly going to sharpen them they are not really sharp i mean they're sharp but they're not they're not sharp now the last axe that we have is a brand new grants for brook american felling axe and i did an unboxing of this video but i lost the audio so there was a lot that i said about this axe that's kind of lost but we'll just do a quick recap i'll bring you guys in closer just so you can see so this is one of those axes that i've always wanted and i put off buying until recently i just picked it up overall weight of this thing is 4.6 pounds i believe is what they rate it at on the website which means the heads probably around three and a half 3.2 pounds somewhere around that range and it comes on either a straight or curved handle and we're right about 31 and a half inches long i chose the straight handle i prefer a straight handle it does come with a leather sheath it's adequate but it's not the nut you know the greatest it's just in leather but it works it keeps your edge protected the edge on this is sharp but it's not like it used to be back in the day it is sharp back in the day grants force when you bought a grants first axe this edge would be a mere polish it would it would be absolutely beautiful and nowadays this is what you get it's it's a grind finish it's it's not it's not mere polish it's not stupid sharp they used to come stupid sharp and when when i say stupid sharp i mean like don't touch the edge because you're going to need a band-aid for whatever reason they come like this now that's that's what we've got the hang on it is is decent except for it does have a gap in the back of the eye and that gap does run all the way to the top that's not ideal the wedge is actually holding the handle from rocking that's i don't know we'll see if that's going to be a problem or not if it is i'll fix it also they did away with the barrel wedges they no longer well at least on this model they don't put a barrel wedge in it which is fine with me again i don't really use wedges until i need them so we'll see now the hang is proud and the top of the sorry guys the top of the eye does swell out beyond the axe so it should be a good hang overall if it weren't for those gaps it'd be perfect the grain orientation is very good it does have a mix heartwood sapwood handle which i i don't care it it's fine now grants first handles do not come coated with any varnish or waxes i believe they just use boiled linseed oil so very good all we'll do to this handle is give it a light coat of snake juice now the handle is thick it is much thicker than one of my killinger handles but we're going to see how it performs like that before i do anything if if the head stays tight and i decide the handle's too thick for my liking i'll do an octagon to this handle i'll octagona handle and i'll be able to save the logo when i octagon it i won't have to do any work over the logo so maybe maybe a future video on that we'll see if you guys are interested keep knocking things around so the only thing we really need to do to this ax to get it ready to perform i want to check the edge geometry but we're going to sharpen it or at least hone that edge a little keener and put a light coat of snake juice on it but let's check the edge real quick guys remember our axe hanging maintenance kit video i'll put a link put a card up there for you guys to check that out if you want to build yourself one of these kits so i'm guessing this thing's probably probably around 20 or less so let's go ahead and start with 20. i can't get good yeah it's not 22. 17 5. i'm going to say that's right about 20 degrees what do you guys think 20 18 to 20 degree grind on that thing so that thing is is uh that's a narrow grind that's this this axe is obviously meant for uh felling so that's pretty cool all right let's get uh let's get to work all right first thing we're gonna do is strip off strip off let's start with this one strip off whatever whatever this finish is and all i'm using here to get this sticker out of the way because that's that's going to fall off anyway i'm here he's in here oh you guys can't see me all i'm using here is what they call a card scraper uh you can it's a woodworking tool trying to find the best burr oh that one's good we're just going to work our way around this handle until all of this coating i believe it's a wax that they use get this wax off [Music] the nice thing about using a scraper is you don't have to sand this thing leaves a smooth finish now we'll note that if you're going to change anything about your handle like thin it out or octagon it now's the time to do it don't scrape this and then do it go ahead and do your your modifications of the handle and then uh you can finish it off with a scraper instead of sanding i'm not going to change these handles i'll i'll just run them the way they are for right now they're adequate my guess is these handles will probably come loose at some point and i'll just put killinger handles on them [Music] quick intervention here you might be asking yourself why strip the coating off of the handle what's what's the point you know if it's protecting the wood just leave it on and that's a very good question but the problem with those types of coatings waxes or varnishes is it's slippery so you can't get a really good grip on the handle whereas if you strip it off and use a natural finish such as boiled linseed oil pie and tire even some of the more oily waxes like a paste wax you get a much better grip on that handle so that's why we're going through the trouble of removing this varnish or wax whatever it is bye be one trick for getting your uh varnish off your end grain is to just grab your mill bastard file foul right file right across the green [Laughter] i want to be sure to get that all off so that your coating will whatever you use bowling seed oil snake juice whatever will soak into that end grain all right one down three to go nice clean raw handle get some finish on that here when we get them all [Music] ready right guys this one here got a little bit of an over strike my bad so before we uh strip this handle which this thing really doesn't feel like it has anything on it but we're gonna clean it up anyways i'm gonna go ahead and fix this over strike smooth it out and hopefully not do it again [Music] good as new that's what's great about thick handles can't even tell all right next thing to do now that i've got the handles all stripped of the factory finish i'm going to [Music] sharpen these axes now there's a lot of different ways that you can do this and i do a bunch of different methods depending on what's going on um i'm not going to change the geometry of any of these axes they all work for their intended use where they're at the only one i don't know about is the grand source and i doubt that i'm gonna take that thing any any thinner than it is so all i'm basically doing is refining these edges and uh putting a little bit of a polish on them because i can't so there's a lot of ways to do this like i said i'm going to use my 2x72 and i'm going to do that because well i have one and two i have a lot of axes here to do at once and if it was just one axe i would take the time to to use a stone but i can get a better edge with the 2x72 now all i'm using here i'll show you this is a kmg variable speed 2x72 and on it i have these are scotch brite belts and all these are surface conditioning belts so they remove very little metal but they will remove a lot of scratches sanding scratches which is all i want to do i just want to take this the sanding scratches out of the bits and put a little bit of a mirror polish on those so that's what i'm going to use uh maybe sometime i don't know in the future maybe i'll do a axe sharpening video but there's a lot of them out there and guys you don't need this this stuff to do this um you can do this you can get a mirror polish by hand using sandpaper um certain stones there's a lot of ways of doing this and you don't need a mirror polish by the way that's not necessary just sharp is necessary but i'm going to do a mirror polish anyways just because um so yeah so let's get to it [Music] [Music] [Music] all right guys get them all roughly polished these aren't going to be perfect for by any means i always find if i do more than one one at a time i don't spend as much time as i would if if i just just did one but these are all user axes the polishes the mirror polish is going to get rubbed off anyway you're in use so it's not that critical i'm just going for [Music] sharks these are going to be plenty sharp uh so this is a felt belt and this is green compound so i'll hit all the edges on the felt belt with the green compound and then i'll hand strop every one of them and then they'll be razor sharp [Music] all right that's enough noise for now boy it's getting it's warm finally all right so next halls this is is a leather strop that i made uh nice piece of leather a little green compound and we're just going to hit the edge this helps me i don't know why but for some reason i can't get the burr all the way with that felt belt on the 2x72 and this helps me get it yeah this is not very mere polished but it is sharp um [Applause] you get the idea okay everything is tuned sharpened whatever clean it's all ready to go so now we're going to finish the handles put some uh killinger snake juice you could use whatever you want i i prefer snake juice out obviously because it's it's an old recipe that works well before i put it on i'm going to take uh some 4 hot steel wool i'm just going to rub every handle down real good with the 4 oz steel wool kind of burnish it if you will get any snagly edges off there furry edges makes it nice and smooth cleans off any dirt or polishing compound whatever might be something on there just give it a good rub we're not going furniture grade here i just want a nice clean smooth surface surface well i can't talk well i can't tell you how much nicer that handle feels already [Music] a little thick still but i didn't really work on that [Music] be afraid to put a little bit of elbow grease in this part watch your edges they're sharp [Music] all right guys i like to put this on and light coats and let it dry a little bit and then i'll go back and coat it some more these lighter color handles will darken up over time give it let them get their own patina you don't need to force this on them no they'll get it they've already gone pretty dark from where they were but over time you'll get some wear on them several layers of whatever it is you use to treat your handles with and it will darken that sapwood hickory right up it'll look just like that heartwood hickory that's on that grands force i do like that darker color now you can also burn these that's that's personal choice i'm not a big fan of burning handles i don't really it's just not my thing i i do it sometimes it just depends on the project this is not the case if you notice while i was treating the handles i went ahead and coated the heads with some of the snake juice it is an oil so it helps prevent the heads from rusting now if i was going to use this to cut food i probably wouldn't use the snake juice on the head just saying i wouldn't drink this stuff anyways so i'm just about done with these handles here i'm just gonna do one more quick coat on everything and then we'll let them dry overnight and then i'll probably hit them again tomorrow so the old adage on how much bold linseed oil to put on your handles and i guess that would i guess it would carry over for any finish you use is once a day for a week once a week for a month then once a month for a year you know if you could keep track of that more power to you what i like to do is get a couple good coats [Music] and then every time i use the axe clean it all up maintain it like we did in the beginning of the video and then go ahead and give the handle a good coat of your favorite finish and this will keep your handles looking good keep them preserved for many years if i have axes that i don't use much every now and then i'll pull them off the shelf if they don't have a varnish on them i'll pull them off the shelf and give them a couple coats of oil and call it good all right i'm going to wrap this up here and then we'll do our final step what was i saying give me a second guys we'll finish this up all right guys last thing we're going to do treat our sheath if you have a axe sheath or a mask whatever you want to call it you're going to want to condition it i like to use openoff's heavy duty lp it's uh just lovely the smell it is uh non-hazardous and it does a fantastic job on leather so we're just going to rub it in these will be real easy real quick because they are very small and kind of chintzy but it is what it is and it's better than nothing oh i don't mind getting my hands involved here with this i like to rub it in get a good coat on there and we'll let it dry and buff it out and that's all there is to it [Music] all right guys that's all there is to it this i've been out here all day uh with the exception of about a two-hour excursion i had to go pick up some red elm axe handles those will be hitting the website soon anyways don't be like me and let it get too many axes that need to be done at once it's best to do this one at a time because you'll spend more time and get a better result uh these aren't bad but i could have gotten a better polish on this grand source and i may still do that later on but it's good enough for now i'm gonna go swing this thing i want to test this thing out i've been waiting for this axe for a long time so that's it that's how to properly tune and maintain new axes it's really not that difficult don't be discouraged when you get a new axe and it's not the way you want it to be just make it the way you want it to be even if if you get it and the handle's not right rehang it like i i know you paid money for a tool that you feel should be ready to go out of the box but that's just not reality i don't know that it ever was i think axes had always been the end user's responsibility to tune them but i feel your frustration calm down make it the way you want it the only other thing i want to do now that we have razor sharp edges on these axes is make sheets for every one of them and i think what i'll do is shoot a video on that i have an idea for a super simple leather sheath that anybody can make and it'll be very cheap to build so i think we'll shoot a video on that next we'll get some sheets made up for these axes and uh that's a done deal i will eventually make an absolute custom sheath for this grants force because i can but for right now i'm just going to run with what's on there but i will eventually put a really nice custom heavy duty probably do some tooling something like that something cool all right guys hope you enjoyed this video that's it we'll see you guys next video [Music]

Channel: Killinger

Views: 22,359

Keywords: chainsaw, powersaw, homestead, farm, tractor, logging, firewood, axe, killinger, leather, handmade, maker, leathergoods, diy, selfreliance

Id: MNHtGXyMG20

Length: 34min 29sec (2069 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2022