Survival Instructor Tells 3 Things You Should be Doing to Your Axe: Axe Care, Oil for Axe

what's up guys dan here and we're at the shop today and the reason we're at the shop and not out in the woods is because today's project is something you're going to be doing at home or at your shop or maybe in your garage probably not maybe on your living room floor i [Music] mean what we're going to be talking about today is axe care specifically axe handles we're going to talk about three ways three ways not two three ways that you can take care of your ax handles things that i learned over the years things you should be doing with your axe handles so let's uh get started with it all right so number one when it comes to axe handles is the possibility you might need to prep them before you can do anything else to them now all my axes i have already done this if it was actually needed and that is removing the lacquer from the axe handle so i have this um end of an axe handle i don't even know where this thing came from but it's gonna get the point across this thing still has lacquer on it lacquer and axe handles equals super bad what happens with the lacquered ax handle is that after prolonged use you start to get hot spots on your hands those hot spots then turn into blisters and then that means just you're not going to want to use your axe because your hands are going to be absolutely trash so we want to avoid that if possible now you might be thinking why is there lacquer on axe handles anyway so if you buy a very high quality axe or a custom-made axe from an axe maker most likely the handles do not have any lacquer on them but if you buy an ax at a big box store you're probably gonna find lacquer the reason why is because these larger companies that make tons of axes and they're sitting in hardware stores on shelves for a long amount of time um they're trying to just protect the handles it's also gonna prolong the handles life for just the common person so we're bushcrafters we love our axes we're gonna actually take care of them but uncle joe who's just out in the backyard smashing stuff with the axe and throws it back in the shed um that lacquer is gonna be fine for him on his axe so let me show you how to get rid of lacquer quick and easy and then we can get on to the other things we need to do okay so with your lacquered ax handle okay um you got a couple different options here number one you can grab sandpaper but that is a total nightmare legit nightmare so there's much better options number one if you have a sharp spine on your knife you know we use that out in the field for shaving branches also making shavers with fat wood and stuff like that so you can really easily take this and just scrape along the handle itself what that's going to do is that's going to remove all that lacquer and get you down to bare wood now if you don't want to sit and do that with your knife they also you can go to a local woodworking shop or even probably just check online they do sell something called a scraper it's literally just a piece of metal that has 90 degree edge all the way around it they make them square they make them rectangle they make them curved and this will do a good job scraping off all that lacquer okay so you just work around your axe this way and you're really quickly going to start to see that lacquer disappear and a raw wood come through so that's what you're looking for now it does get a little bit more difficult down around the bottom and this is like a on what i say high risk area which you're going to talk about here in a little bit um you still want to try your best to try to get that off see what direction the grain is running and what the best way is for you to do that this might require a file or some sandpaper here even though sandpaper is going to take a lot longer it's just tough with these scrapers to actually get around all these curves without destroying this too much so take your time with it enjoy the process and then move on to step two all right so if you bought an axe without lacquer on the handle or you already went through that step the next thing you're going to want to do is treat the handle of the axe with something now the go-to thing to treat your axe handle with is this stuff boiled linseed oil i don't know who came up with that being the like the thing that you use on axe handles but they were sort of right and sort of wrong so the purpose of putting boiled linseed oil on your axe handle is it's going to help preserve the handle think of treating the wood so if you leave the wood raw over time it can absorb water absorb moisture and that's a bad thing when it comes to wood so think of adding this almost like putting deck sealant on your deck you know you're trying to preserve it longer so this of course it does it works really really well okay you put it on a rag or you put it on your hand and you rub it into the axe handle itself make sure you get the grain side and the top near the eye it's really going to absorb a lot of that oil there let it sit for a while and then just wipe it off now if you're like me and you got over anxious with this when you first start the whole bushcraft journey axe thing um you put on boiled linseed oil and you just let it sit there for a while and what you realize when you go back is your axe is super super sticky not good then you're trying absolutely everything to clean up your axe so i came up with a little bit better of a solution now i don't know if i came up with this or not i have heard this through the grapevine over the years so i don't take all the credit but if you take boiled linseed oil and you take turpentine and you mix the two you end up with this like watery golden mixture okay um that is absolutely wonderful for your axe handles now what's so nice about this mixture and i wasn't just pouring it on the floor guys but you can take your axe and you literally can just soak it in here now of course my axe handle's in there but remember that eye is super important to get treated so you can just let this soak in you can coat your ax with it and then just set it somewhere outside or on a rack and let it drip dry the turpentine will dry the oil out and not leave a sticky residue so that's like a super pro tip for everybody there so mix the two together one part of boiled linseed oil one part turpentine so that means just a can of each and then you have yourself a great concoction for coating your axe handles okay so a couple things now just i wanted to touch base with axe handles and coating them so again i can't stress enough get the end grain of each side and then the handle itself just make sure you cover that you'll see it absorbs a little bit but this is where it's going to absorb a lot of this mixture now having the school and having the property we can leave tools out super long term in all weather conditions what i can tell you from doing that is when an axe handle actually breaks and it rots where that always happens all the time is where the axe handle goes into the head because you can't get enough of the boiled linseed oil or whatever you're using up inside so it's really important that every so often especially when you're done at tripping wet conditions that you take your axe and you soak at least this plus the head in this concoction for a day maybe even two days and let all that oil get down inside there that is really the point that becomes the weakest over time the head breaks off and then you've got to get that out so although this is important down inside the head is even more important tip number three is longer term axe storage super important for your handles so you're going to get axe handles that have a lanyard hole and you might be wondering well what am i why do i even have that on there right because very rarely you're going to put with the larger axe like this you're going to use the lanyard itself but they're there for an actual purpose and then you're also going to have some axes or hatchets that just don't have anything um no hole so we're going to talk about those too now one way to really destroy an axe handle and again this is extended long-term type stuff is leaning it up against the wall somewhere where there's actual pressure from the top here and the head is pressing what that will do over time is that will warp your handle now that can also happen um if you keep it out in a shed there's moisture in the wood you have it laying there you have other stuff laying against it so that is an absolute no-no what i say is axes that don't have the lanyard hole in them you should always store them by just laying them flat somewhere that is going to be one of the best things that you can do now for the axes with a lanyard hole okay um very easily you can hang them i have in this case a pegboard but you can just put a nail in somewhere and hang your axe this is going to ensure that that handle stays nice and straight so that's really what that hole is put there for and then of course you can do the same thing with screws or nails for the axes that don't have any lanyard holes and you can just hang them around like this of course i would say probably keep a sheath on but uh you get my point all right my friends and there you go there are three tips for taking care of your axe handle not only when you first buy it but how to maintain it and then also for that long term storage so i hope you utilize these um i learned the hard way with some of these um things over the years so that's why i wanted to share with you so you can bypass all that and just get back to enjoying the outdoors so um thanks for joining me if you like this video hit the like button hit subscribe also click that notification bell so you get updated on all our videos check us out over at coldcrackerbushcraft.com for all our merchandise and our classes and uh until the next video stay in the woods stay in the shop something i'm so far from the camera i got to crawl across the workbench now without knocking everything you

Channel: Coalcracker Bushcraft

Views: 113,664

Keywords: Coalcracker Bushcraft, Dan Wowak, Appalachian Bushman School, Camping, Hiking, Survival, Bushcraft, Survival Skills, Bushcraft Skills, outdoorlifestyle, survivalinstructor

Id: Se7Rrvo0pu8

Length: 9min 53sec (593 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 11 2022