TESTING The Cheapest Hatchet On AMAZON

welcome back friends may that may 3rd 2019 for a Wrangler start premiere video I'm actually here with you in the comments if you're watching this live and you can answer questions Mrs W and of course LT Wrangler star which is Jack will be in the comments as well it's kind of a new format that we've been having a lot of fun with so today this was a video that was actually requested by a subscriber he wanted me to test the cheapest Hatchett on Amazon that he had purchased this and he was telling me well holla what a good deal it was what a good value was and how much he enjoyed it and if I could do a video on it so I went ahead and ordered one I found it for I think twelve dollars and some change and I thought we'd put it through its paces so let's go let's get started all right let's take a look at what we have here actually before we get started this is not let me repeat this is not the cheapest Hatchett on Amazon this one is I've actually reviewed this this is the one that I put the super edge on this is of course you're gonna see these branded under the culligan name they are sold at you've probably seen Walmart this is a hatchet you don't want if you have this I just throw it away take the edge off it use it for a doorstop there was a recall on these things and the heads come off the head is not fastened properly to the hatchet you're gonna be able to buy these things for about $10 just save your $10 it's just it's not worth having it's dangerous what nothing is more dangerous than a loose head on something if you swing this up this thing could go flying if you had children around it's just not recommended I've kept it around just I don't know why probably because I spent so much time on getting that beautiful edge on there but this is actually the cheapest hatchet but I'm not gonna really consider this because I don't like this not only because of the safety issue but once that handle is broken or gone there's nothing you can do with it you can see it doesn't have an eye in it like a traditional hatchet what's kind of intriguing about this guy at the twelve dollar range now remember guys will go on there after I do these videos and the price may change you know if Amazon they fluctuate they move around a little bit so you never know all I know is I bought this for $12 what it's going to be when you watch this video I don't know but it'd probably be at or near that but it's kind of interesting in a couple ways so I this has of course it's got a plastic handled now.i plastic handles are useless for tools I remember what I was said you had my excavating business and that I was trying you know I didn't when you sometimes he does wouldn't the wooden handles you know when you're when you are trying to make production and you'd you know leaving stuff out and you just when it's all about the money you want something that's gonna be less maintenance and that was kind of going that route and and I some of those plastic handles came out for the shovels and rakes that we would use but they were all squishy you know they would Bend and they would flex and you couldn't didn't I mean there they were terrible what's kind of interesting about this one is I was surprised how rigid it is as soon as I saw the plastic handle I mean I had like zero expectations but if you look here this is all my weight you know 205 pounds or so right there there is no flex in this thing and I got to look in I thought man this is this some sort of new fancy plastic well it's not it's just a clever trick I looked inside there and I saw white which means most likely fiberglass so this is got a fiberglass shaft inside of it that goes all the way through and actually to be honest with you a fiberglass handle is a good handle fiberglass is an amazing material my granddad's camp he had a cam packs that we had hunting for years that had a red fiberglass handle and up until I don't know who ended up with that but it was going forever so i i'm i do like fiberglass handles because they are super tough so why they didn't just make the whole thing fiberglass i don't know maybe they wanted this beautiful green color which is kind of a nice thing because you're not gonna walk off and lose this right you're gonna see it in there alright so that's kind of cool so it's actually a pretty decent handle we've got material wise we'll talk about the design here in a minute it's got a lanyard hole on it never have thought found a need for a lanyard hold other than maybe if you wanted to hang it up in your shop on a loop or something like that or stick it on a nail I have seen axes lots of them don't lean your axe against the wall the short-handed ones like this are not going to be affected but your long ones your American felling axes and stuff they'll get a vote with them I saw an axe it had looked like a look like you could string it and shoot an arrow with it it had such a bow in it it took years of getting that thing straightened out because it was a good handle so so we have that the head of course is I mean pretty garden-variety yeah one pound one and a quarter pound for a camp axe is ideal a camp axe is gonna be used primarily for two things as a hammer you're gonna pound tent stakes or different things or who knows what maybe batoning things and then splitting kindling and chopping little things it's it's a great survival tool and I've always tell everyone you know you should in your emergency kit you should either have some sort of a good saw or a small hatchet because if you live in the country where there's there's trees you get in somewhere in a windstorm they blow down all the time if you don't have something to chew through that tree you're gonna be there awhile right you can't pull it out of the way so yeah you can chop your way out but one of the cool things about this got little guy here is it's gonna have it's got a regular eye in it so if you wanted to if you wanted a nice little project that you could do you guys will ask what what should I want to make an axe handle what should the first one be this would be a good one to go with because you've got a an axe head that's got a pretty decent design on here pretty decent shape it's got a great weight on it and you could drill that out you just take your hacksaw and you could cut that guy off there punch it out and put a new handle on provided that it's made right and we'll check that so what we have to have with an axe handle on the eye is it's got to be smaller on the bottom it's got to be bigger on the top the reason for that is when we put the handle in we want the handle to mushroom out when we put that wedge in there and that'll make it nice and tight so I could just check I'm not actually I'm using I haven't given up on my 940 Osborne that's still my go-to knife but I do I've been carrying this little Gerber around because I like the point on it it's good for opening stuff ok so if we measure just use this as a gauge right here I can kind of see that put my finger on that if we transfer that to the top we can see that indeed it's probably an 8 to 3/16 bigger on the top so it is properly designed not necessary with an epoxy head like that but kind of just kind of a data point therefore if you wanted to put a wood handle on it what's the quality of the steel that we don't know but check this out so I when I was on Amazon of course you know you get the recommended deal on the side there they recommended a sharpening stone here five bucks so axe and and a double grit fine and coarse sharpening stone which is like a 120 what is this thing it's a 1 150 at a 280 there we go is what 17 bucks did I just do math on the 12 and 5 17 or 18 bucks so you could get this nice little sharpening stone here 4 which is aluminum for what is it oxide alumina oxide this is a good little stone about 5 bucks so that's a pretty good combo right there we'll use this to put a little edge on it so we have a bash guard here of course which is well you just take that thing and throw it away now put they put those things on there thinking that that's going to protect the handle if you over strike it's not gonna do anything so just get rid of that but all at all doesn't seem too bad made in India we can't really have any expectations on the edge is it even hardened you know I don't know but it's 12 bucks you know so what do you get for 12 bucks it organ Amma quite it's pretty horrible it's a you know you want to actually you want a small hatchet for doing field work and field craft work to be able to choke up on it right so you might find yourself doing you know carving little things or making spoons or you know just all the various tax tasks that you do when you're camping this is a very uncomfortable handle it's got this weird bulge in it and it's the main problem is it's sharp on the edges right here could they take a file and take that out and maybe I don't know if it'd be worth the trouble and you know how what happens when you try to file this plastic in the middle the grip is decent but that's usually the last place that you want to grab it so that doesn't do us a whole lot of good down here we've got the textured handle and again the same problem on the fonds foot is it's just too sharp it's got too much point on it it's a very uncomfortable hatchet it's not something that you would want to use all day it would kill you but for just occasional use chop and kindling and things would probably be fine so let's uh let's put a little edge on it and see how it splits starting to think perhaps the better deal is this little oxide sharpening stone you know what a good project would be for us is to take you to the old stones these are kind of delicate they've got the you know sharp edges on them which are easy to knock off that's why the round pocket stone is a good one for your pocket because it's that Lansky stone cuz it's got those chamfers knocked off but the old stones used to come in these just beautiful little wooden cases and the stone would just fit down in the case and it would stick up you know proud you know maybe like 3/16 or so in the little wooden cap on the top with a latch on and I'm I've seen them in antique stores that might be a good project for us and what a great gift that would be if we could find like a quick and easy way to make those and you could buy an you know a nice if this turns out to be a decent stone for five bucks or so and you could make a nice case out of a piece of walnut or you know some wood that's local to your area that would be a pretty cool gift you don't have to do that okay so a good stone needs to be you need a lubricant of some sort now kerosene or diesel is the best look at the way that that stone soaks that up in there what the reason why you do this and I don't care what anyone says I have never found anything that works as as good as just diesel or kerosene they're both the same thing basically but what I'll do with a new stone like this if you have the time is actually set it submerge submerge it in that diesel and it will soak you'll be surprised how much it'll soak it up look at that right now just like a sponge the reason we put this on here is that it carries the material away so I'll just keep doing this until it just won't accept any more here and we'll do it on both sides and when you get a stone like this that's been well used like my granddad's old stone it was just impregnated with with kerosene and you don't have to use in there as much but your first time you will yeah I started to slow down a little bit but of course we've got the the course there and then the fine if we look at the edge that came on here it's actually pretty respectable it's a little bit sharp sharper than I would like I would probably back that up a little bit but having this type of edge is gonna make it last a long time when you have that blunt or edge it's gonna be really durable and it's gonna hold an edge better and that's probably your best fit bet for a mystery steal like you get from India and such so all you do you know of course as we know you know we'll just find that angle right there you can usually tip it up and and what you're kind of looking for is is you want a you you're trying to almost trying to shave just a microscopic layer that's don't off it's a circular pattern and if that diesel or that kerosene keep adding that and we just want to smooth that up a little bit see how it feels when it splitting so we've got some we've got grand fir here pretty pretty small stuff but it's dry so it's going to be a little stringy the the handle is atrocious that's the first thing that I notice I can't I can't I can't get over that it's a it's unhandy it feels really bad it feels awkward I don't have any confidence and I feel like I don't have much control on it because it's it's really horrible the shape of the handle the head it's a good little axe head if it had a different handle on it it would be a pretty nice little a nice little deal but of course you know and then we also have with the plastic we have that that deadness we don't have that snap like we like to have with our Hickory or ash handles yeah it's it's the handle that's that's the thing that really is horrible about it it doesn't feel good to choke up on there's just push it on the back of my thumb it's slippery it's flat it's dead no I know you know I mean I guess it's it's it's the $12 accident you know I always get accused of I think we don't need to go in further the heresy I get accused of the snobbery and you know I know I get that I mean it's it's foolish if you don't if you don't have a wood stove and you're not splitting kindling you know twice a week and all that it you mean it doesn't make sense to buy a grand forest Brooks or something expensive like that no I get that but if you want something just to have an emergency kit or a occasional camping one so it's probably fine I think the best thing to do and this would be a good good place for you to start because it's hard to find these good little axe head handles is to just chop that off draft drive drift that thing through there and try that try your first handle make make yourself a handle and see what happens you can go to there's still a lot of hardware stores that are gonna carry the small hatchet handles and you could get it and you don't even have to make it or you can start with that and hang your own they need to have a pretty good little tool there I think we're not gonna have unrealistic expectations on the steel of course but this handle is terrible it's rigid I do like that it doesn't feel as bad as some of the plastic handles that I've used but the shape of it is horrible it's terrible here it's worse on the back end it's too small in the middle it's just uncomfortable and sharp and it's just not really a good viable option you know that here's the thing though is that when you have something that's really good and something is high-quality like let's take for example you know I made a beautiful little handle on my granddad's axe heads or hatchet heads that I use first kindling splitting and you have that little sense of joy every time you use it you know that there's something special about it you remember the effort that went into it or if you were gonna have a grand force Brooks you know you know the quality and you know basically kind of handmade deal and all the history and the Swedish heritage it gives you that little bit of joy every time you use it and that has a value to me it has a great value because it just to have those little boosts in life like oh that was you know it's a joy to grab this or it feels good in the hand or it works well with the body so you know that's I guess that's how you could justify spending it spending some money on a on a nice axe like that but does this have a place for $12 deal yeah this would be a great emergency kit deal I have I'll tell you I I have for some reason I I often come across car wrecks and I have or people that have are people that have gotten injured or hurt this happened to me it happens to me it seems like a couple times a year that's why I'm so diligent about carrying good first aid kit but I have rolled years ago I rolled up on a car accident that a guy was trapped inside and the engine was smoking and you know who knows what could happen and if you've ever tried to break through a tempered glass window on a car it's it's near impossible unless you have something that's got an edge on it or a point you can smash them with hammers malls and they won't break some of them that are so tough and when you get in a front impact it will oftentimes crunch those doors and you can't get those doors open and you have someone trapped inside and what if there was a fire so you roll up on that and you have your vehicle and you don't have anything to break that open I mean it can be a bad deal so that's one of the reasons why I like to carry something like that at least a glass breaker or a or an axe you'll get through any window with this with that point on there no question so I think you should have an emergency kit and if it's just a beater like this it would be fine it's gonna help to wit have some gloves with this because it's so slippery on the hand and the glove is gonna kind of somewhat fill up the voids in the handle that it lacks but yeah for $12 you can't hardly beat it I would probably spend a little bit more and and get into a nest wing or something like that you can get into those or you know probably for $30 but yeah but still you can have three of these for the price price of one of those so that's it so I suppose that's probably about all the time we have for today mrs. debuts folks are visiting in from the great state of Nebraska they brought me this hat representing Nebraska today and they're touring some smart deals and so I'm doing firewood today so if you can see I always get questions about these circles here and how much firewood we burn a year so lat this winter and we're still having fires but we burnt two of these circles so this one here was completely gone and I just finished we just finished acting this one up here the second one we burnt down to almost all of it so that how much firewood is that those are about two and a half to two and a quarter cords in those things so I would say and I would say well we burnt we burnt five quarts good solid five cords this year and that's with us being home all the time so that's pretty amazing because I know guys some of you folks up there in the Midwest are up in the north northeast and stuff you tell me you'll go through ten eleven cords that's a lot of firewood that would be basically be four of these stacks so I have firewood I can one year two year three or four year five five years of firewood right here pretty much for us plus I have probably four times that much cut over there the processor that we're in stacking now so I've got my work out cut out for me today that's what I'm doing is stacking up getting the firewood today so why do we stack them like this well I think it looks really cool it's amazing how many people drive by and the pole in the driveway and likely what is that that looks really nice you know why do you do that like that I've I'm talking to people over the fence all the time about that it's an old way I don't know if it was the Scandinavians that came up with it or perhaps the Germans sometimes they claim that they they invented it but it is a good way to dry wood out because you should be doing your firewood right now for this coming spring this coming fall so that it has the time to dry out and it kind of creates as it heats up it kind of creates a chimney effect so we make the circles then we fill it up with a loose stuff or the stuff that kind of has a weird shape to it and it's really good and dry back in the day I like the Scandinavians they have a lot of birch trees over there and birch bark is a really wonderful it's really a waterproof material they make bass way baskets all sorts of things with it and they would take the bark and you know how a clay tile roof works right how it has the how it has the curves in it then they overlap and so as the water hits you know it funnels and runs down there they do the same thing with the bark and they basically make a roof over the kind of over the top that sheds the water so if these are done properly with the bark you can leave them out uncovered and then and the wood will stay a good enough season it'll season and stay good enough to to burn so that's why that's kind of why we do that is uh it's fun to do it looks nice and it's just a good easy way to simple way to stack it that dries out really quickly so click the thumbs up if you have it if you enjoyed these videos we invite you to become members of Wranglers to our channel there's a little membership deal right now it's a way for you to support the channel I would ultimately like to just to get away from YouTube all together with the adsense model and all that and just be subscriber supported and that way we don't have to worry about censorship they can do all the things they want to do and they can put all the arbitrary rules that they want it won't affect us because you guys support me and we can do the content that we want but we're working our way there so I invite you to go over there what I've been doing is I'm gonna be trying to release the videos early so you get to see them before everyone else as well as some individual or some unique content they'll put up and family stuff from time to time and little vlogging videos and things like that so thanks for watching and we'll see you guys on the next video

Channel: Wranglerstar

Views: 333,572

Rating: 4.8287773 out of 5

Keywords: Wranglerstar, axe, modern homesteading, small forest axe, how to sharpen an axe, splitting axe, how to, fiskars axe, gransfors bruks, splitting firewood, who makes the best axe, axe throwing, throwing axe, john neeman, best axe, do it yourself, estwing axe, how to split wood, bushcraft hatchet, gerber axe, off grid, bushcraft axe, camp axe, survival axe, hand axe, chopping axe, camping axe, throwing axes, insane axe throwing challenge, how to throw an axe

Id: 2arnDnMlJFk

Length: 21min 1sec (1261 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2019