Well just want to say thanks to Brad once again for sending me his old X-27 that he broke the handle on. I wanted to see what it would take to put a wood handle on and that is exactly what I did. Not my prettiest work but it is good and strong and will work out great for me. I put a shorter handle on it because that is what I like these days. Easier for me to handle and better aim at what I am splitting. I weighed the head and it is still around 4lbs 8 ounces. The axe head is about 1/4" shorter than it was before. I think I will do a little more work to it to make it more pretty. I did split some rounds with it and it worked great.
The other thing I like about it is that I should be able to use the back side to drive splitting wedges which is something that was not recommended.
I think I am going to put a little paint on it to make it look better. Thanks I am just a hobby welder. I am retired and doing a project like this is fun for me. I will put it to good use though.
I cut the center out of the original axe head. I had some scrape angle iron and cut some flat pieces from that and welded it to the sides to create an opening in the middle for a wooden handle. I doubled the weld to help fill in some gaps and to make it stronger. I am happy with the strength that I was able to get. No matter how hard of hit it takes I do not believe it will distort at all. I plan on doing some testing by driving some splitting wedges with it and see how it does.
Well time will tell. I plan on putting it through some testing today. At my age I probably do not swing an axe as hard as Brad does so maybe it will hold up well for me.
How did the head take weld? And what rod? My impression has always been that the Fiskars are a soft metal...would you agree now that you have worked with it?
I thought the metal was pretty good in the axe head. I used a Tig welder with mild steel rod. The steel in the axe head cut easy and I was able to shape it easily so not what I would consider hard metal. It did throw alot of sparks so high in carbon. I will say the metal did not appear to be any softer than any other axe head I have worked with. It does take a good edge and it holds it fairly well. It took the weld very nice.
So brenndatomu I did some splitting today with a steel wedge. The X27 held up pretty good so I would say that the metal could not be too soft. The handle rock solid and did not budge at all.
Good to hear...I just thought maybe the metal was a little soft because I have had mine chip so easily a couple times...when I examined the chip I thought the metal looked "grainy", and it sharpened easily so that combined with the low cost of the X25/27 I assumed the metal in the head maybe "wasn't the best"...obviously not too bad since they do work well, but very likely not of the quality of a more upper end axe. Fine work salvaging that one though for sure!
When I cut the middle of out the axe head it did not show any grainy metal in the casting. I agree considering the cost I would not expect it to be of the same quality steel that a 200 dollar axe has.
Yeah I probably wouldn't expect to see it when cutting...more when there is a raw edge exposed, like in the bottom of where a chip broke out...looked kinda like cast iron.
