For the last five years we have been making tools from home. The garage is stacked to the ceiling with stock. The woodshed is full of axes being oiled up and the front room has been turned into a leather workshop. People want more tools but we just don’t have the space or capacity to do it from here. There…
Here’s a short film of Brian Alcock the last self employed grinder working in Sheffield. It’s a trade that dates back many centuries. The city is literally paved with worn out grindstones in places. Once every stream running through the area was dammed to power thousands of waterwheels. Brian grinds all of our axes along with work for many other…
Whilst you may not have heard of a Tuatahi axe I imagine most folk that read my blog will be familiar with the sport of axe racing, if not this is what it looks like. Those are no ordinary axes, they are racing axes, set up with edges at very acute angles between 13 and 18 degrees, bear in mind…
The best way to keep an axe sharp is to store it in a leather sheath when not in use. It’s fun to make your own axe sheath but many folk would rather buy one and concentrate on the woodworking. We have sourced some of the best vegetable tanned leather available made by Clayton’s one of the last traditional tanneries…
This is Brian Alcock grinding one of my carving axes as they always used to do it in Sheffield. Brian is the last full time self employed grinder in Sheffield, the city that was once the tool capital of the world. 50 years of experience a great eye and a huge wheel running with water allow him to grind fast…
COMPETITION CLOSED and the winner is……..Richard EadonSubmitted on 2015/02/13 at 7:15 pm an email on it’s way. Thanks everyone else for playing along. Would you like a gorgeous set of woodcarving tools for free? Well here is your chance. My spoon carving tools starter kit proved incredibly popular in the run up to Christmas. The axes have been out…
If you are choosing an axe online it can be difficult to compare. I have many axes and wanted to share a comparison of the most popular carving axes alongside my own new design. Here are the Gransfors Bruks carving axe, the wildlife hatchet and my Robin Wood carving axe. And as a bonus I carve a quick spoon blank…
I have just made some new videos for youtube starting with how to sharpen an axe, hope you find it useful, thanks to Sophie Standford for the filming and editing.
I love axes, I love to see them forged and I love the sort of ingenious technology that people came up with in the late nineteenth early twentieth century. It feels to me there was a sweet spot in technology that involved a lot of skill in the maker before full mechanisation removed most of the skill. I have never…
I am a man who owns too many axes, it must be around 100 or so including a dozen by Gransfors Bruks, many antique English ones from the heyday or the British tool industry and perhaps some of my favourites a dozen or so antique hand forged laminated Japanese axes. I use axes every day to carve wood, I have…
