Well, they passed the paper test…

I guess it’s a good idea to go back to the beginning.

Lately, I’ve been watching some videos on YouTube where a bunch of guys have been touting some inexpensive axes from Harbor Freight. The story goes that with a little tweaking, these bad boys can become a fairly decent camp axe. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at something like this, and at just under twelve bucks a pop, I figured I had nothing to lose.

I won’t go too heavily into the details; there’s a ton of videos out there explaining the process, so there’s no need for me to reinvent the wheel. But the upshot is that the videos I’ve been watching do seem pretty accurate.

Here’s a picture of what I started out with:

First, I removed the stickers and sanded the varnish off the handles. I left them rough to ensure a better grip. Then I drilled each of them out to accommodate a lanyard. I’ll be using paracord for this, but I don’t have any on hand, so I’ll attach the lanyards later, when it comes in.

After sanding the paint off the heads of the axes, I got to work reprofiling them with a rag and Bastard file. They were pretty thick, so I thinned them out and lengthened the cutting edges. When that was done, I ran them across some diamond sharpening pads and took them down to 3200 grit.

Once they were sufficiently sharpened, I burned in my maker’s mark and oiled the handles.

They’re drying on my carving block in the workshop, and I’m really looking forward to testing-driving them when I get the chance.

Overall, I’d say it was a pretty good way to spend a Sunday afternoon…