Best axe/axe steel?

Z

zzzspik

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May 29, 2021
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So I have heard alot about wich axe or axe steel is the best, like one is laminated and the other one is dipped in some super formula and one is really well forged. I have heard that these companys following are the best.

Wetterlings EX, Per Stalberg, Sater Banko, Plumb Victory and Sager Chemichal.

What are your thoughts on these? What do you guys consider, "the best axe"?
 
"Best" is almost impossible to quantify in a meaningful way because the properties that make one axe really good in a certain context may make it bad in another. Those are all excellent brands listed, but when asking specifically about raw material that's different than talking about the end product. Something like modern S7 or L6 would probably be some of the more solid choices for raw material.
 
As if someone on this forum would actually use an axe enough to have to worry about wear or breakage. Even if you are talking about a 19th century lumberjack, the only reason most axes ever wore out were from unnecessary sharpening. I have bought a lot of old axes and axe heads at yard sales for two or three dollars each, and short of abusing them in some way every one of them would last for thousands of hours of use with no problem. And that good old axe heads can still be bought for a few dollars second hand is just one more reason that how they were made does not matter in the least. And I may as well throw in that a good craftsman that knows what he is doing will never even break a handle, you could make a handle out of balsa wood and it would work fine if it were done properly. The only people that break handles are ones that are terrible at using the tool and have handle-strikes, or those who use old axes with some kind of rot in the handle or a manufacturing flaw.
 
The U.S. Forest Service specifies a bit of plain carbon steel with at least 72 points of carbon. I think many of the great axes from the mid 20th century were made with 1080. But many other steels can make a great axe.
 
Really the specific steel type is far less important than good geometry and heat treatment are. As long as it's able to be hardened it can probably be made into an axe from which you'll have few complaints. And the best geometry is even harder to pin down than the best steel is, because it's even MORE contextually-dependent. Arriving at optimized designs requires understanding the mechanisms by which the tool works, the context of use, and then the right prioritization of any design elements that may conflict with one another in use so that total performance is optimized for that intended range of use. At the end of the day, axes aren't usually too picky about the steel they're made of, and heat treating them right isn't the most difficult thing in the world, either. Getting the shape right is the more difficult part.
 
Within reasonable limits the geometry can and should be modified suiting the user and any good tool will start out with this assumption at its conception. There are means and methods ranging from vile to skillful. What I want from an axe's material composition is mostly an edge that can be gotten truly sharp, is durable and can be kept that way with a minimum of effort, despite any nonsense that any old axe will do for a millennium. This begins with with the choice of material and ends with how it is handled as the axe is formed.
 
junkenstien said:
Keep away from them plumb victory’s and Vaughn’s they are butter soft.
Click to expand...

Again, you can find them for pocket-change at yard sales, and even if you have to buy one of Ebay, you are still going to pay a few hundred dollars less than the hipsters who are buying axes from Scandinavia etc... I have a hundred old axes laying around I paid between nothing and five-dollars each for, and every one of them is fully capable of cutting all day for days or weeks on end between any sharpening. Telling someone to stay away from a particular brand of vintage USA-made axe has zero meaning.
 
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