The Members Discussion Thread

K

KiwiBloke

Joined
Oct 2, 2018
Messages
396
Dear Axe, Tomahawk, & Hatchet forum members,

Welcome to the members hangout zone.

This is a place where you can chat with other members freely without being bound by any confining topic or thread.

We would love to hear lots of your stories here, both axe & tool related and not. Topics such as travel, cooking, music & movies, sports etc. are all welcomed. Anything goes. It may get a bit tangled at times but I am sure the overall conversation will ebb and flow in various directions coherently.

This is also the ideal place to ask those small axe related questions, the ones where you just need a quick simple answer from one person rather than creating a whole thread for it.

If you can introduce yourself that would be great and also let us know how and when you got into axes. This could be as brief or detailed as you like. All sorts of things are interesting to know though so please do go for it and you never know what you might have in common with other members, it's a small world ;)

Finally, please post a picture of your collection! Yes we love axes here and would love to see everybody's stash!
 
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I'm 16 years old, born in California, and of Irish, German, English, and Italian heritage. I have been collecting axes since about 10. I was working for a friend who was helping an old lady clean up her place for resale when I saw a beautiful double bit axe amongst some tools and asked if I could have it. I had just gotten a book on cabin building and an axe was one of the required tools so I wanted to get one. I was told no, "But you can have that head if you want." I accepted the head, de rusted it, cleaned it up and hung it. Researching what A17 meant led me to this site and into axe collecting. Then I remembered a Stanley single bit head a neighbor had and my journey into the world of axe collecting started. I began getting heads from neighbor's yards and buying them in thrift stores and now I have 60. I'd been restoring old tools from age 9 or 10. I started on hand planes and brace drills and worked my way up to axes quickly.

Traveling: Entirely in the West/Northwest of the U.S.
Cooking: If it was walking or full of sugar I love it. If it's green I'll pass.
Other hobbies: Helping work on the old vehicles and chainsaws my brother brings home. Also, working on my 1969/1971 F250 4x4 conversion.
Job: None yet, I'm going to college currently. I'm hoping to get a woodworking/forestry job or be a mechanic.
 
Thanks for kicking it off fellas!

I was born in Wellington, New Zealand (the capital) where I currently live. I have only been back for one year though, prior to that I was living in London for 2 years and Australia for 2 years also. I am currently finishing off my teachers qualification to add onto my music and English literature degrees so shortly I'll be a school teacher.

My families heritage is Polish. My grandparents were born in Poland and became orphans of the war when they were children. Luckily New Zealand put there hand up to accept a boat load of them and 650 odd kids got a second chance at life.

Travelling: Have done heaps of Europe and a fair bit of Asia. I love seeing new places and experiencing new cultures. NZ has some incredible places to visit too.
Cooking: I am actually not too shabby in the kitchen which is lucky as my partner is no master chef lets just say that. Not massive into seafood but I do like crustaceans. Livestock is where it's at!
Jobs: Have done a lot of jobs so far from working in 5 star hotels in central London (where I got to meet a tonne of famous people), working a hardcore sales job for a marketing firm (got fired), selling products on the street and teaching music at private music academies.
Interests: Other than the obvious, I am really into skateboarding and bmxing, and Motorsport! Specifically Formula 1 which I follow the entire season race for race. Have even been to a grand prix. Just getting into Indy car and NASCAR now but is very hard to watch in NZ with the time difference.
Music: I could talk music for days. I listen to everything from Jazz to Funk and Blues, Extreme Metal to soft and classic Rock, Hip hop to Classical. Also play a lot of music mostly Bass, Guitar, Ukulele and Piano.

I stumbled upon this site and started reading more and more and then bit the bullet and bought my first axe off an auction site. That was about 7 months ago. I now have about 10 axes, mostly American vintage but also some aussie and euro axes. A couple need to be hung which I am doing very shortly.

Am also in the process of getting a proper rack sorted for them. Drove past an old building today and found a few pallets. Tried to get it into the car but they were too big. Will go back this afternoon with some ropes and see how dumb of an idea it is to tie it to the roof! Will post pics when I have it sorted. Thinking about staining it just to make it look a little more appealing, perhaps painting it would be a nicer finish. Anyone with experience doing this to a new/fresh unfinished pallet?
 
Weird, I am also 36 - from the gravel roads of rural eastern Kansas.

Axes are one of those things I was around, but never found a use for. I hung one because I needed something to split wood about 10 years ago when I moved into my current home, which is equipped with a wood furnace. I just did it and used the axe and thought nothing else of it. That axe sat outside year around and eventually the head came loose. It is an overlaid bit Snow and Nealey with a worn toe that my Dad had for as long as I can remember sitting on a shelf in the garage. I rehung that axe again when it became too unsafe to use, only this time took something of an interest. This is primarily because of the handle - which was a House Handle from a local hardware store. If I remember correctly I started looking into them which kinda got my interest in handles started. I realized I wanted another axe and I figured, surely the junk store has one sitting around. They did, and this time I had a stamp and was curious about the story behind the head. It was a Wards and the reason that got my interest is because I can recall my family members talking about a Montgomery Wards in our town that was long gone by the time I came around. Of course that lead me here and the rest is history. I think I am known here for my handle making and that's really just the result I think of my personality. Once I take an interest in something, I am very hard to satisfy and my feeling was that a high quality tool requires a high quality handle. Because of the lack of availability in quality handles to me specifically, and the hobby at large, I took it as a personal challenge to be defeated. That's a pretty typical driving force in my life in general. Someone tells me I can't or it's hard, I take that to mean it must be done.

My hobbies are cyclic, and so you guys haven't heard from me much lately. That will change eventually. In the mean time I am a competitive shooting junkie. Multigun, USPSA and Steel Challenge. Winter time means mostly Steel Challenge and USPSA until my club starts Multigun back up in April. I could go on and on about this but if you guys have never seen any of these sports there are years worth of youtube videos to give you an idea. I grew up hunting and shooting, then discovered the "action shoot sports" probably 7 years ago .... something like that. I shot a different sport for a couple years, didn't really get the hang of the game and didn't have a great place to practice. A few years ago I met a range buddy who knew of a place to shoot and got me into multigun. It's been full speed ahead since then for me. Being a hobby oriented guy this got me into making my own gear, reloading, building ARs and tweaking guns for myself and others. I am on the range every weekend all year long.

I recently picked up Disc Golf again after easily more than a decade. I goofed around with it in high school and after, just as a fun thing to do with friends and family. Now my town is home to one of the major players in the Disc Golf manufacturing business and host to the US National tournament and several other major tournaments. There are courses everywhere, and everyone here plays. I suck, but I am learning.

I'm mostly into what I term "modern hard rock" which flexes into Metal and Blues Rock. Basically, Metallica and all the bands they influenced (Godsmack, Seven Dust, Avenged Seven Fold, Chevelle, the list goes on and on), but also stuff like Left Lane Cruiser and anyone who can make a guitar scream like Joe Bonamassa.

I was hard into vintage cars for a long time but never had the income. I do own a complete 67 Mustang Coupe that needs to get driven and loved WAY more than it does, but you know ... money. I enjoy creating but it's the mundane that drags me down. The wrenching on cars just doesn't do it for me, kinda like I find reloading to be a necessary hassle. "Fixing" cars saves me money and is necessary, building is the fun part and COSTS me money.
 
Kevin Houtzager said:
Not as much as I'd like to. But then again: The last race engineering job I did was in F1, I was responsible for the TF105 to TF109 and the RVX-05 to RVX-09. So I know more then a few people from the sport. F1 is also the reason I'm not doing that for a living anymore: Way to much politics involved in the teams themselves. Lets just say that my name had to be written in the designer part of aformentioned cars and engines, but somebody else took the credit.

As for Max verstappen: Yeah I know him. I actually raced him once during a friendly match of carting: Lost by some margin of course! I also know his dad: Jos Verstappen. Not the nicest of guys. I can't comment on Max, because the only time I've talked to him (and raced) was when he was 13 years old. People tend to change between then and now. Lets just hope he has a better personality....
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Wow man that is absolutely fascinating! This is exactly why I created this thread. So so cool to hear that. F1 is not super popular in NZ (rugby is insanely popular here) but I still get up at 2am for all the races have done so for years. Were you working out of the Toyota factory or as part of the circus?

Have you always had an interest in building things and designing things since a very young age? Sounds like you have a real talent for it from the beginning.

Cool to hear about your great grandmother too mate :)
 
My great grandparents owned a small dairy farm. My grandparents lived in the tenant house on the farm, my grandfather did the bulk of the work. Both used wood stoves for cooking and heating. When the cows were milked and clean up was done, winter time was spent cutting and splitting wood into long pieces and stacked upright around a tree. Usually in late February/early March the large saw was mounted on a Farmall H tractor and on one Saturday when my great grandfather, grandfather, uncle and me could all be there, spent the day sawing the long pieces into stove sized pieces. So I had a lot of early exposure to axes and splitting wedges. When my grandfather passed away, the cows were sold and my uncle and I took care of the farm, mostly corn and soybeans and some hay. The wood cutting and splitting fell to my uncle and I. Every Saturday (uncle worked a full time job elsewhere and I was still in high school) through the winter we felled trees, cut split and prepared for sawing wood in March. My uncle now owns the farm, we cut a little for his wood stove at home. It is my favorite thing to do, cut wood.
 
Kevin Houtzager said:
It's the same with wrenching for me. But then again, I can design and fabricate parts from scratch, so I don't have as much a need for wrenching. As for the money, not that big of a deal if building is more than buying parts and fixing them onto the car. If not: Good luck! Even if I wanted to spend my cash on my car, I couldn't, because they hardly make parts for my car, and the once they do make aren't that well designed to begin with.

I always liked the old Mustangs until the 70's kicked in. I do like the '66 and the '68 and especially the "69 better though. Then again: They all drive like boats. I'm used to good handling and stopping cars. Nothing that can't be sorted, but the stock ones are crap. My dad had a couple: A '66 289 coupe which I volunteered to modify internally: Disc brakes all around, proper suspension geometry and about 551 HP on tap out of the 289. The other one couldn't be modified because of the value: Shelby '68 GT500 KR, so that one was actually quite a bit slower.

Forgot to ask: manual or auto? and straight 6 or V8?
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Yeah the 69/70s are awesome, after that they kinda lost their way but everyone did mostly. I like the 67/68 coupes because the Trans Am series cars had to be coupes those years and I really love those races and the look of those cars. Mine is an automatic with a crate 289. I did the "Shelby drop" on the upper control arms, put on roller bearing spring perches and modern shocks but nothing super modernized. It doesn't even have power steering but I hope to change that one day. I had to replace a lower control arm on one side and realized in the process that the ones you get now are far and away higher quality than the originals so I'd like to do that to the other side as well. I also took a coil off the front springs and slightly lowered the whole thing, added modern wheels and tires, and put Granada style discs on the front.
 
Kevin Houtzager said:
It's 66 and 68 for me only because of 1 thing: I don't like the bars in the grills of the 65 and 67. But thats about it. The problem I have with springs and shocks these days is nobody does their research anymore. Spring rates are usually way to hard. And when lowering the springs you always need to make a roll centre correction, because of the altered suspension geometry when lowering the car. Thats the main reason I design my own suspension these days.

But Then again: I only lower cars by an amount that is right for the geometry, not by: "This looks nice". The difference is mainly felt in the handling, and takes a fair bit of calculating. But then again: I'm on the far end of the spectrum in that sense, and do the same on Porsches en Ferrari's, because I can do a better job. I know that doesn't apply to everyone and I know I'm weird like that ;)

Had a RWB Porsche come visit. They look so much better on the small screens compaired to in real life. People pay serious money for shoddy work to say the least. Total disappointment....

Do yourself a favor with one thing though: Get yourself a manual! And forget the power steering. Those old 4 speeds work great and are absolutely bombproof. But then again: I hate Auto's....:mad: After you cut the springs, did you secure the spring itself so it cannot move on its base? Couple of holes and zip ties if you really have to. Otherwise your suspension wil behave differently every time you'll hit a bump. Thats why you don't want to cut springs.
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I'd be thrilled with something some racecar engineer designed and built with an old car shell sitting on it, but it's for driving around town and I don't see that changing any time soon. As for the bars in the grill, yeah that was the first thing I took off this car, along with the 5mph bumpers (or whatever they were supposed to be). I have read about replacement manual steering boxes that are better than the original as far as feel and response, and I know I'm not going to put a factory style system in it. It'd be something like the Borgeson. The springs are doing whatever they do.
 
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Kevin Houtzager said:
It's the same with wrenching for me. But then again, I can design and fabricate parts from scratch, so I don't have as much a need for wrenching. As for the money, not that big of a deal if building is more than buying parts and fixing them onto the car. If not: Good luck! Even if I wanted to spend my cash on my car, I couldn't, because they hardly make parts for my car, and the once they do make aren't that well designed to begin with.

I always liked the old Mustangs until the 70's kicked in. I do like the '66 and the '68 and especially the "69 better though. Then again: They all drive like boats. I'm used to good handling and stopping cars. Nothing that can't be sorted, but the stock ones are crap. My dad had a couple: A '66 289 coupe which I volunteered to modify internally: Disc brakes all around, proper suspension geometry and about 551 HP on tap out of the 289. The other one couldn't be modified because of the value: Shelby '68 GT500 KR, so that one was actually quite a bit slower.

Forgot to ask: manual or auto? and straight 6 or V8?
Click to expand...
I learned wrenching on farm equipment and still enjoy it when I can. I have been into more modern Mustangs. I sold my 2010 Shelby just about a year ago and bought a 2018 GT. If I had more, and more appropriate space, I would certainly find a 60's Mustang and make it something cool.
 
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