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If you would be so good as to take the trouble to clean up the head to reveal all the stamps properly, and the nature of the crack and post some pictures it would be of great interest to me. It's actually rare in my experience, to see original defects in vintage axes.

A side axe doesn't usually encounter the sudden shocks that a regular axe does, and since the head doesn't look abused, then the crack is due to an original defect. While it can be welded and used safely in this case - because of the way a side axe is used - it would be worth cleaning up and...

I've used a short axe to quarter moose - splitting down the middle of the backbone - without issue. But there the animal is freshly killed and so the characteristics of the bone is different to bones from aged meat. While big cleavers like the CCK Rhino are used to disassemble pork in China...

I was wondering how this would go with a hardened blade. This is going to be interesting reading!

That looks like a great specimen - or will with a bit of clean up! The sheath will be wood covered with thin goatskin, so it's worth checking over the wood to see what shape it's in. As always, though, it's best to see what you've got before proceeding as it might be a rare model.

I just pm'd you on how to get them to me and I'll host them on my server.

Excellent! Yes those are opinions! They only become fact for you when you have tested them under any and all conditions you are likely to encounter. For sure I've lit fires from natural tinder in both wet conditions here and cold conditions in Alberta (-40C- 50C). Oh yes I've spent many...

I guess it depends on where you are. It's so wet here for much of the time that anything with secondary bevels simply doesn't work for whittling fine enough fuzzies. In addition on all the factory knives I've taken the trouble to check, the primary bevels of such knives simply aren't flat...

It's still worth checking out the blade before starting work. It would also be advisable to check exactly what you've got by describing the marks and stamps over at the Himalayan Imports forum over at Bladeforums. The next step is to either get it ground to proper convex on a belt grinder or be...

Great if it was some use! I had a couple of RM clones made by a famous maker. One was 3mm thick and worked well, but a friend's wife wanted it more than I did. The other was thicker and so with the narrow cutting bevel, it did not perform the tasks I wanted to do, as well as a Mora. The even...

The problem with these blades is that they are zone hardened. So the bulk of the steel is left totally soft and only the edge area is hard. If it's been sharpened on a bench grinder then bets are off. If it's been badly sharpened by hand then there should be lots of hard metal left to work with...

In general I agree, but there have been remarkable exceptions in the past. Many goods sold by the Hudson Bay Company just had the HBC logo. Many goods sold by hardware store chains (long ago) just had their stamp. Norlund axes sold for a high price despite the fact that Norlund was a...

I'd agree. There is one western knife with a hamon line, the Lauri PT, but the PT stands for precision tempering. These knives have an an extremely hard edge (R63), but the rest of the blade back to the spine is R55. Some people have called these zone hardened (all in one quenching/hardening...

With regular carry knives, I usually carry a Mora despite having many others - so I actually prefer the cheap Mora. I've kept most of the others for reference. In the kitchen I use CCK Chinese slicing cleavers - again through preference. My plan was to get the CCK's properly set up then get a...

I'm just throwing up ideas as even with having many zone hardened blades, I've never heard of triple zone hardening. While zone hardening is essential in making heavy duty chopping blades, I wouldn't have thought it likely in western knives. So with a kukri it is forged to shape, then heated and...

The trouble with cutting tools is that they are optimized for one sort of cutting or splitting - if they are to work really well - and a person is likely to run into trouble when they expect one to work well at everything. I typically carry a Mora of 4 to 6" blade. This will cut anything...

I believe that it's someone's take on a kama which is a type of sickle used in rice farming - and also the basis of some very specialized martial arts for combating people with swords.

I think that you've missed out the critical information which is your skill level and exactly what you want from the knife. I consider any copy of the Ray Mears' knife to be rather sad as with the original. I would take the Temagami every time. If you need to ask why then this is going to get...

I've been getting lots of email on these take down bucksaws, since the company has gone under and the special blades to fit such saws are being bought up in quantity. So if you have one check for extra blades now...

The issues I had when deciding on a GPS were: 1. Gloves and buttons. I can operate the 62st with normal gloves and even neoprene - but really cold weather gloves would be tough. My GPS works in the rain, but so far I have no idea about real cold. While buttons are great and durable, typing in...