They can be a right pain if they are the ones with the leather washer grip and its lost a few washers but otherwise they are a fairly classic axe.
Perhaps not the
best edge retention but they are still nice to use.
They used to be used all the time when carpenters had to make wooden plugs that went in the cement joints between the bricks to fix nails into.
They would use a plugging chisel to clear out the joint, then they made a twisted wooden wedge (imagine a bit of wood thats about a foot long by about half an inch and had both diagonal opposed corners taken off with an axe) that they hammered into the cleared out joint.
Because the wedge is twisted it's got better holding power, then they cut off the excess length and could fix a doorframe to it.
With the advent of SDS drills. brown Plasplugs and cordlesses to put the screws in with the axe hardly ever gets used nowdays, about the only time it gets used on site now is when we want a wedge that the laberours won't throw away.
I prefer the leather washered hammers simply because everyone else used the blue vinyl ones and the apprentices don't seem to get them "mixed up" when they are packing the vans away so they last longer in my hands.
Almost all joiners/carpenters (well 80% or so anyway) have an Estwing hammer and the older ones will have an estwing axe.
I hate having to use someone elses hammer for the day
However, I've been given an axe that's, to put it politely, been kicking about in the back of a joiner's van.
