Gransfors, what you can get in the shop...

[oetzi]

Recently, a friend of mine wanted to have a GB LFA of his own.
And since I was paying a visit to a friend in Frankfurt, who lives very close to a big outdoor store who stocks gransfors, I agreed to get him one.
They had five in stock, so it was possible to select a good one. Which was my sine qua non on purchasing it.
Oh my, what a load of manure they had in stock. I secretly photographed them all to show you.
The good news first, they were all quite expertly hung. The edge was always in line with the middle 5mm of the butt and when resting edge and butt on a level surface, the edge touched in the middle or the rear third.
But the handles were a bit different, see here.
3x times "normal":

One was really good, with an offset wedge:

On all four, the grain was slightly twisted along the handle, so at the left upper hand of the handle´s shoulder there was a bit non-continuous grain.
So far, a level of quality I am used from GB.
No 5 was awful:

Except for a bit on top, the handle was completely heartwood.
This is not acceptable and I wonder that such a handle had made it through the various
stages of production, let alone "quality control".
Someone really should have binned it.
Now I know, that even such an axe will rarely be used in a way that it will outwear over time. Nearly no one makes a living with an axe anymore or has his life depend on it.
But I cant stand it, when the well-known and established standards of a craft erode over time simply because 99,999% of the customers dont know any better.
Its a fact, and has probably a sound financial origin, but I detest it nevertheless.
Thats also the fact why I wouldnt mailorder an axe anymore. In the shop where I work, we stock the Hatchet and the small splitting axe. I could order, and get with a discount of 30%, every product from GB I would like to have. I wont do it.
I know that there are different levels of quality throughout the GB range.
As a premium product, the Hatchet is usually excellent. Rarely some strings of heartwood, the grain is better than 45° to the vertical, the edges are aligned really good.
The splitting axe is always 80-100% heartwood. Probably more than ok for the kind of people who buy it to split some wood for the oven on a sunday afternoon.
But the batch of LFA I encountered is a bit off, to say the least. Especially for the price! and their claim of excellent craftmanship.
What do you think?

 

[gregorach]

So the questions is... which maker's mark was on them?

 

[oetzi]

The maker´s mark is only for the forging of the head, I think.
Hanging the head onto the handle is a different craftsman.
Its the selection of the handles where the corners are cut and not mentioned.

 

[Shinken]

Its probably a case of increased demand, it was hard to find a dodgy GB a few years ago.

 

[mr dazzler]

To hear the guru market speak grnsfors are THE axe, and many people on here and elsewhere seem to swear by them. I acceopt that each to his own etc. But those examles just look shoddy. Are they genuine garnsfor axe's or chinese knock off copie's? I encountered that with Record Power wood turning chisles (forgeries). A few of those drifting about can have a dramatic and corrosive effect on confidence in the (genuine) article. Increased demand/high cost's of production and transport/cheap competition from far east maybe they were forced into compromise, or is someone got hold of a skip full of rejects and sold them on off the back of there lorry?

 

[robin wood]

Those are all unquestionably Gransfors and as far as I am concerned all perfectly serviceable axes (I speak as someone who does use an axe in my work every day) None of those heads are likely to come loose. There is no problem with heartwood in a hickory handle see this extract from an excellent post in the "why do axes have hickory handles" thread.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/us...d/241hicko.pdf

"Over the years a prejudice has developed against the heartwood of hickory. Red hickory (heartwood) is often placed in a lower grade than white hickory (sapwood) simply because of its color. Tests by the Forest Products Laboratory have shown conclusively that red, white, and mixed red-and-white hickory have the same strength characteristics, regardless of color. The negative attitude toward red hickory developed during the days of virgin hickory stands. Under virgin-stand conditions the heartwood was often less dense and not as strong as the sapwood. In the second-growth stands of today this density difference does not exist, and specifications and utilization practices should be adjusted to take this fact into account."

Gransfors axes are not expensive. They are not one off craftsman made pieces they involve that nice level of mechanisation that gives a quality working product at a good price. Compare them to any hand forged knife you can find, see any for less than £50 retail with a sheath?

 

[nickg]

Surely all axes are forged!!






Ill get me coat

 

[robin wood]

No many cheap ones are cast. silly me thought that was a serious question,,now I'll get my coat.

 

[FGYT]

can a cheap chinese Cast copy of a GFB be called a genuine 'Forged' GFB

 

[littleknife]

I agree with Mr. Wood that these axes are not too bad.

If one reads carefully Old Jimbo's tutorials or other sources, it is clear, that grain orientation is not the only or even the major factor when choosing a good handle.

I would be concerned with the crack on No. 2, but even that might be easily fixed with epoxy, providing the crack is not going too deep. It seems to me that it is just the very end which was damaged after the metal wedge was driven in.

No. 5 has some very narrow growth rings but even that might be OK:

http://abcworld.net/Wood

"Wide-ringed wood is often called "second-growth", because the growth of the young timber in open stands after the old trees have been removed is more rapid than in trees in the forest, and in the manufacture of articles where strength is an important consideration such "second-growth" hardwood material is preferred. This is particularly the case in the choice of hickory for handles and spokes. Here not only strength, but toughness and resilience are important. The results of a series of tests on hickory by the U.S. Forest Service show that:

"The work or shock-resisting ability is greatest in wide-ringed wood that has from 5 to 14 rings per inch (rings 1.8-5 mm thick), is fairly constant from 14 to 38 rings per inch (rings 0.7-1.8 mm thick), and decreases rapidly from 38 to 47 rings per inch (rings 0.5-0.7 mm thick). The strength at maximum load is not so great with the most rapid-growing wood; it is maximum with from 14 to 20 rings per inch (rings 1.3-1.8 mm thick), and again becomes less as the wood becomes more closely ringed. The natural deduction is that wood of first-class mechanical value shows from 5 to 20 rings per inch (rings 1.3-5 mm thick) and that slower growth yields poorer stock. Thus the inspector or buyer of hickory should discriminate against timber that has more than 20 rings per inch (rings less than 1.3 mm thick). Exceptions exist, however, in the case of normal growth upon dry situations, in which the slow-growing material may be strong and tough." "

According to

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/usda/tb342.pdf

"Too much reliance should not be put on ring width in judging the
quality of wood, since for any ring width large variations in strength
may occur, because different growth conditions may produce similar
rates of growth but different proportions of the various types of
tissues found in wood."

and:

"No generalization on the relative toughness of sapwood and of
heartwood or on the occurrence of brash wood in either can be made.
In old, slowly growing trees the sapwood is frequently low in toughness
and may even be brash, on account of the large percentage of
spring wood or other porous tissue that it contains."

In other words, a narrow ringed hickory timber used in a GB axe handle might still have very similar mechanical properties to the wide-ringed wood in the cheap Mexican or Chinese axe handles.
Similarly, a GB red hickory might be easily superior to the sapwood used in the above cheap products.

But sapwood/heartwood and growth ring width are just some of the aspects important for a good handle. One might start with a superior raw timber and destroy all of the advantages during a careless drying, wood treatment or storage.

I would take any of the above GB handles over a perfectly vertical average US hardware hickory handle, not to speak about the Chinese made ones (even if they use US hickory).

The reasons?

1.) Gransfors Bruks uses "Prima hickory", which should mean selected, first grade timber free of knots, tension wood, fungal infection.

2.) The timber GB uses is kiln dried. Air drying would be the best, but it is time consuming, less controllable i.e. moisture content might vary between batches, produces more rejects, increases the possibility of insect damage during the long drying process. Kiln drying kills the accidental insects present, so it is giving you a "bug-free" timber.
Also, there is a difference between different kiln drying procedures. Small batch, more controlled drying is more expensive than rapid processing a huge amount of wood, even if it is "genuine US hickory".

3.) GB thoroughly soaks their handles in (linseed?) oil, which prevents moisture related wood deformation while your axe is in storage before you purchase it. Compare this to the varnished or painted handles of your average hardware axes with the untreated parts like the sawn off part near the eye, where mosdt of the drying occurs anyway.

In my post in the other thread, which Robin Wood quoted above, I have also talked about the importance of the hickory species used. If the hickory wood used for handles is from mixed pecan-true hickory lumber, you might end up with pecan hickory which can be 40% weaker than the wood of true hickories or even ash. "Prima hickory" supposed to mean also the use of true hickories.

 

[Cegga]

Hi !
The company that make the handles for Gb are Smedbergs http://www.smedbergs.com/index-e.htm They make almost all handle to the sweden axe company´s .
Cegga

 

[oetzi]

Littleknife, thats excellent information on handles and wood.
Having read "keeping warm with an ax" and also "an ax to grind" I was of the impression that there is a difference between heart- and sapwood.

 

[Humpback]

I've got a Chinese knock off made by....
Cho Pin Wud




I'll see you outside.

 

[littleknife]

Oetzi, I am in no way an axe expert, but I believe that those authors promote the traditional view based on the experience with old growth hickory and the grading practices of the lumber industry of their time. Old, thicker, slowly growing trees would have weaker heartwood. Nowadays rarely is a hickory tree left to grow too big, but if it's growing slowly, both its heartwood and sapwood will be weaker than those of a fast growing one. So you might be better off with heartwood from a fast growing tree of the same species than with sapwood of a slowly growing one.

But even this is not an absolute rule: some slow growing trees might be strong enough if the growth rings are consisting mostly of the less porous late wood.

Cegga, thanks for the interesting detail. I remember you saying that Wetterlings was the only Swedish company making their own handles? Is it still so?
Also, could you tell us, please, if you have observed any difference between the strength of sapwood and heartwood in axe handles?

Thank you in advance.

littleknife

 

[oetzi]

The good thing about all this:
We, the user of axes, will probably wear out faster than our tools!
I certainly do.

 

[sargey]

it's always been that way though. even the gransfors stuff can be pretty ropey. even with poorly aligned helves and heads. i looked through a dozen wildlife hatchets before picking mine, and most of them had some significant defect. the edges being too thin and rolled, the misaligned heads and so on. that was in may 2002. it's one of the reasons i often say that if you need to ask, you should buy a proper plastic axe from fiskars. they are the only axes you can guarantee will be ready to work off the shelf.

but, to put it into perspective, gransfors are still worth every penny if you can find a good'un. many of the other axes commercially available are absolutely appalling, and potentially lethal in the hands of someone who doesn't have the knowledge to set one up from scratch. these appalling axes can still cost you in the 30-45 quid range, so only marginally cheaper than a gransfors in the grand scheme of things.

i was looking at some wooden helved fiskars in homebase recently. they seem to have replaced the the dire sear and jackson "razorsharp" range in homebase's line of axes. i was very excited to find something that resembled a hudson bay pattern axe. the edge was nice and thin and evenly ground. it was just a shame that the edge pointed in a different direction to the handle. that said, it's relatively easy to whittle and sand a handle down so it points in the right direction. much easier than spending hours and hours regrinding a totally uneven edge as typically found on the "razorsharp" monstrosities.

that'll be me stepping down off my soapbox and preparing myself to be burnt at the stake for the first paragraph.

cheers, and.

 

[British Red]

Nope, I'm with you sargey, I've seen some real horrors in the Gransfors range. To be fair though, I really like Wetterlings designs - but the finish on their bevels lately looks like they have been done by dragging them behind a train. Ceggas suff knocks spots of both of them to be honest - which just goes to show you should try to deal direct with the craftsman if you can.

I now don't mind the bevel problems with Wetterlings too much as I take an odd satisfaction in setting an axe up properly. But it really shouldn't be like that. Still I've promised Green Man a thread on setting his up for him - the train in his case was the Eurostar I think!

Red

 

[oetzi]

if an edge is f****d up, one can restore it with a couple of waterstones and lots of elbow grease. Thats why up until now I did put more empasis on the handles.