Fiskars Brush Axe

Knives :
  • Fiskars Brush Axe (left side)
  • Brush Hook (right side)
  • Bill Hooks (center)
  • Cold Steel Heavy Machete (bottom)

This review consists of :

Print copy from Fiskars :

Description

A machete with the power of an ax. The Brush Ax's thick drop-forged blade rips through underbrush-even small trees-like no flimsy stamped steel machete blades can. Even better, the long 21" FiberComp� fiberglass handle lets you swing this monster baseball bat style for serious wind-up power. We find the Brush Ax perfect for clearing the overgrown oak savannah that dominates our local landscape. Also a must-have for hacking trails through the willow-infested sloughs up north-ask us how we know.

Features

Specifications

Basic specifications :

Initial Impressions

Initial impressions :

User Feedback

The Fiskars gets a lot of solid positive user feedback for :

As noted in the video on the right by YouTube user mccullenj the only real issue is the lack of initial sharpness. Though there are also a few comments at times about the case being more for storage rather than any knife of packable sheath.

Initial Sharpening

The Brush Axe had essentially no fine cutting ability as the coating extends over the edge. An attempt to remove it with a 4000 grit water stone was not successful, even a 1000 grit stone clogged excessively as the coating gums up the stone easily. It took about five minutes of grinding with the small 1000 grit slipstone to grind off the coating and expose the edge and the stone had to be lapped twice to remove the coating deposit.

The edge also took a very heavy burr which resisted removal quite strongly and initial sharpening did not respond well to stones finer than 1000 grit. The edge obtained also just barely sliced newsprint and left a pretty ragged edge which took 425 (5) gram to cut light Esprit baisting thread, about 25% of optimal. It is likely that some of the difficulty in sharpening initially could be that the edge was over heated in grinding or burnt in hardening.

Stock testing : main

On carving compared to the #1260 Mora on some 1x1" pine making 2" slices it is immediately obvious :

Through ten points on the wood with each blade : The Fiskars thus had about 40% of the roughing ability of the #1260 (thus the #1260 would cut almost 2.5 times as much wood with given effort) which would be expected given the leverage disadvantage alone would predict 60% of the roughing ability and the heavy secondary bevel on the Fiskars would reduce it significantly further.

Compared to the Fiskar's Hatchet cutting up some scrap lumber the Brush Axe in general did very well with a number of obvious points about the Brush axe

The vibration and discomfort came from the abrupt secondary edge and shallow primary grind which made the cutting very abrupt on the heavier woods very similar to how the Cold Steel kukri machete performed before regrinding.

As noted in the histogram on the right the data is pretty skewed and this is because of the huge difference between how the blade handled on thin and easy to cut wood where it would get high penetration vs thicker wood where the penetration would be lower.

This of course is not overly surprising as it is made for brush after all however there is no need for it to be so limited with a proper tapered profile.

The other thing to be noted is that the Sportsman axe when swung with the same speed hits with about 50% more energy (as it has that much more of an inertial moment). This means it takes more effort to swing the Sportsman than it does the Brush axe. If both are used with lighter force then the Brush axe moves ahead heavily, easily 2:1 because the Sportsman really needs the heavier swing to drive the thicker head into the wood. It is also much more fluid in all the wood reducing the time easily by a factor of half and this lack of binding reduces the effort more than enough to compensate for the heavier swing.

Field

YouTube user mccullenj showed how the Fiskar's, even without using the ability of the hook to snag vegetation, can readily out chop on heavy brush a light Tramontina and even a reground and thinned out 1/8" Ontario heavy machete. The Fiskars has :

Note the primary grind on the Fiskars is actually at the same angle of the common Mora's. The secondary edge bevel though could be reduced in angle even for harder brush work.

As seen in the above stock work it holds its own with a small axe on thick woods as the blade is fairly thin it does vibrate a little excessively on the harder woods and after awhile it simply doesn't feel nice and comfortable in the hand. Also it is so light that it is all wrist action and it has to have a fairly fast swing. In short the thicker and heavier french billhooks tend to be more personally suitable for such work.

However on lighter work the opposite is true. On alders as shown in the picture on the right which are a very soft wood the wider and heavier (740 g) french billhook is behind the Fiskars's as it is slower and on light springy vegetation it is all about speed. The Fiskars is easier to swing faster, has more reach, and cuts that class of wood much better.

As a general aside, the hook really shows its powerful advantage on such work as the blades can easily be chopped right into the root bulbs and the hook takes the brunt of the impact and preserves the edge from the worst of the impacts.

Grip

Ergonomics : in general the Fiskar's grip is comfortable in use except when used in a very forward grip as the handle is simply exceptionally wide and very thin. Of course it isn't like this tool is meant for fine work however with just a few modifications the scope of work could be expanded significantly.

Security : the only really obvious weakness of the Fiskar's handle is that it gets very slick when it is wet. This however is easily fixed with a suitable over wrap, Tennis wraps are usually a decent choice for comfort and security but they don't stand up well to brush work as they are easily cut/torn.

Durability : the grip is a Fiberglas composite and it far more durable than wood in both general abrasion/scratch resistance and impact resistance. The only disadvantage is that in extreme situations where the grip is damaged beyond functionality then it is much harder to refit than a wooden handle, though it likely would be covered under the warranty. This one did develop a crack in the handle right next to the blade which was drilled out and filled with epoxy to stop the crack from spreading.

Miscellaneous : the grip is hollow which accounts for the very light weight which means it can be used for emergency storage.

Sharpening

The first several sharpening repeated the initial problem, the edge simply did not respond well to a stone finer than 1000 grit. It was difficult to get an edge to smoothly slice newsprint or other fine paper without a heavy draw. As boxed it was thus only capable of rough work.

However after several sessions of sharpening the edge started to respond slowly this is not unexpected behavior off of fairly inexpensive production knives as they are often over heated during the initial grinding.

Overview

Overview :

Comments and references

Comments can be emailed to Fiskar's Brush Axe

  • Fiskar's Brush Axe - some chopping (ref - Fiskar's Sportsman Hatchet)
  • Fiskar's Brush Axe - light brush
  • Fiskar's Brush Axe - Review

    Most of the pictures in the above are in the PhotoBucket album. The video's can be seen in the YT Album.

    Last updated : 19/11/2012
    Originally written: 28/01/2012
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