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The Fiskars Sport hatchet :
Note the bit profile is much thicker than on the Bruks Wildlife hatchet. A top down shot of the bits for comparison is shown on the right.
Sharpening to a fine polish, with the original profile, the Fiskars axe could make a push cut through 3/8" hemp in 27 (1) lbs. This is fairly high compared to smaller utility knives, but on par with the lager heavy utility fixed blades, and better than some of the more extreme ground tactical fixed blades.
Carving points on birch hardwoods, the Fiskars did well and could make a point in 34 (4) slices. The performance was different than most of the knives and thinner blades as the Fiskars tended to fracture the wood readily when high force was applied and thus the thick bit was not as much as a drawback as might be expected.
Attempts were made to cut television cable with the Fiskars, however even when in excess of 100 lbs were applied, a complete cut could not be made and the copper wire core just bent around the edge and was driven into the birch hardwood backing.
The Fiskars axe doesn't do well splitting birch hardwood on a push, 103 (5) lbs is needed to crack the wood due to the very thick bit and especially obtuse edge.
Of course in general the axe is more productive chopping than cutting and it easily for example hacks up ropes, cable and points hardwoods far faster than it can cut them, and even comparable or better than the more efficient knives can cut the same materials.
However the very thick bit and edge make it an obviously lower performance than axes with thinner bits such as the Wildlife hatchet.
Meats : generally requires only a sharp edge as meat tends to open up readily and thus the geometry is not of a significant influence. The only real concern is that the points on the Fiskars tend to catch and snag. The drawback of the thicker bit profile can be noticed as well on thick cuts of frozen meats. Slicing that partially frozen pork, the Bruks Wildlife hatchet was similar to the Fiskars in terms of force and both well behind a slim fixed blade optomized for such work. A similar difference was noted on some small vegetables :
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The Fiskars
also has problems making cuts on the vegetables
as it cracks them due to the relatively thick edge profile.
The sharp apex points again tended
to be problematic in making slices as they caught in the material. In contrast
the sweeping curves of the Bruks wildelife allow fluid slices.
There was a greater difference in force required to slice up the onions than
on the meat, but the most significant difference was the curvature and ability
to make thin slices as the Fiskars tended to cut out and make partial slices,
the real problem is the danger because in general the off hand is on the
vegetables and thus smooth control of the edge is desired. Of course the knife
is also much more time efficient than either of the small axes and does in one
smooth slice what they do in more than half a dozen.
On thicker and stiffer vegetables the hatchet stops being functional aside from just crude chopping ability. It crack up carrots into pieces more so than makes thin slices and is difficult to do much work on turnips and other similar vegetables as it is now taking many times the force of efficient kitchen knives and requires heavy off hand pressure. Peeling is very difficult as the edge is so far infront of the handle the torque disadvantage is high. However in general all axes do poorly for that type of work.
Carving : The Fiskars worked ok to produce small shavings from a piece of pine. It was well behind an efficient wood cutting knife in terms of cutting ability, and significant behind the Bruks Wildlife as would be expected given the stock work on the birch carving. The most functional grip withthe Fiskars was around the poll using the hatchet as a draw knife. The Fiskars was actually more comfortable than the Bruks Wildlife in such a grip. The Fiskars is well rounded around the poll and fits well in the hand, however the Bruks Wildlife is rather squarish and has several points which digs into the grip, however the general significantly higher cutting ability of the Bruks Wildlife would still easily have it be the more efficient choice.
| For general shaping with axes it is more efficient to chop than cut. Starting with a piece of lumber The Fiskars roughs out a small scoop many times faster than even the most efficient wood carving knives. Chopping into the bottom of the scoop to form the handle and then chopping out the handle in just a few minutes. If the wood is dense and difficult to chop a saw can make cuts into sides to allow the wood to split off easier. Shape the tip of the scoop last as it needs to be strong enough to take the impacts from chopping off all the waste wood. To make it go into the snow or sand easier the sides can be rounded to give the tip some taper. For digging in dirt the top should be fire hardened unless made from a really strong and dense wood. Of course the axe readily "sharpens" the scoop when it gets bunted in use. |
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That shovel was flat topped, however carving a hollow is something that axes can do well compared to long blades. A hatchet can chop directly into the wood with the narrow bit and directly cut out a hollow. Once the main hollow is chopped out, the bowl can be cleaned up by clearing the waste wood from the sides and trimming off the ends, leaving enough stock at the bottom to keep the wood from splitting and trim it off after the bowl has been shaped and do the cross grain chopping before the side splitting. The inside can be cleared out more with a small knife, a crooked knife is ideal, or coals can be used to burn out the inside and the charred wood scraped out. The same process can be used to make a snow scoop. The critical part is to leave a lot of waste wood around the sides and underneath the hollow to prevent it from breaking off. This can be removed easily to finish up the scoop or bowl, but it is much harder to patch it back together if it cracks. |
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Heavy chopping : the Fiskars and Bruks Wildlife were first compared on seasoned wood which was frozen due to a combination of wet weather followed by strong cold snaps. In general both axes worked through the wood well, though the Fiskars seemed to be more precise. Based on arguements in Cook's book on axes, this should be the case given the straighter handle and shorter bit. The Fiskars handle is lightly roughened on the end of the grip which did give it an advantage in regards to security but also made it abrasive enough that it was an irritant on the index finger after an hour of steady chopping. This was a very low rate of abrasion and would quickly be adapted to in use. The synthetic handle was also much more resistant to impact damage from woods, the wooden grip on the Bruks Wildlife will not react well to a miss hit and can dent the handle.
The penetration was low due to the hardness of the wood and the ice so the
chopping mainly checked the power of the axe due to its heft and the edge angle.
The primary grind was not a heavy factor as the wood didn't actually
see much beyond the edge because only a fraction of an inch of the bit
sank into the wood. The extent of binding was also low with both blades as the
wood tended to crack. The shot on the right shows just one chop from the left,
the right part just exploded off. The angle of the
chopping has to be increased beyond what is optimal (usually around 45 degrees)
to prevent the axe from skating off the wood. Because of the higher angle and
the hardness of the seasoned and frozen wood the ability of both axes was
severely reduced.
Through 84 rounds cut with each axe the Fiskars had 81 (3) % of the ability
of the Bruks Wildlife in terms of number of chops
to cut a section of wood. There was no significant difference noted in term of
time per chop. Note the Fiskars is significantly lighter than the Bruks and when
this is factored in, the chopping efficiency relative to weight is above 90%.
It was expected that the slimmer bit on the Bruks would give it a smoother entry
and thus less shock but this was not noticed in general, probably due to the
heavy fracture of the wood and the high shock in general due to the hardness of
the seasoned wood and the embedded ice.
This level of chopping ability is similar to large fixed blades, however the
hatchet has a significant advantage in working with thicker woods because it keeps the same
penetration even on large diameter woods.
In terms of general chopping utility, axes hold other advantages over long blades due to the ability to lead with the toe of the bit. Using this method the Fiskars can readily section a piece of plywood by chopping into the face which is much faster than trying to chop through the wood directly because such man made woods do not clear notches well. A long blade the like Ratweiler can not do this nearly as effectively even though on small sticks it is competitive in terms of raw chopping ability. A similar advantage is noted when clearing a hole through thick ice, something the Fiskars will do readily but bowies and machetes, even when they have efficient cutting profiles do not simply because the cutting action can't be focused as it can with an axe. Khukuris however also have a similar ability, essentially the dropped point turns a chop into a hard stab.
Splitting The Fiskars axe, while having a thick profile
suitable for splitting, doesn't have the weight necessary to split rounds aside
from small and
clear easy to split woods.
The Bruks Wildlife doesn't do significantly
better as it lacks the necessary power as well. The only signficant difference
between the two for such work is that the thinner edge on the
Wildlife allows it do do precision splitting
easier, so it can split slabs into thin shingles easier as it doesn't require as
much force to cut into the wood and thus just short wrist pops can be used. In
general for heavier rounds for either axe
it is more efficient to split off some
slabs and cut them into wedges and use them
them to split the rounds. The axe will make the stakes
many times
faster than could be carved even with the better wood cutting knives like the Mora 2000. However when driving the wedges the
thin poll of the Fiskars
tends to split the the wedges readily. The Bruks Wildlife is a better hammer for such work.
With the Fiskars it works best to cut a heavy stick and use that as a hammer on
the wedges.
Fire : The Fiskars is very valuable to aid in fire starting.
With the ability to carve shavings and gather bark for tinder and chop and split
wood for fuel it isn't difficult to get a fire going even on less than ideal
days. That isn't a blurry picture to the right, it is blowing snow.
It had snowed for awhile so there was multiple feet
of snow on the ground so no dry tinder available to pick up off the ground.
The bark of most trees was also packed with snow and
ice, however dry wood can still be obtained by splitting.
Moving into the woods to get out of the wind to
a space decently sheltered from the wind by snow drifts
and trees was located. The snow cleared from the ground and piled up to
create an additional barrier to the wind.
Green boughs and dead
wood gathered with the axe were placed on the ground to keep the fire off of the
cold earth. Some stakes were pointed with the hatchet and drove through the
boughs to create a futher fire wall. More boughs were placed over this to create
essentially a miniature debris hut and put the tinder inside protected from the
wind and snow/rain.
The Fiskars worked very well for splitting dry sticks and carving and making
the necessary shavings for tinder. Gathering the boughs it was much more
productive than the Mora 2000, however the thicker
edge reduced its efficiency compared to the Bruks
hatchet. A Ratweiler didn't offer a significant
advantage in making the shavings or cutting down the small saplings and
chopping/cutting the small woods, however it was much more
efficient at limbing out the small trees and gathering the boughs. The Ratweiler could limb out several trees while the
Fiskars was still processing one.
The Fiskar's hatchet when sharp easily can be used for more than cutting
wood, it shears through plastics easily. However the points tend to hang up in
the thick material and it gets frustrating due to the inability to make smooth
cuts of any length as chopping or sweeping cuts are not productive. The Wildlife hatchet is more fluid however the Ratweiler is in much higher class and vastly
more productive, many times to one cutting thick plastics for example.
Working on frozen and seasoned wood, working outside in sub zero weather, it did generally suffer deflection and impaction enough on knotty wood so that after around 250 chops it could not readily slice paper. It was therefore behind the Wildlife axe which is to be expected as the Bruks has a harder steel bit. However the deformation of the edge on the Fiskars was not visible at arms length, and was easily sharpened out in just a couple of minutes.
The Fiskars was
soft enough to be filed but in general unless heavily damaged by
cutting dirty wood, usually a 1000 grit waterstone is enough to restore the
edge which can be polished as desired. Usually the finish is left off of an UF
Spyderco Benchstone which gives optimal edge retention for chopping.
After extensive use the hatchet was reground :
With the more acute profile the cutting
performance was much increased
and readily obvious on heavy stock removal. The better cutting ability lead to
high penetration and a lower rate of fatigue so long term cutting was
significantly improved.
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The grip is very durable and resists damage from scrapes, abrasion and impacts
and showed little effect from extended used.
The bit is also well rounded and works well in grips around
the poll for precision carving or cutting.
The handle does however have one fairly large drawback and that is that it gets very slick when it is wet so much so it is pretty much not functional as it is unsafe. Unlike a wood handle which when properly seasoned with an appropriate oil the synthetic handle on the Fiskar's has no such ability. The only way to make it workable is to use an over wrap. The various tennis wraps are an obvious solution but they have very short lifetimes in actual extended use.
The Fiskars has a solid performance package for a very low price. The bit is very thick but tapers to a fine edge so it works well in shallow cutting on very hard woods, or very thick cutting on soft woods where is it very fluid in both. It has some issues, mainly the poll is narrow, and on deep cutting wood can impact against the wrap around the bit. It doesn't have the edge retention of the Bruks Wildlife hatchet and tends to take more impaction and rolling on harder woods, but the damage is only light and a lot of wood can be cut before the axe needs to be sharpened and this is only a few minutes work. If some time is willing to be put into the axe by removing the obtuse edge and sweeping the shoulder back into the primary grind, the cutting and chopping ability can be made to match the performance of the Bruks Wildlife hatchet on most woods and there is a corrosponding increase in edge retention as well.
Comments can be emailed to cliffstamp@[REMOVE]cutleryscience.com or by posting in the following thread :
| Last updated : | Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:45:56 Newfoundland Daylight Time |
| Originally written: | 03 : 05 : 2006 |