A new addition, the Gransfors Bruks Axe

At the Bristol & West Land Rover show this weekend I managed to finally get my hands on a Gransfors Bruks Axe (GBA). I have admired these for a number of years but could never really justify buying one. If you have seen these axes before you will know that GBA have been hand crafting axes for over 100 years and are some of the worlds finest.

After seeing the quality in the flesh and securing a good price with the vendor (late sunday when they were packing up) it was time to make the purchase and own something unique that will quite probably outlive me.

I went for a reasonably small ‘Small Forest Axe’ with a 3 1/4″ face and 1  1/2lb head weight. This will replace my fibreglass Fiskars that I use for splitting wood and trimming larger branches.

Each hand forged axe head is individually made and stamped with the initials of 1 of the 11 current smiths. Stamped ‘UN’ – Ulrik Nilsson made my Forest Axe and its finished with a full grain leather sheath.

GBA provide ‘The Axe Book’ with each of their products and it is a good, informative read and can be downloaded here: http://www.gransfors.com/htm_eng/index.html There are also some other good reads on their website, take a look.