# Tuatahi Work Axe Review



## Ian Moone (Jan 8, 2017)

I tried to open the reviews page but ran into difficulties, so figured I might place it here and if the Mods/Admin wish please feel free to move it to the reviews section.

Back around March 2016 my eldest lad was involved in a road train roll over accident that nearly killed him. He had about 60 tonne all up in a double trailer rig, with very high sides that was badly loaded to one side by the operator of the low loader. In the wet the middle trailer got pushed sideways by the rear trailer while slowing to turn a corner and hit a traffic island and flipped. Truck was GPS tracked - he was doing all of 8KM/hr (~5MPH) at the time.

Lad was very lucky not to be killed.

http://www.bunburymail.com.au/story...r-truck-rollover-in-leschenault-photos-video/

We got the call from Police to say he was in a air ambulance rescue helicopter, with serious head injuries on his way to the Royal Perth Emergency Hospital and he may not make it - which was a heck of a shock.

Luckily for us he has a head like a bowling ball like his Old man and pulled thru fine - with the exception of bad right arm injuries and a lot of broken glass stuck in his scalp etc.

So I knew he had some time off ahead of him recovering and having to go thru physio etc.

Ever since a kid he's loved the bush and fishing, diving, boating, 4WD etc. he loves gathering firewood in the forest with his chainsaw & worked for the Conservation Department as a forest worker and faller etc before getting into long haul trucking, because it pays significantly more (if you can keep it shiny side up).

I knew he was going to have issues being able to swing a chainsaw and axe etc with his now crook arm (he lost a lot of the muscle in his Right forearm when it got crushed/pinned and dragged along the road between the door of the truck & the road).

I also knew he was forever complaining about finding a decent axe to chop/split the hardwood Jarrah rings he was cutting up with his chainsaw for firewood.

So I figured i would order him the best darn axe I could find in the world as a bit of an incentive to get better & stick with the pain and ongoing surgery's and skin grafts and physio etc, so I researched online and decided to order him a Tuatahi Work Axe, because they have a 4 months lead time to manufacture one, and I knew he wasn't going to be back out in the forest any time before that to be cutting and chopping firewood & all the reviews i read raved about them.

I should point out that I am not in any way "affiliated" with the NZ based Tuatahi axe company - other than a very satisfied customer. I don't get any hidden commissions or kick backs (mores the pity) for promoting their product at all.

So I went ahead and ordered one and paid a 50% deposit up front to get the manufacturing process & 4 months wait period commenced ASAP.

I have to say that the guy i dealt with in their office was fantastic - nothing was too much trouble!.

And true to their word about 4 months later the axe arrived.

BUT

Guy in their office was kind enough to send me a couple photos of the axe when it was forged and then when it was ground etc... just to keep my young blokes interest up during the prolonged period!






Just out of the forging process.





Ground to basic shape before heat treating, then grinding out the wings.





As it arrived all ground out wings and Hickory Handle fitted.





Ready for use the first time about August 2016 - you can see the lads arm skin grafts on R Forearm etc have taken pretty well & his melon head is healed up nice enough once we picked mos of the remaining the broken glass out that the emergency department surgeons missed..


This is its first swing in anger at any firewood ~ 5 months after his accident. 





And a load of wood split with the Tuatahi one morning!

He is pretty pleased with the Tuatahi work axe with its 22 degree chisel grind - it seems to work pretty well in our local hardwood Jarrah species (which for anyone interested is 8.5 on the Janka hardness scale and weighs on at around 920 kilo's/cubic meter density dry.

Hope that gives some insight into the Tuatah work axes for anyone contemplating an axe purchase any time soon!

Cheers


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## dancan (Jan 9, 2017)

Thanks for sharing .
Being no stranger to that longish road to recovery I can attest that woods work will be the best physio and phsyco therapy going .


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## Ron660 (Jan 15, 2017)

I ordered one in December 2016. Looks like they sent you a T-shirt too. Beautiful axe. Have you had to sharpen it yet?


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## Ian Moone (Jan 15, 2017)

I ordered a singlet and T shirt & Cap, as well as the fancy leather cover as well.






All up with the work axe & postage etc it was some $800 odd all up with all the other gear included.





The T Shirts & singlets come with the large logo image on the rear!





Like this basically.





The front just has the small company logo where the pocket would go.





Caps come with logo on the front.

The 4 months wait is the hardest part - but it is worth it! Only received the axe at the end of Winter here (August from memory) so it hasn't yet had enough work to require a sharpen yet.

There is no wait on T shirts and caps etc as long as they have them in stock in your size so you can order / pay for those any time during the 4 months wait and have them added into the package with the axe when it's made after the 4months wait. The leather cover is hand made so there's a wait on that -it pays to order that when you order your axe so the local artisan guy has time to make it.

At least that was my experience.

Don't know if anyone else is interested but I ended up buying a used American Chopper 1 axe as well that I have been restoring & polishing etc.
















https://chopper1axe.com/

I've polished up all the spring dogs and added new pivot pins and springs & a nice new spotted gum handle that I have sanded and finished with Birchwood Caseys true oil gun stock finish - it's come up a treat and it chops the blocks of Jarrah into nice smaller pieces for bagging up and selling here in the city for wood fired pizza ovens, winter tile fires, outdoor BBQ's etc

Its been a fun little project... the spring loaded dogs do tend to throw wood all over the yard when I chop it - so I get plenty of exercise chasing it everywhere BUT - it works a treat!!

The Tuatahi & Chopper 1 together make neat pair of axes. Each has their uses.

They will both get a lot more work next winter hopefully.


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## Ron660 (Jan 15, 2017)

Sounds similar to my work axe order but I also ordered an extra handle just in case. $130 shipping to my State in the US. I ordered the nice leather sheath along with their 10K grit stone too.


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## Ian Moone (Jan 15, 2017)

That makes sense to get it all in one go then - that is some steep shipping cost... we are a lot closer to NZ of course so my shipping was about Aus$70 (S0 ~ $US50).
The handles are quite a lot more sturdy than your standard hardware store axe handle. They are larger in all dimensions - the palm swell at the end is huge & fills your hand!
Despite their heft they really are comfortable. The spare handle is handy to have.
They have other gear I'd like to invest in but it could be a while yet, I'm all tapped out of late!


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## Ron660 (Jan 15, 2017)

Ian Moone said:


> That makes sense to get it all in one go then - that is some steep shipping cost... we are a lot closer to NZ of course so my shipping was about Aus$70 (S0 ~ $US50).
> The handles are quite a lot more sturdy than your standard hardware store axe handle. They are larger in all dimensions - the palm swell at the end is huge & fills your hand!
> Despite their heft they really are comfortable. The spare handle is handy to have.
> They have other gear I'd like to invest in but it could be a while yet, I'm all tapped out of late!


You have a beautiful axe...looks like a work of art. What type of sharpening stones will you use? 
Also, what type of hardwoods will you been using it on? I've read you have some really hard/dense trees down in the outback. I'm in Louisiana USA and most of the hardwoods we harvest for firewood are hickory and red oak.


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## Ron660 (Jan 15, 2017)

I saw a pic of a Tua handle compared to a standard american felling axe....dwarfed it. Here's s a pic of my old granddad's axe I had re-handled, single-bit, with hickory recently. The axe head is from the early 1950's. He was a Logger. The double-bit was from my other grandad which also was a Logger.


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## Ron660 (Jan 15, 2017)

Ian Moone said:


> I ordered a singlet and T shirt & Cap, as well as the fancy leather cover as well.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's a big axe. Looks like something Thor would use. I'll have to wait until March or so for mine. I decided on the work axe too.


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## Bwildered (Jan 15, 2017)

Ian Moone said:


> I tried to open the reviews page but ran into difficulties, so figured I might place it here and if the Mods/Admin wish please feel free to move it to the reviews section.
> 
> Back around March 2016 my eldest lad was involved in a road train roll over accident that nearly killed him. He had about 60 tonne all up in a double trailer rig, with very high sides that was badly loaded to one side by the operator of the low loader. In the wet the middle trailer got pushed sideways by the rear trailer while slowing to turn a corner and hit a traffic island and flipped. Truck was GPS tracked - he was doing all of 8KM/hr (~5MPH) at the time.
> 
> ...



What a beautiful axe! Somewhat out of place being used for splitting though.
Tankski


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## Ian Moone (Jan 15, 2017)

> What a beautiful axe! Somewhat out of place being used for splitting though.
> Tankski



That's to be expected, because of the differences between our timber and uses for same and whats available in the northern hemisphere and its end uses!

One of the big difficulties for us downunder is that we have tried so many proprietary axes and splitting mauls - with varying degress of success. As you can imagine - most are designed and manufactured in the northern hemisphere for use on timbers grown and harvested in the northern hemisphere.

What that often means is that they aren't suited to use down under on our specific hardwood & often very dense timbers.

So we do tend to go searching for a tool that will do the job and due to the differences - we often come up short- which is how company's like Tuatahi spring up - making a tool that will do the job in a different environment to suit & meet the local demand.

Firstly, we have few native softwoods that are harvested commercially at all (With some minor exceptions).
Next our hardwoods (most of them) never experience snow as part of their annual growing cycle.
Lastly our continent is the least geologically active recently in the world. We are gondwana land - which pretty much means - we don't have even ONE active volcano anywhere in the entire continent.

For this reason all soils here, by comparison to geologically much younger soils in the northern hemisphere, are deep leached gutless infertile soils at best! The fact we have any forests at all isn't any indication of the fertility of our soils - its testament tot he adaptive capabilities of the tree species to even survive at all. Generally speaking our soils are also as dry as the proverbial camels phart, or pensioners balls.

Next, wildfire is an annual event here - so in addition to lack of moisture and lack of fertile soils, to survive here trees have to be highly fire adapted to the point of becomming fire dependent. Some won't seed at all unless they are burn't and some seeds won;t germinate unless they fall in an ash bed of a burnt forest giant.

As a result - if your a tree downunder you have to be one specialized adapted tough hombre SOB

So tools (axes and mauls) designed & made in the northern hemisphere as a generalization often don;t quite live up to expectation down under.

If you were a forester for e.g. you could carry a double bit axe for clearing trails.... however the first tree you came across, fallen over a track, if you took to it with your double bit foresters / fallers axe, you'd get thru it - ohh bye the time you turned 170 years of age maybe!

You see almost no cross grain chopping of hardwoods with axes here (except in specific log chopping competitions) - because "ain't nobody got time for dat!".

All foresters carry chain saws. The only axe they carry is to chop their chainsaw out if it gets stuck! You clear tracks with a chain saw.

In all my years of being a forester I did chop the odd small branch off a track with an axe, nothing much larger in diameter than say your leg, for everything else - a chainsaw is the tool of choice.

So the major use of an axe here is for splitting not cross grain chopping. Often the available selections for splitting mauls - don't work particularly well in our hardwoods. Many bounce off the same piece of wood repeatedly.

I readily admit there are some hard woods in the world (Brazil mainly), but the Aussie Bulloke tops the Janka hardness scale and most of our other commercial hardwoods appear near the top end of the scale.

So we tend to need tools specifically designed and constructed to cope with those vagaries of timber properties. And we also tend to use them in a role that locally makes common sense (Splitting rather than cross grain chopping).

Being from 33 south, I am imagining you already know much of this tho Bewildered/Tankski!

As for what species it will get used on - principally only West Ozzie Jarrah species (Eucalyptus marginata).

The Red Oak and Hickory are getting up there in hardness for sure but still list below our Jarrah species on the Janka Harness scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test

As for what oil stones we will use for sharpening, I have some old Arkansas stones here from my great grandfather that have come down thru the family, that will probably see use on the Tuatahi work axe as the need arises. I would be tempted also to apply my diamond lap/slip stone for a final hone to remove wire edge.


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## Bwildered (Jan 16, 2017)

I have a little sawmill in NSW, do my own falling & snigging, & cut my log waste into firewood, I've got a couple of nice axes but the best thing I have for manual splitting is a splitting maul I found at a council chuck out on the side of the road, it'd make me cry to chip out the face of a good axe splitting firewood.
Fanks


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## Ron660 (Jan 17, 2017)

Ian Moone said:


> That's to be expected, because of the differences between our timber and uses for same and whats available in the northern hemisphere and its end uses!
> 
> One of the big difficulties for us downunder is that we have tried so many proprietary axes and splitting mauls - with varying degress of success. As you can imagine - most are designed and manufactured in the northern hemisphere for use on timbers grown and harvested in the northern hemisphere.
> 
> ...


I remember back in my college forestry class studying hardness of trees. The Australian hardwoods were at the top of the list. The hardest in my area is a live oak, an evergreen hardwood, which still is half the hardness of the Australian bulloke. 
I prefer diamond stones when sharpening my axes and hatchets.


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## Ian Moone (Jan 17, 2017)

I used to mill about 150 tonnes a year of feature grade Jarrah logs back in the day.






I also used to make a bit of furniture here and there.






Not so much these days - I do the odd bit still but only for friends and family these days.


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## Ron660 (Jan 18, 2017)

Great work....beautiful table. Nice deer skin rug....what species?


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## Ian Moone (Jan 19, 2017)

Ron660 said:


> Great work....beautiful table. Nice deer skin rug....what species?


Fallow deer those ones!.

I used to farm Red Deer from Scotland (closely related to the Rocky Mountain Elk) & Fallow deer (Originally from mesopotamia) and for a few years US Whitetail deer!


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## Bwildered (Jan 19, 2017)

Ian Moone said:


> I used to mill about 150 tonnes a year of feature grade Jarrah logs back in the day.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


150 tonnes a year is more than a passing hobby! What sort of portable mill is that ? 
Stankski


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## Ron660 (Jan 20, 2017)

Ian Moone said:


> Fallow deer those ones!.
> 
> I used to farm Red Deer from Scotland (closely related to the Rocky Mountain Elk) & Fallow deer (Originally from mesopotamia) and for a few years US Whitetail deer!


I like using Sambar Stag for pistol and knife handles.


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## Ian Moone (Jan 20, 2017)

Sambar stag antler makes wonderful knife handle scales!.

I collect Gerber folding sportsman knives presidents collection sets & I once saw a set with sambar stag antler scales handles. Still kick myself to this day I never bought it!.


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