Hand Forged Throwing Axe, 16 Inch Walnut Handle with Lanyard

Throwing is repetition. You walk to the line, send the same axe the same way a few hundred times, and your hands learn one weight. Borrowed house axes never let that settle, because every rack holds a different one. This axe is 16 inches overall, a 1095 high carbon head on a walnut handle, and it is meant to be the one you keep.

Specification

The head

The steel is 1095 high carbon. The head runs 6 inches front to back with a cutting edge of 3.5 inches, hand rubbed to a satin gray, faint hammer marks left near the eye where the steel was drawn. It is ground flat with a little roundness behind the edge, so the bit bites into board grain and comes back out instead of sticking. The face is narrow, which keeps the weight close to your hand. Carbon steel darkens with use and rusts if it goes away wet. The poll is not hardened, so leave stakes and nails to a hammer.

The handle

Walnut is the handle, oiled rather than coated, dark brown with the grain showing through. It has give enough to soak up a hard landing and weight enough to feel like something in the hand. The eye is wedged. The handle is driven up through the head from below, a wooden wedge is set into the top to spread it tight against the steel, and a steel wedge goes across that. At 16 inches you get one turn out of a normal stance, and the lanyard through the butt gives you somewhere to hang it.

The leather head cover

Every axe leaves here with a cover. Vegetable tanned leather, cut to this head's own outline rather than to a size that roughly fits, hand stitched with a welt sewn into the seam so the thread sits behind leather. The face is stamped basket weave and a brass snap holds the strap. It goes on dry. Leather holds water against steel, and a cover snapped over a wet bit is how a good head picks up rust overnight.

Who it suits

You have thrown enough evenings on somebody else's axes to know what you like by now. This is the step to owning one.

• Throwers moving off borrowed house axes
• Anyone who wants a plain carbon head rather than a pattern
• Buyers with a board set up in the back yard
• People who would rather learn one axe than swap around

What comes in the box

• The throwing axe on its walnut handle
• The hand stitched leather head cover
• The leather lanyard, fitted through the butt
• A care card

Every piece is different

Each head is forged, ground and finished by hand, so runs stay small and no two come out the same. Hammer marks land where they land. Walnut shifts from board to board, some of it near black, some closer to red brown. Yours will not match the photograph exactly. That is what hand work looks like.

Looking after it

Wipe the head dry after a session and rub a little oil on it before it goes away. The cover snaps on dry, never over a wet bit. A new handle wants boiled linseed oil, three to five coats over as many days, then once a year. Never varnish it, and never soak a loose head. Lay linseed rags flat outside to dry, because balled up indoors they can catch fire on their own. More sits on our knife care and sharpening page.

Put a name on it

Laser engraving is 20 dollars per piece and you add it here on the page. Around 30 characters fits, so a name and a date. We send a proof image before the laser runs, and it adds 3 to 5 business days. Free on orders of 10 pieces or more, which is how a group ends up with a matched rack. See the engraving page.

Questions buyers ask

How is the head held on? The eye is wedged. The handle comes up from below, a wooden wedge spreads it against the steel, and a steel wedge is driven across the top.

I have only thrown house axes, will this feel different? Probably. House axes vary and this one will not, so your hands stop guessing at the weight.

Does it need rust care? Yes. Carbon steel darkens with handling and rusts if it sits damp, so dry it and oil it before storage.

What if a throw lands short? The wood under the head takes it. That is normal wear on a wedged throwing axe.

How is it sharpened? A file first if the edge is damaged, then a stone to bring the bevel back, then a strop. Sharpening here is free for life.

How long is shipping? Most US orders arrive in 5 to 7 business days.

If you want the same size with a pattern welded head, look at the Damascus throwing hatchet on hickory, and for wood instead of a board there is the hand forged bushcraft axe on hickory. The rest sit in throwing axes, carbon steel axes and axes and hatchets.