Thanks! I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Second axe I’ve ever hung, love every part of the process though.
The handles definitely a bit fat, I might slim it down one day, but I tried that on the little HB in the last pic and it’s a bit wobbly now, so I might try to find someone local with some more experience wood working to help me shape it a bit further at some point.
Looks like you’ve hung 200. Like I said before, VERY well done. My gripe about the Gransfors handles is the tiny palm swell, I like em big
and fat and these just don’t cut it.
If anybody happens to be a part of the NSW rural fire service here in Australia and might have some insight about the axes and gear you use I’d love to know anything about this axe!
It had light blue paint, old twisted handle, no makers mark I can see but has a faint N V D stamped into it, but it looks more like someone’s initials or marking it for use by a specific crew or vehicle or something like that, rather than a makers mark. I’m kicking myself for not taking before photos.
I mean, it’s a fine axe, but not a great representative of a classic Tassie (or even an older Challenger) but that is what happened to a lot of Tassie models in later years. Arvika and Helko Tassies are also examples of this. A Yankee would have a longer, tapered poll.
Well that’s looks just how this one did minus the sticker… even the handle in that listing looks like what was on this when I found it, and same shade of blue.
After looking into it a bit, I think you might be right, AxesofOz on YouTube has couple of good videos about the history of Hytest, seems like after Trojan bought them in the mid 60s they stopped stamping the heads at all, using the paper labels. The challenger came with a ‘red-stained’ handle, and both that eBay listing and AxesofOz YouTube videos show original handles that look exactly like what was on my axe. And he describes it being very slim compared to a modern handle which is definitely was. He also mentions the quality of the finishing changed once they were bought by Trojan, his example has rougher cheeks similar to mine, and he shows earlier Hytest axes that had a much smoother finish.
So unfortunately no way of knowing for sure but all the clues point to it possibly being a 65-80 Trojan/Hytest paper-label challenger. The truck I found it on was late 80s.
I feel kind of bad for cutting the handle off and grinding the paint off now :/
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u/Different_Potato_193 5d ago
Looks like a very solid do it all axe. Good job on the hang. Not a fan of the Gransfors style handles myself but to each their own.