This auction is for a brand new Gränsfors Scandinavian Forest Axe. These are sold out everywhere and extremely hard to find. This is our last one!Model:The Gränsfors Scandinavian Forest Axe is a more professional axe, ideal for felling larger trees and for limbing a felled tree. The axe is forged to a curved bit, making it suitable for cutting into fresh, resinous wood such as spruce or pine.Handle:The handle on Gränsfors Bruk’s axes was designed by Hans Erik Persson. Old traditions have been embraced and adapted to the demands of today’s users. The ergonomic shape provides a steady, comfortable grip on the handle, even at arm’s length. Gränsfors Bruk’s handle is made from hickory, the perfect wood because it is both strong and flexible, with long, parallel fibres. This increases the life of the handle and thus helps reduce consumption of nature’s resources. The wood is dried before turning. This is so that the wood will not dry out any further and shrink, once the axe head has been set on the handle. One of the most common causes of an axe head coming loose from its handle is that a green, undried handle has been used, which then dries out, shrinks and comes loose.In order to further improve the quality of the handle, it is soaked in hot linseed oil. The handle is then treated with beeswax to make it more resistant to dirt and water.Sheath:Gränsfors axes come with a sheath made from vegetable-tanned leather.The leather is tanned to prevent it being broken down by bacteria. The tanning preserves and improves the natural properties of the leather and can be done either through treatment with natural vegetable products such as bark from various trees, flowers and roots, known as vegetable tanning, or through treatment with chromium, known as chrome tanning.Vegetable-tanned leather dates back many thousands of years. In ancient river cultures, animal hides came into contact with bark, leaves or fruit and changed so that they no longer rotted away in water and heat. Today, vegetable tanning largely involves the same system but using more efficient methods. Vegetable-tanned leather is free from heavy metals and is biodegradable.In the tanning process, the hide goes through various different treatments such as salting, stripping (removing fat and tissue), washing, re-wetting, pH neutralisation and so on. The hide is then treated in a huge ‘washing machine’ with natural tannins from the plant kingdom. This gives it a natural feel, dimensional stability and an attractive patina.Gränsfors Bruk sources its leather from Tärnsjö Garveri, one of the few tanneries in Sweden that still produces vegetable-tanned leather. Gränsfors Bruk has specifically chosen not to use chrome-tanned leather, as we feel that its green credentials are not sufficiently high. Chrome tanning was developed in the late 19th century in order to treat hides in a cheaper way than vegetable tanning. Chrome-tanned leather commonly retains traces of chromium, which can cause allergic reactions and is also not biodegradable.
SpecsItem no: 430Length with handle: 64 cm (25”)Weight: 1,2 kg (2.6 lb)