I have the same axe in my bedroom closet. It still has the spike because a fireman showed me how to open or go through a door. The closet is our Tornado shelter and the axe may help us dig out.
I was at HF today and had to pick it up and check it out. I have the 1 1/4 lbs axe and it's nice. I think a hatchet like this can be better. Cutting the point off the back drops some weight and redoing the handle gives you the best possible grip on the handle. Glad you didn't put a long loop from the hole in the handle aince the purpose of the hole is the be able to hang the axe on a pack or put it up on a wall or at campsite.
I bought their ax a couple of years ago, it was actually sharp right off the rack , it's a goodun...got their splitter too, nothing wrong with either one..😎
In my opinion, yes. It was a fun project. You can see the hamon line during the video after adding the apple cider patina. That shows that the blade area was hardened properly.
I own a HF hatchet and processed two entire trees with it (60 year old trees) before resharpening and it only had a couple tiny rolls.... I like them, it came dull as sin out of box but nothing a file couldn't fix in 10 minutes
When you realize that there was an axe almost exactly like what you turned the one you bought into and for 10 $ less right behind it lol 🤣 you could have just re handled it and reprofiled it to your preferences that seemed like wasted money and time 🤔
