Axes and Hatchets

Here in Minnesota, late fall and early winter is a good time of year to turn your attention to the woods and hedgerows on your land. The lack of foliage makes it easy to see what is going on. I like to chop down dead elms for firewood, chop up branch wood for making biochar, thin out young trees, cut down junk trees like box elder trees that are competing with the trees I want to nurture, attempt to eliminate buckthorn, cut mushroom logs, etc. For the same reasons I don't like to use lawnmowers and brush hogs, I don't use chainsaws either. As always, it is a matter of scale, but I find plenty of situations that I can deal with easily enough with good hand tools. Even if you are fond of your chainsaw, a good axe, or billhook is quite handy for quickly and effectively chopping down smaller trees, or lopping off smaller limbs. My ability to import fine scythe equipment from Europe also gives me unique access to other traditional European hand tools, not commonly available in the USA, like Italian axes and billhooks.

BR Rinaldi Axes and Hatchets

I first noticed that there was something special about Rinaldi steel when I was unpacking my first order of Rinaldi 705 tall anvils, Whenever two anvils clinked together, they made a very clear and sustained musical tone. There is something about that tone that grabs people's attention. One of the characteristics of a good peening anvil is the hardness of the steel, and the Rinaldi steel is just superb in that regard. Rinaldi's steel is a proprietary formula of silicon manganese spring steel hardened to 58 RC. All of Rinaldi's forged tools are made of this same steel. Along with the scythe peening anvils, Rinaldi also makes axes, billhooks, hoes, and even a Forest knife out of this steel.