If you’re looking for an American hand forged axe you’ll probably pay high prices for a custom-made tool, but if you’re in Sweden just stop in at Gransfors Bruks between Gnarp and Bergsjö, about 350 km north of Stockholm. The Gransfors Bruks company began hand forging axes over a hundred years ago, and a small cadre of professional smiths at Gransfors Bruks still does, one axe at a time.
The Gransfors Axe Forge began operation in Sweden in 1902, supplying axes to individual craftsmen and to professional loggers. When forestry companies became the major customer, axe manufacturers like Gransfors Bruks competed for contracts by supplying tools of consistent quality and appearance. Any sign of hand craftsmanship had to be smoothed out and painted over. In the 1960′s when chainsaws became the industry standard, many axe companies closed for good. Gransfors Bruks survived by making axes fast and cheap and cutting costs, including wages.
In the 1980′s Gransfors Bruks changed, stepping back to older methods and environmentally sound processes and paying their smiths an hourly wage instead of commissions by the piece. Gransfors cut out the paint and the polish, depending on their employees to do good work and be proud of it. The quality of the axes returned to turn-of-the-century standards and production costs dropped, making Gransfors Bruks hand forged axes once again available to the homeowner, farmer and craftsman at a reasonable price.
Gransfors Bruks manufactures many styles of axes, hatchets and splitting tools. Whether you’re a hunter, camper, or log home builder you’ll find the specialty axes you need at Gransfors Bruks. This company also produces a full array of completely functional replica axes in traditional patterns from Northern Europe — bearded axes, broad axes, trade tomahawks, and more, in the styles preferred by frontiersmen of old America, or by Viking raiders. Every hand-forged axe receives a maker’s mark when finished, sporting the initials of the smith who brought the axe through forge and anvil to you.
See all of our Gransfors Bruks reviews below
Timber framers know this tool. If you've tried an axe for chopping joints for log buildings or post-and-beam construction and it didn't work out well, it was probably because you had something else in hand. Only the squared edge of a carpenter's axe will chop a truly flat surface.
The ...
Although the Gransfors Bruks Outdoor Axe is a little smaller than the award-winning Hunter's Axe, it's certainly made well enough to do most of the same work. The Outdoor Axe even includes some of the features of the company's best splitting axes. Choose this camp axe if you ...
Many people do enjoy splitting wood for the campfire or the wood stove, and the Gransfors Bruks Large Splitting Axe makes that warming chore go well. Ordinary chopping axes work fairly well for some types of wood but just bury themselves in others. This special axe blasts through.
The difference between ...
Park the noisy gas-powered hydraulic log splitter in the barn, and get out the Gransfors Bruks splitting maul instead. Splitting wood by hand is fun, excellent exercise, and faster than splitting with a machine. Don't forget the steel wedges for the tough blocks.
Even a cheap splitting maul can handle ...
The Axe Book, produced by Gransfors Bruks, gives new axe owners a leg up on the old craft of axemanship as well as several other basic living skills which are becoming increasingly rare in the modern urban world. At the Gransfors Bruks facility in Sweden, modern craftsmen hand forge today's ...
When craftsmen of today try to recreate the work of previous generations, there's a good chance they'll just end up wondering how those old-timers did that. Modern tools were designed for modern materials and often don't fare well on traditional challenges. The Gransfors Bruks Swedish Carving Axe is one ...
The Mini Hatchet from Gransfors Bruks qualifies as the sporting blade you didn't know you need. Carrying the belt axe or tomahawk is an option many people don't even think about today, but it used to be standard equipment on the frontier. Lennart Pettersson, one of the smiths at the ...
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